Monthly Archives: August 2012

Google Nexus 7 with Google Now: Return of the PDA

There are plenty of reviews enumerating the Google Nexus 7‘s impressive specs, its obvious deficiencies and compromises, and flippant comparisons to the bigger and vastly more expensive iPad. Instead of rehashing these topics, this blog post concentrates on the experience of using the device.

I have carried a computing device of some manner or other about my person for close to two decades. In high school, it was the HP 95LX and 200LX DOS-based palmtops. In college, it was a succession of clamshell and “Palm-size PC” Windows CE devices, which eventually merged what was then called “PDA” functionality with that of a mobile phone. By this time, mobile computing and cell phones were becoming less of a niche, and this gave way to today’s widespread adoption of smartphones, tablets, and other specialty devices.

While a fair amount of software was available for these legacy devices, their utility was not really comparable to modern devices – without a wireless data connection, most would sync to a PC via a wired serial cable for calendar and contact updates – if that.  As such, one of their primary functions was to provide mobile access to so-called “personal data” as a replacement for Read More…

Ting FTW: Day One

Having activated my new Ting phone last night, today is the first time I’ll be using it in anger for a full business day.  The M370 is a decent little phone, but it simply cannot replace my Droid X.  Thankfully, I have a fairly ludicrous stable of other devices that I’m intending to select from in order to supplement the simplistic feature phone.  I could of course continue to use the Droid X on WiFi, but I decided to go large and test the Nexus 7 tablet as my primary mobile computing device.  I carry my Jack Spade Port Case with me most of the time, which easily fits an iPad and sundry accessories, so stowing it should be no problem – if I even choose to stow it, since it seems to be continually useful – more so than my old phone was, despite the larger form factor.

It was very strange not having access to email when I left my desk for the first time. But I had a safety net, since my wife Read More…

C U L8R VZW: Saying Goodbye to Big Mobile

I’m your prototypical early adopter.  I bought my first cell phone when I started college – at a time when people assumed anyone that age with a mobile phone or pager was a drug dealer…or perhaps Doogie Howser-style teenage doctor.  But this was also a time when landline providers charged more for long and even “local-long” distance.  So it actually worked out cheaper to get a cell phone with the area code of my hometown and use it to call friends and family as if locally than to use a landline from my apartment.  But somehow over the years my service has mutated from a cost-saving measure to a considerable expense. Unlike other technologies, cell phone service somehow seems to have gotten more expensive during the sunset phase as the market becomes saturated – between our family’s minutes, messages, data, and hotspotting/tethering, we were spending thousands of dollars per year. I had been holding out for Verizon’s rumored shared plan in hopes that it might bring things more in line with  Read More…

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