Woe is me, the Sprint customer

I have been through most major carriers in the past 18 years so I know that none of them are perfect. I usually go with best coverage for the area I live and move on. When I moved to my current house about 2 years ago, I had Verizon and it worked decent except for the one spot in my house where my wife made all her calls from and that spot had zero coverage. So we switched and ended up with Sprint because they had great coverage for our area. Then about six months ago, the service started getting slower and my signal strength started dropping. I kept on with it thinking that it would get better and that maybe all the new devices on Sprint was hurting them.

Then in the past few weeks, the service in my Chicago area became worse than I expected. Between my phone and my wife's phone we had dropped calls, missed calls, no voicemail notifications (well she didn't, I use GV so I was good), and lost text messages. When this happened it became a real problem because my wife is a NICU nurse and she and her hospital rely on her phone working in case she has to be called in. BTW - she did miss three calls from the hospital over this issue. I hit up the Sprint forums and my wife went to a local store to complain and then ended up also calling into support. It turns out that Sprint is upgrading the service here as part of their enhanced 3G and 4G LTE rollout.

This sounds great, except for two things. First, it won't be completed until some time in June and that is the earliest it can be done. That means it could easily go on past that. Secondly, they didn't warn us that this upgrade would actually kill off our service during the 3 month upgrade. Now, their customer service was friendly and ended up sending us an Airave for free. That is the whole mini cell tower in your home that uses your broadband for connectivity. This is nice that it has resolved our issues when we are at home, but leave the house and it is all downhill again. I am also still not very comfortable with this tower thing since I had to put it about three feet from my face.

This has made me decide that it is better for my wife and I to be on separate networks so that we have a better chance of at least one of our phones working. I will most likely move over to AT&T because they have good coverage in my area, a decent phone selection (come on Samsung Galaxy SIII), and I like the GSM idea for traveling. Not sure what my wife will do, but will probably wait and see how Sprint's network is after the upgrade. During all this, I also found out that it is cheaper for her and I to be on separate plans instead of a family plan because we only have two lines and use barely any minutes.

In the end, this is mainly just my rant, but also a heads up to other Sprint customers about what happens during the network upgrade. Maybe this downtime doesn't always happen and Sprint is just rushing it in my area to get LTE out ahead of the next iPhone, but for what it is worth, this is my experience.

Now for something completely different...I'm pretty pumped about the upcoming phone from Samsung. My pipe dream wish is to see them support the s-pen/digitizer in all their phones, especially this one. I would love to be able to buy the s-pen as an option and have it work on the new phone. I would love the Note, but it is just too big for my small hands (and no, no woman has ever said that to you).

Give me a tablet that lets me rid myself of paper and pen

Go ahead and laugh, I want a tablet with a stylus. I want to be able to use it for actual work and I don't mean Microsoft Office. I don't spend my life in the Office suite and what I really need is a tablet that uses a stylus and has a notepad application that lets me hand write notes. It doesn't even need to do character recognition that well, because I really don't care about that feature. Yes, character recognition is nice since it can allow for easy searching of notes, but my notes get filled up with arrows, drawings, code, side notes, etc and I just want those notes in raw format.

I'm picturing an application that makes my screen look just like a piece of lined notebook paper. I can write on it, type using the keyboard, paste pictures, draw, etc. I also want those notes to sink to something like Evernote. I currently use LiveScribe, but I want to be done with paper and ink and having to use cables to sync. The Samsung Note sounds like a good device, but I want it in tablet form and the reviews say the note taking isn't the best with it.

For the stylus, it needs to be fine tipped. I don't want one that causes me to write in huge block letters because then it will just look like I used my fingers again and I'm not finger painting.I want the stylus to be about the size of a ballpoint pen.

Wish List:
Full tablet size - the 10" seems fine (too small and I don't get the writing surface I want)
Stylus fits in tablet - I don't want to carry it separately
Stylus with a fine tip
Note taking application (palm rejection, online sync, free flow notes, keyboard input, cut and paste)
ICS (I would even buy it from Apple, but that is never going to happen)
Standard ports for charging and data transfers

My hope is that Samsung releases a 10" Note, which has been rumored. I hope they update the handwriting application to be better. If you are including a stylus, make sure that bad boy works perfectly. If they can nail that stuff down, count me in for one.

UG - Apple iPad Review

Ok, I know the iPad has been out for a long time, but I was just handed one to screw around with for the next month. I am playing with it to see how I like tablets as I am considering the Xoom for myself and an iPad 2 for my mother. After playing with it for a few days, I have to say overall I like the idea of a tablet and the design. I still am not sure how much use a tablet would get with me, but I am looking to replace the laptop that sits in my family room and a tablet might do it for me.

Now, I am saying upfront that it is a nicely built device and it works well, but now I will go into my arguments of why I don't like it and I am talking both hardware and software.My biggest complaint of the iPad hardware wise is the weight. This thing weighs more than I expected and it does wear on me if I'm using it for a long time. Lets just say this isn't going to replace an eReader, not to mention reading on a backlit screen for too long sucks. My other hardware issue is that there is no front camera. I am waiting for iPad 2 for my mother just because I want her to have a front camera for using Skype. I know Apple's MO is to slowly release hardware upgrades and I hate that, but it works for them so screw me.

