Crossed back to the right side

In a response to a friend’s blog post and a play on his own title, I got a new toy too- the HTC Inspire 4G (aka Desire HD).  Yep, that means I’m back on contract to AT&T, but I don’t have a problem with that.  I am now Apple-free once again.  Well, I’ll likely still use the iphone as an ipod touch since I have it- I don’t think I could sell a 3G for very much.  Android is the way, at least for the next two years.  Why did I get it?  Well, I thought $20 was not too much to spend on a new phone.  No, a zero isn’t missing- $20 is all I paid.  The phone itself sells for $100 with a contract which is already a nice deal considering what you get in comparison to the iphone 4.  My Costco membership took care of the rest.  I had never looked before at their prices on mobile phones, but wow- they are cheap compared to standard prices even without this month’s special on the HTC.  The Motorola Atrix, a new phone like the Inspire 4G was selling for $80 less than standard.  Nice.

I haven’t played much with it yet, but it’s nice to be on an open system despite the malware scare last week.  Unfortunately, being on OS version 2.2.1 this phone has that very exploit so I will need to be a little careful until the 2.3 update is made available.  Hopefully they fixed whatever hole allowed the stuff to be uploaded to the marketplace in the first place.  Already I like much of what I tried in comparison to the iphone 3G (can’t compare with the 4 since I never tried it).  I did notice though a voicemail downgrade.  Apparently Android doesn’t do visual voicemail yet.  The iphone would have the messages listed and playable right from the phone rather than having to dial up a voicemail number and pressing 1, 2, or whatever to hear the messages, then 7, 9, or whatever to save or delete them.

Like the iphone 3GS and 4, and unlike my 3G, this has a GPS built in.  I should try it next time I’m on the road to see how it compares with the Tom-Tom.  The map application is much nicer too, being based off of Google Maps.  The app store is much faster too.  On the iphone, I would really have to use itunes to get apps since the store was really slow on the 3G, but the marketplace is really quick on this phone.  I wonder if there’s something that will tell me if an app has been temporarily updated/reduced in price like with AppShopper for iOS?  [checks]  Ah, it looks like I found one- AppBrain.  Will look.

The camera is better- has a flash like the iphone 4 (and the requisite flashlight app as well)- and it does 480p and 720p video as well.  Unlike iphone, it can use a memory card (comes with 8GB) and a changeable battery which is just as well since one of the downsides of this phone is the battery life, even without a dual core CPU like the Atrix.

Well, enough for now.  Time for a look at appbrain…

Derek