Android is now the most popular...

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by devilsadvocate

Another English sports car?

Huh?

It has wifi (via a wifi SD card), and a usable ssh client. It's just the form factor makes serious work problematic.

There are some very good English sports cars.
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Dennis

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

A friend got a Droid and was raving about the coolest app ever: a Google sky map that didn't care about the weather: it uses GPS to determine your location, and displayed what he sky would look like if you could see it.

He figured that if he and his 12 year old daughter could agree that it was way cool, it had something.
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Dennis

I love that app too and it was the reason my son the astrophysicist was one of the first google phone owners.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

What's involved in transferring your contract to a new device? If you have to go to it as a backup, will your provider be a problem?
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Dennis

It's all in google....not that much in any case...just family-friends...

I keep my global contacts separate.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by kennyc

It's all in google....not that much in any case...just family-friends...

I keep my global contacts separate.

I was thinking about your cell phone service, not your stored contacts.

My contacts are mostly on Google, too, and I make it a reflex to add anyone I'm likely to speak to again to the list.

Back when I used Outlook, I did that with my Outlook Contacts folder, and that became the basis of my PDA address book. The PDA also served to keep home and office Outlook contacts files in sync, as anything added in one got added to the other next hotsync.

I can do that in a round about way with Google, exporting the Contacts to CSV files.
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Dennis

[devilsadvocate]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Huh?

It has wifi (via a wifi SD card), and a usable ssh client. It's just the form factor makes serious work problematic.

There are some very good English sports cars.
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Dennis

Was referring to this discussion...

Originally Posted by devilsadvocate

I get a kick out of "seeing what we can get out of it" as well; it's the old hot-rodder thing. In fact I recently likened it to old English sports cars; you'll never make your original investment back, and it'll never catch up to a modern BMW, so you just have fun with it.

I agree. I like English sports cars; I wasn't using the term in a derogatory sense.

[devilsadvocate]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

What's involved in transferring your contract to a new device? If you have to go to it as a backup, will your provider be a problem?
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Dennis

With VZW it's just a matter of dialing *228 and/or calling them to make the switch. The trick is that VZW bills a month in advance so if, for instance, you're switching from a top-shelf smartphone to a lesser one, the change in your data plan won't be evident until the end of the next billing cycle.

I can say from personal experience that if you add more phones to the contract it can get challenging to juggle...Our plan has 4 lines on it (mine, Shel, and the kids). When Shel got her Palm it was when we were adding a 4th line for Da Boy; we got the intro price on the phone for that number, switched that to Shel's number and parked her Blackberry (which had a different data plan) while at the same time switching my Blackberry over to my Droid X. August was a fun month; 2 phone purchases + overlapping data plans = $540 bill. Yeah, Verizon loves me.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by devilsadvocate

Was referring to this discussion...

Ah, okay. I'd missed that reply to the other discussion.

I agree. I like English sports cars; I wasn't using the term in a derogatory sense.

I didn't think you were. I just didn't understand what sense you were using. Things are now clear.
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Dennis

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by devilsadvocate

With VZW it's just a matter of dialing *228 and/or calling them to make the switch. The trick is that VZW bills a month in advance so if, for instance, you're switching from a top-shelf smartphone to a lesser one, the change in your data plan won't be evident until the end of the next billing cycle.

Okay.

I can say from personal experience that if you add more phones to the contract it can get challenging to juggle...Our plan has 4 lines on it (mine, Shel, and the kids). When Shel got her Palm it was when we were adding a 4th line for Da Boy; we got the intro price on the phone for that number, switched that to Shel's number and parked her Blackberry (which had a different data plan) while at the same time switching my Blackberry over to my Droid X. August was a fun month; 2 phone purchases + overlapping data plans = $540 bill. Yeah, Verizon loves me.

I've dealt with Verizon from a telecom admin position. I do not recommend the experience.