Now for the software, this thing is a big iTouch, that is it. I won't go into that any more as it has already been discussed. The keyboard is responsive, but I don't get how awesome everyone says it is. I don't like that it always shows the keys on the keyboard in uppercase. When I type passwords, I have to keep checking if the shift key is hit or not. Also, there is no predictive text and that requires me type out every single character. I think I would be much more efficient with less spelling errors if it had predictive text. I am also at a loss on how everyone raves about the market. I had a hard time just browsing for random applications so maybe I just need to play with it more to get it.

In closing, Apple made a whole new market with this thing and I am impressed by it. This almost has me convinced to buy a tablet, but I can say that it won't be an iPad for myself. I want ports, storage options, I want choices, etc. One example is I would like this to replace me having to carry my laptop on vacation, but I would like a way to transfer pictures off of a camera to a tablet to free up space on the camera's memory card. That will never be possible on an Apple tablet. It is likely that the Xoom will support USB devices in some way and it is likely that I would be able to transfer things to it. I also don't like that this tablet is portable, but to get most anything on it, I have to connect it to a computer - that sort of kills the mobility for me.

Update: I will give PG credit for thinking of this, but tablets need profiles. Tablets are more shared than phones and so now certain applications such as Facebook and syncing with your email doesn't really work all that well. I don't want my gmail coming to my phone and my tablet. And if my wife is using the tablet, she doesn't care about my email and she wants to launch the Facebook app under her. This also makes lots of widgets worthless. I guess we can just use it purely as a laptop and log in to the sites under different accounts and I can disable all sync stuff....I like the idea of profiles. Get the scientists working on the profile technology, chop chop.

Update2: After 3 weeks of use, I have figured out that for my purposes a tablet just doesn't cut it. I ended up going back to my laptop for everything and the iPad because a very expensive weather station. For my use, I will actually be going with a MacBook Air next. The instant on/instant off is awesome to me and combine that with the full functionality of a laptop, that makes it a fit for what I want to use it for.

UG - Motorola Atrix 4G

I have to admit that I am in love with the concept of the Motorola Atrix 4G. Just look at these specs/features:

• Dual core 1GHz Tegra 
• 1 GB RAM
• 4" screen
• Android 2.2 (Wish this was 2.3)
• Battery: 1930 mAh
• Supports 48 GB memory
• Fingerprint login security
• Webtop when docked with laptop or full keyboard/monitor/mouse
• Webtop allows saving state
• Full Firefox in Webtop

If you haven't checked it out, go hit Google and see some of the demos of this thing, especially when it is docked in the laptop or HDMI/keyboard/mouse dock. I love the UI Motorola created for docking called Webtop. Somehow they got full Firefox running and the thing automatically saves state when you pull it out of the dock. 

I only have two concerns with this device. The first one is that it is for AT&T only right now, but I am hoping that changes, but I am not going to bag on one carrier or another, but AT&T doesn't do well in my area. My other concern has to do with Motorola continuing the trend of how this thing can be used. I don't want to buy this phone and all the accessories to find to out that future phones from Motorola won't support the dock concept. I hope these features get added to all their high end phones and that way I can upgrade without having to re-buy everything. Those are the only things that really hold me up about buying this, but I love the idea of this phone.

UG - Mobile Games and Mobile Gaming Devices

First off, I must give credit to pg as him and I talked this out so some of the ideas are his as well. Whether he actually wants to claim credit for this crazy talk is up to him.

This started out as an Angry Birds for Android review, but as I started ranting it changed into what it is now. I will say Angry Birds is an entertaining game, drains my battery, but it is great time-killing game. However, I think at times the Android community goes crazy for anything that gets ported from the iPhone community and thinks it must be the greatest thing ever. I downloaded the game to see what all the talk was about and I have played it quite a bit since then. Like I admitted at the beginning, the game is fun. But, it is just a game where I slingshot birds around, this is nothing ground breaking, this isn't God of War. This thought path got me thinking about all the mobile game talk and the fights between Nintendo, Apple, and Sony.

There are lots of articles out there about mobile gaming and the iPhone is always at the center of the attention, mainly because it does sell a lot of games and Steve Jobs chants about it any chance he gets and always compares it to the PSP and Nintendo DS. While the numbers show the iPhone does sell lots of games, I would like to create new categories for these games. The iPhone (and Android and Blackberry, and Windows Phone 7 …) is really good at time-killing games. These are games I want to play while sitting on a toilet, or waiting in a doctor's office, or waiting for my plane to begin boarding, etc. The PSP and Nintendo DS games are different. These are more involved games that are long and draw the player in and really do have superior graphics and do require more controls. These are games I want to play at night while on my couch and my wife is watching a TV show, or while I am actually on a long flight, or while I am on a long road trip, or while I am visiting my in-laws, or getting a prostate exam (some doctors really like to take their time). Anyways, my point is that there are different game categories in my mind for the mobile arena. You sure as hell couldn't try to sell Angry Birds to a PS3 or Xbox 360 gamer.

