Getting used to my new phone
May. 18th, 2011 07:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rhuI finally got a smartphone. It's an LG Thrive (which is AT&T's branding of the Optimus) on a pay-per-use plan. (Yes, with regrets I'm leaving Virgin Mobile for AT&T, because AT&T is the first to offer pay-as-you-go for data.)
My new phone runs Android 2.2 ("Froyo"). Initial reactions:
I have fat, hot fingers. This makes for a lack of precision in pointing. (It's why I don't use the trackpad on any of my computers.) I miss using a stylus. My old stylus doesn't work on this phone; I understand capacitive stylii are available; I will have to look into it. In the meantime, I've installed MessagEase which I used back in the Palm days, and it makes text entry more reliable and faster. It even has a Hebrew mode.
I miss being able to press a physical button that has the device (1) turn on (2) launch a specific app. Back on the Palm (and all its subsequent incarnations) I could press the "memo" button and start writing; now I have to press "on", swipe the screen, press "home", find and tap the Evernote icon, find and tap the "new note" icon, and then I can get started. In general, I miss the old model of making a PDA as easy to use as paper instead of as featureful as a computer.
The swipe-to-scroll is "cool" but I miss having an honest-to-goodness scrollbar that I can drag to the specific position I want to read.
I'm a little worried that it will silently suck up my data allotment. I'm mostly in Wifi areas, and I think I've turned off the 3G Data link (with the intent of turning it on only when I want to use it), but I don't quite trust the device yet. Everyone in the world seems to have an "unlimited" plan so I don't think the apps and the OS have placed any emphasis on cost management. (And the carriers certainly don't have an incentive to make that easy.)
More to come as I get used to it.
My new phone runs Android 2.2 ("Froyo"). Initial reactions:
I have fat, hot fingers. This makes for a lack of precision in pointing. (It's why I don't use the trackpad on any of my computers.) I miss using a stylus. My old stylus doesn't work on this phone; I understand capacitive stylii are available; I will have to look into it. In the meantime, I've installed MessagEase which I used back in the Palm days, and it makes text entry more reliable and faster. It even has a Hebrew mode.
I miss being able to press a physical button that has the device (1) turn on (2) launch a specific app. Back on the Palm (and all its subsequent incarnations) I could press the "memo" button and start writing; now I have to press "on", swipe the screen, press "home", find and tap the Evernote icon, find and tap the "new note" icon, and then I can get started. In general, I miss the old model of making a PDA as easy to use as paper instead of as featureful as a computer.
The swipe-to-scroll is "cool" but I miss having an honest-to-goodness scrollbar that I can drag to the specific position I want to read.
I'm a little worried that it will silently suck up my data allotment. I'm mostly in Wifi areas, and I think I've turned off the 3G Data link (with the intent of turning it on only when I want to use it), but I don't quite trust the device yet. Everyone in the world seems to have an "unlimited" plan so I don't think the apps and the OS have placed any emphasis on cost management. (And the carriers certainly don't have an incentive to make that easy.)
More to come as I get used to it.