Nineteen months with an LG Dare (dumb phone) is over. While I was considering waiting for the Apple iPhone coming to Verizon Wireless, I decided to go with the HTC Droid Incredible (Android OS).
I’m glued to Google Voice and my life is in Google Calendar. I also have a Gmail account, but my primary email account (IMAP) is through my web host, Media Temple.
Of course, open source software is big plus.
I’m aware of the awesome Apple iOS apps, but I also see lots of good ones for Android. I won’t necessarily install a lot of Android apps, but it’s nice to have the option.
Most importantly, I still don’t want to leave the Verizon Wireless network.
Over these next two days, I’m importing, consolidating, purging, and organizing my contacts into Google Contacts with tips from:
- “Use Google Contacts as a Unified Address Book” by Digital Inspiration, and
- “The Complete Guide to Fixing Google Contacts” by Lifehacker.
I’m also looking forward to:
- a better camera phone, along with the ability to upload full-res photos to Flickr[1. The LG Dare resizes photos before sending.].
- Pandora Radio (or Slacker Radio, suggested by a friend because of caching)
-
sync plain text files with Dropbox (e.g. future blog post ideas, reference)
- access to Remember The Milk anywhere
- the ability to write and post [on my blogs] from anywhere, without a desktop or notebook computer
- Google Maps
Yes, I have an 10GB Apple iPod (3rd Gen). And a DSLR camera. And paper. And my Kindle.
At the end of the day, I’m just a geek.
Oh, I ordered the HTC Droid Incredible from AmazonWireless for $0.01 with free two-day shipping. They check your account upgrade date. Their purpose (my emphasis added):
AmazonWireless is a new website by Amazon.com that offers cell phones and wireless plans, easy shopping without rebate hassles, and FREE two-day shipping.
All Narfed Up 
Congrats on upgrading. It’s been a long time coming 🙂
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I *love* Media Temple, but have you considered google for your domain for your email hosting? Especially with an Android phone. I have 2 domain accounts plus my primary gmail account syncing to my Android (G2) and love the native gmail feel of everything. Currently don’t have any IMAP but my exchange account for work just doesn’t feel as clean as native gmail. Good luck and welcome to the Android world.
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Chris: I’ve been considering it for a long time. I really like the ability to create email forwarders, though. (It’s not a regular occurrence, but still.)
I use IMAP for my Media Temple (gs) account, and I think I can set that up on my phone.
Any other thoughts? Feel free to rant! 🙂
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Gmail (and google on your domain) does forwarders as well. Not as simple and straight forward as a normal hosted forwarder but it can be done. There are two options. 1 is a filter within one account. I allow wildcard emails to go to a default address, filter a particular @ name to archive and forward to a particular address. The other option works the same way, just instead of a filter, you create an account for the forwarded name and forward everything. Using vacation settings, I’ve even managed a basic autoresponder from time to time.
IMAP works great too, though. It uses the mail app rather than the gmail app though, so folders instead of labels, flags instead fo stars, etc.
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Chris: I actually don’t mind folders, especially since I don’t have that many anyway. I’ll try the mail app first before reconsidering morphing my email configuration. Thanks for the ideas! 🙂
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Whoa. I didn’t know you could setup Mail (Android) to download email according to the number of days from the time stamp. That works for me.
I just would like to see if I get a new email while I’m out and about, not see all my archives.
Purging postponed. 😉
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All these geekisms make me twitch 🙂 I’m excited for you and the new possibilities. Sometimes I’m considering a new phone for most of the reasons that you mentioned as well. But I just *can’t* give up on my Neonode N2. It’s so ironic that people *still* think it’s the coolest thing they’ve ever seen but only I know that it’s really a three-year old piece of plastic that I really only use for call, text, and tetris.
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derboti: Me too! Honestly, I try not to geek out too much, in hopes I don’t scare my friends away. While I’m an early adopter for some stuff (Twitter), I usually buy gadgets a few revisions later.
e.g. Apple iPod (3rd Gen), Drobo (2nd Gen, which includes FW800), Kindle 3G
Keep using your Neonode N2! If you don’t need the mobile apps, don’t second guess yourself. 😉
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