Switched back to Virgin Mobile with their new Android 2.x phone; Samsung Intercept and loving it! I had the HTC Hero with my previous carrier but they said they weren’t going to update the Hero and was going to leave it with the 1.5 firmware which was crapping me out of many apps that now require 2.x. /insert pissed off smiley.
But yea it feels great being back with Virgin Mobile; I should not have ever left. With VM I don’t feel that “cloud of doom” of having to restart my contract just because I want to get a new phone or if I want to change my plan because THERE IS NO CONTRACT EVAH!!! I got the $25/mo Unlimited data, messaging, text, web with 300 anytime minutes. I’m not a phone talker but I’m definately a data ninja so it fits me perfectly!
So I’m stuck in anticipation waiting for my phone number to port over =P.
I haven’t tried any new phones other than the HTC’s in years but now I got this Samsung which I was a lil leery about getting at first since I was so used to HTC; I was expecting a cheaply made Tonka toy phone since its prepaid, but after 15 minutes of trying to rip open the box, I was very impressed. In fact *over impressed*. The phone looks well made, big screen, slide out QWERTY soft touch keyboard very ergonomic perfect for mobile blogging which I do a lot. Can use the touchscreen, mousepad or a stylus to navigate. Tons of apps and supports all the apps I want that my Hero couldn’t do. Goes to show just because you pay more money, doesn’t mean its better. I think my Hero was $500 … what did I pay for my Intercept? $220 and it far supercedes my Hero in utility by far but that’s not HTC’s fault, I blame my previous carrier for not updating the phone so it COULD do all the things my Intercept can do. Price was the main factor for cancelling my contract but having that on top of a handicapped phone was the straw that broke the camel’s back for me. Yet they say I still have to pay the early termination fee; that’s why I hate contracts because in the end the consumer who obligated initially in good faith gets fucked over in the end when the carrier fails to deliver.
Alright cons over the Intercept? Just minor ones. Since I’m so used to the Hero’s anti-aliased text, the text on the Intercept looks jagged to me. Maybe there’s a setting somewhere but I haven’t found it. Another con is it doesn’t have the scratchless glass screen so yea incoming scratches. Going to have to find some cases and screen covers. I was going to initially get a case when I bought the phone at Best Buy but they were sold out.
I really like this phone over my Hero. The Hero was great but I hated the touchscreen keyboard since it didn’t have a slideout one. My Hero lagged constantly too and constant calibrating, keeping the screen clean and restoring the phone didn’t work either; I just dealt with it. I would make selections and it was like the phone had to decide if it wanted to do it or not for 3 seconds before it opened. And if I were in a list, it would select an item below or on top of what I pressed when my finger was clearly on something else.
But anyways, I’m blogging all this from my Intercept right now which is something I could never do on my Hero because the touchscreen keyboard pissed me off so much. So you know I love this phone 😀
–Mobile blogging from my Samsung Intercept with WordPress for Android–