The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

I realized I’ve never talked about my new telephone!

I got a new telecommunications device. It is magical and cool! The end.

Okay, no, I have a Samsung Galaxy S II now. All Android-y and stuff. You know? I am, for the most part, very happy with it.

Let’s talk about what I wanted out of a new phone. Coming from my Blackberry, I wanted something that could do the internet well. Browsing the internet on that Blackberry was the worst experience possible. I wanted something where using the internet was not the most last of last ditch efforts, but instead something I could do all the time.

I certainly got that in this! I’m finding the Android browser pretty great! There are some slight annoyances, sure. Like how it for some reason seems to be converting Google AdSense ads into popups? That’s weird and frustrating. I also find the way you switch between tabs and stuff kind of clunky. But it’s way, way, way, way, way the fuck more usable than anything Blackberry has. And you can actually see Web pages in something extremely close to how they’re supposed to look.

The phone is huge, though. Like, it’s really big! I was originally worried it wasn’t going to fit in girl pockets, though it manages to, barely. This is, again, great for looking at web pages and stuff, but it is just kind of big! I’m getting used to that, though.

What’s really taking some getting used to is the keyboard. I love that the thing does good voice transcription: I use it when I can. However, I find I use too many internet slang words and usernames when I type and text for the voice transcription to be very effective. It won’t do things like Aesa and Brer and Q and such, because it doesn’t realize they’re names. Which makes sense. But it makes the voice stuff much harder to use. The phone’s default keyboard wasn’t that great either. Now, though, I’ve switched to Swype, which is just… fantastic. Like, it makes me go “why aren’t all software keyboards like this?” It has its mistypes and false positives, of course, but for the most part it is way, way faster than trying to plink out words on the screen. I miss my physical keyboard, I really really do, but this is doing a pretty good job.

That’s really about it, I guess? As far as apps and stuff goes, I’m really only using Tweetdeck, and this thing Aesa told me about called Out of Milk to keep track of what groceries I need when I think of stuff, which has been handy. I’ve been chatting using IM+, and it’s not too bad. There might be a better option out there, but it gets the job done.

This phone is a huge, huge upgrade. It’s great! Still, at the end of the day, it is a phone. I’m not using it for much more than what I was using my Blackberry for! It just does all the things I did on there WAY WAY BETTER. So, a step up. Hurrah!