At home, I finally bit the bullet and took my cable provider up on their TV/broadband Internet/VOIP phone service package. I'd avoided it previously because VOIP mostly makes sense when you save lots on long distance calls, and I effectively don't make any. Things changed when Verizon pricing brought base no frills charges for my landline to slightly higher than VOIP, and my cable provider offered a two year rate freeze as part of the package.

My cell phone is a low end Nokia dumb phone through a pre-paid Virgin Mobile account, and entirely adequate for what I do.
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Dennis

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Maybe I'll get one as a backup...in place of $10/month insurance.

Well, that $50 price is from Sprint with a two year contract. I have no idea what an unsubsidized model would go for, but several times $50 seems likely.
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Dennis

[devilsadvocate]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Well, that $50 price is from Sprint with a two year contract. I have no idea what an unsubsidized model would go for, but several times $50 seems likely.
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Dennis

VZW has the LG Ally with Android 2.1 for the same price, or $269.99 without contract. That should give you an idea of how big the ballpark is.

http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/s...phoneTopRated=

Interestingly, VZW has started selling "certified pre-owned" (probably meaning refurb) on their site at a discount.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by devilsadvocate

VZW has the LG Ally with Android 2.1 for the same price, or $269.99 without contract. That should give you an idea of how big the ballpark is.

http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/s...phoneTopRated=

I just followed the link, and saw

Full Retail Price $369.99
Price with 2yr contract $149.99
Online Discount -100.00
Your Price $49.99

I also liked the

Requires data pkg $29.99 or higher
Early Termination Fee $350 (1yr and 2yr contracts)

fine print...

Interestingly, VZW has started selling "certified pre-owned" (probably meaning refurb) on their site at a discount.

People trade in their older phones to get the latest and greatest, and VZW resells the trade-ins?
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Dennis

[devilsadvocate]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

I just followed the link, and saw



I also liked the

fine print...


People trade in their older phones to get the latest and greatest, and VZW resells the trade-ins?
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Dennis

The online discount applies regardless, that's where I got the $269 number. It doesn't apply in-store.

The fine print isn't so fine considering it was all over the news that they were inflating their early-term fee from the original $175. Then again, if you're that adamant about not paying them anymore, what's an early-term fee going to do?

To my knowledge VZW doesn't take trade-ins/give trade-in credits, and if they did I'm sure you could do considerably better on FleaBay. Since you brought it up though, I'll ask around.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by devilsadvocate

VZW has the LG Ally with Android 2.1 ...

Interestingly, VZW has started selling "certified pre-owned" (probably meaning refurb) on their site at a discount.

I was assuming the "cheap" phone would be available at Verizon and would only require changing devices in case of needing to move to the "backup"

I assumed Verizon had been selling refurb/used for a while, but I'm new to the Verizon system...

P.S. I'm loving my DroidX more every day as I begin to use it more and integrate it more with my lifestyle..

[SolRaven]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

One bit that isn't clear is how much name recognition Android has, and how much the fact that the phone uses Android as the OS influences a purchase decision. If two phones have similar designs and feature sets, will a user pick the Android phone because it uses Android? I suspect Android is now a factor in the purchase decision. I just don't know how big a factor it is.

I bought my first smart phone in July and I was only interested in the Android OS. I almost bought an HTC Incredible, but then bought a used Droid off contract to check it out first. I'm glad I did, because after network & OS comes quality. The fact that Motorola has built such sturdy phones is what sold me to buy theirs. I live in S. Florida where almost all the floors are tile, so durability was a must. My Droid X has a slight dent in one of the corners from dropping it. I'm not sure if a less sturdy phone would've survived the drop at all.

[SolRaven]

Originally Posted by devilsadvocate

August was a fun month; 2 phone purchases + overlapping data plans = $540 bill. Yeah, Verizon loves me.

I thought VZW loved me because our August bill was $474, plus we over paid by $165 somehow. So our bill has been paid for all of Sept. and part of Oct for just 2 lines. If they really loved me, they should let me upgrade my beau's line to a Droid X. Like I told them, it's already pre paid, as they could see.