Now, what I would really like to see is a mobile phone that by default would include the time-killing games, but let it also have the capability to do true mobile gaming. There have been rumors about a Sony upcoming phone that will include a PSP capability. This sounds awesome to me, but I immediately think of the issues like cost, controls, size, screen resolution, battery life, storage capacity, and all other reasons it shouldn't work. So pg and I were talking about some of this and sort of came up with what I would love to see in a device like this. BTW – there will be no image of what I am describing because I am not breaking out Gimp to mock this up. Please, use your imagination.

So first there is the phone and it is a touchscreen device, something in the 4” range and it runs the latest version of Android. It also needs to have some kick-ass hardware specs and screen resolution. It will need to include all the other normal things like front/rear camera, b/g/n wireless, and all the other tech in current devices.

For the PSP capability, I say go with a case for it. The phone will just slide into the case in landscape position. The case will include all the gaming controls (pg really wants two analog sticks) and it will hold a battery inside it to help with battery life while gaming. Sony and third party hardware makes can even sell different types of cases. Some cases can offer bigger batteries, or more storage, or a UMD reader (awesome idea pg), or theme them out, and anything else people can think of. People might complain about carrying something else with them, but the times I want to play a PSP would be when I was traveling with things already like luggage or at least some sort of bag that I am sure could handle the extra case.

This device could be marketed to both gamers and non-gamers. That is where the hardware and screen comes in outside of games. There are people who won't care about gaming, but will want the phone because it is one of the best hardware devices out there. And then gamers will want the phone because they will want real gaming. The phone can be sold separately or in a bundle with a case. I think this design can take care of most of the issues that could be presented by this except for the cost. In the end, the price will be high, but if it could truly be this great of a device and let me do it all, I will pay for it.

Update: This isn't what I was hoping for.

pg - Google Talk Follows You!

Here's a fun fact about Google Talk. It follows you! ... Just like a creepy stalker!

Seriously, though, try this out. Sign in to Google Talk on your Android phone and start chatting with someone. Then sign in to Google Talk from your computer and continue talking with them. You'll notice that Google will stop sending responses to your phone and send them only to your most recent Google Talk session. Kind of cool. It definitely saves you from receiving tons of notification alerts on your phone.

p0w BitchZ I'm out!

pg - Handcent SMS for Android

If you're looking for an alternative to the standard Android SMS application then this is it. Handcent SMS has customizable vibrate patterns, notification icons, themes, etc down to a per-contact level. Want lame iPhone looking bubble chat? Done. Want normal looking chat? Done. Want a widget that looks like an icon on your home screen that shows how many unread messages you have? Done.

With all its awesomeness-glory, Handcent SMS isn't without its flaws. Don't want advertisements? Sorry. They're in there, but at least they aren't in-your-face. Also, if you happen to be a Samsung Moment user then you "might" experience intermittent reboots whenever you recieve a new SMS message. The fix is to launch Handcent SMS as SOON as it boots back up and mark those messages as "read" or you'll be stuck in a reboot/loop nightmare. This problem seems to be fixed and re-appear with every other application update. Oh well. For now, I'm back to Google Voice SMS chat. Which, coincidentally crashes occasionally, too, but it doesn't take my entire phone down with it...

(9/10) [ when I have a version that doesn't cause reboots ]
(2/10) [ when I have a version that causes reboots ]

UG - Hoping stories of Droid X aren't true UPDATE: Droid X rooted

This is just a quick tirade. The blog sites and forums are buzzing with rumors that the new Motorola Droid X will be shipping with eFUSE that will protect the phone from any customization that messes with the guts of the phone (aka you installing a custom ROM would brick your phone). Now there is no evidence of anything happening yet and eFUSE has shipped with other phones, but it sounds like it wasn't enabled. No matter how this turns out, I hope other hardware manufacturers don't look to follow suit. Even having the option there sucks. I hope the geek buyers out there will watch this sort of thing and avoid those phones to send a message to manufacturers; however, the masses aren't geeks and they won't care what they buy so it probably won't matter anyways. I had an original Motorola Droid (that had e-FUSE, but wasn't put into use) and loved it. Mine had good build quality and I loved vanilla Android (I am not a fan of other UIs including Sense). I would love to buy another Motorola phone in future, but with this sort of shenanigans, I will be staying away from Motorola for now.

UG - Space Physics for Android

Space Physics by Camel Games for Android is a great puzzle game. I used to be a big fan of The Incredible Machine and had been looking for something similar on Android and this is the closest I have found. The premise of the game is to get the ball to hit the star. You do this by drawing lines, wheels, swirly crap that was your attempt at a wheel, some sort of bike that works by drawing two wheels and a connecting line, pivot points, joints, etc. It is sort of like finger painting with a purpose. I love this game and find myself playing a level or two whenever I get a chance. It is a great bathroom time killer, just make sure your fingers are clean.