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 and I were on the way to our accountant’s office, and I knew her phone could become a wireless hotspot at a moment’s notice. We started the trip offline, using the Nexus 7 with offline Spotify playlists, but we noticed a new store of potential interest, and I considered just noting it in Evernote for later investigation, but gave into an overwhelming yearning for the instant gratification I’d grown accustomed to after years of smartphone use, and enabled my wife’s WiFi hotspot so that I could Google it on my N7. And I didn’t turn it off for the duration of the afternoon. I just could not break myself of the habit of checking email just in case some hugely prolific or critical message arrived and I didn’t see it immediately. Granted, this was an unusual day – I spend most of the workday at my desk, in client meetings, or driving between the two – the latter two of which I really should not be paying attention to email during. And in any kind of legitimate emergency, I would receive automatic text notifications, and likely phone calls. But I need more reassurance that I’m not missing anything in order to be comfortable relying on just a feature phone…or I need my own hotspot so that I can at least check email occasionally on my Nexus 7 or iPad when I’m not at my desk. Of course, I have pre-ordered the Galaxy S III, which will make all of this moot, but I’m starting to like the idea of compartmentalizing my communications/tasks by device and scaling up and down accordingly…￣～￣
