Question of the Day

I tend to have a reputation for being good with electronics and technology in general (I wonder why), and a question that a lot of people ask me goes along the lines of “Which _____ should I buy?”

As many of you know, I hate giving wrong, incomplete, or biased information. As a result, I have difficulty deciding on a single specific product to recommend to any individual, along with the fact that everyone has different preferences and priorities. Ultimately, instead of suggesting a single product, I usually provide anecdotes of products that I have used in the past and give justification for why I liked and did not like the product, allowing the listener to make decisions for his or herself. Today, I will be covering cell phones, making the question for today, “What cell phones have you used so far, and which is your favorite?”

Except for the cell phone that I’m using right now, I don’t quite remember the exact name of the model. However, I do remember the manufacturer and the design, so I will be using those descriptions as identifiers.

The very first phone that I used was a Nokia brick phone. This cell phone was made back when cell phones weren’t very popular, and if I were to use this cell phone right now, people would stare at me like I was a caveman. There weren’t many features on the phone except basic tools (like a calendar and calculator) and the calling function. At that time, there was nothing that I didn’t like about that phone; now, however, the negative of that phone is that it has close to no features.

After that, I got a Sony Ericsson brick phone. This was the first cell phone I used that had a color screen. It had basic additional features such as text messaging and internet access (neither of which I used, though). I had a pretty neutral opinion about this phone; it wouldn’t be a phone that I would prefer, but there wasn’t anything wrong with it either. One thing I remember that I loved about this phone was a game where the player controls a small character who jumps on balloons and navigates through the abyss.

The next phone I got was a navy blue flip phone by Sony Ericsson. It had many more features than the previous phone, including Bluetooth and a camera. One positive thing about this phone was the software installed in it. The features on the phone were well-organized, the files (such as music and pictures) were placed in a convient user interface, and the software overall was neat and fast. To this day, I would still consider this phone to be one of the best phones; the only reason I stopped using it was because it randomly broke one day. I still have the phone stored away somewhere, but when I power it on, all I see is a blank white screen.

After the Sony Ericsson, I switched to a Motorola phone. Although this was essentially the time when the Motorola RAZR was popular, I refrained from joining the bandwagon and got a regular slate-colored flip phone instead. After I used this phone for a few days, it felt like torture; I had transitioned from the best phone I ever used to the worst phone I ever used. I realized that there was no camera on the phone. It had Bluetooth, so I was able to get some ringtones and backgrounds onto the phone, but its file management system was horrible. It didn’t organize the files properly, and started ordering them randomly. It took forever to load anything up, and any file I tried to access loaded only after lagging for a few seconds before each keystroke. This phone drove me so crazy that I vowed never to use another Motorola phone again until someone told me that Motorola completely reprogrammed their software.

The next phone I got was a black Samsung flip phone. It was a good improvement from the Motorola phone, but there was one major thing that it was lacking – a Bluetooth profile for mobile-to-mobile or mobile-to-computer connection. In simpler terms, that means that the Bluetooth loaded into the Samsung phone only supported connections between the cell phone and a hands-free headset. It was impossible to connect the cell phone to another cell phone or to a computer without the use of a cable (which I didn’t bother spending the money for). The speed of the phone was pretty good, so except for the Bluetooth issue, I would say the Samsung phone was the second best phone I used.

I don’t blame you if you’re bored already, I just told you about ancient phones that you will most likely never see in the future. However, the phone that I am using now is still out on the market and my review may be of some use. The phone I got after the Samsung phone, and the phone I am using now, is the LG Neon.

The LG Neon is a side-sliding phone that focuses mainly on texting. The unopened version has no numeral pad, and the opened version has a full keyboard. In order to get a numeral pad on the unopened version, one must press the numeral pad button, which then appears on the touch screen. The touch screen feature is unusuable anywhere else except for the numeral pad; that means, even when you open up the menu and start poking the icons, nothing will happen. Because I have long fingernails on my right hand (to use as built-in guitar picks) and my fingertips on my left hand are solid (because I play the guitar too much), I have issues using touch screen phones. When I use my right hand, it’s difficult to aim because my nails get in the way and I don’t konw where my flesh is; when I use my left hand, the touch screen doesn’t realize that I’m touching it because my fingertips are too hard. Another issue I have with the full keyboard is when I’m typing with my right thumb – my flesh pushes the key I want while my fingernail pushes the key above it at the same time, turning my sentences into something along the lines of “Thye quicki brownh fox juumkped over thye loazy dog.”

As I stated before, the LG Neon is made primarily for texting and internet usage. When you open up the menu, over half the standard options are related to text messaging or internet: IM, Messaging, Mobile Email, MEdia Net, MEdia Mall, YELLOWPAGES, and AT&T Music. If you picked up on my negative tone yet, it’s because I don’t use text messaging or internet. I disabled it completely from my mobile plan because I think it’s a waste of money, and now I wish that I can somehow disable it from my phone, because it’s taking up way too much space. Of course, there aren’t many people that are completely against texting or phone internet, but for those that are, the LG Neon could pose a slight distraction problem.

Another thing I feel I should cover is the camera. The camera itself is pretty good; some of the pictures I took are on my blog, and although the quality is noticeably fuzzier, they’re still acceptable. However, the problem is not with the camera, but how the phone saves the pictures. It seems as if all the photographs are saving fine until you go to upload them to your computer with Bluetooth. A majority of the pictures transfer fine, but there are always some stubborn pictures that refuse to upload. So far, I’m guessing around 20% of the pictures I’ve attempted to transfer have failed mysteriously. Because of this, I recommend taking two copies of each picture that you plan on transferring to your computer, as then the chance of failure gets reduced to around 4%.

Finally, I thought I should mention the phone’s compatibility with MicroSD cards. Somewhere back in my old blog, I took a picture of a new 8 GB MicroSD card I got from Amazon, and explained that it wasn’t compatible with my LG Neon. If for any reason you choose to add more memory to your phone by using a MicroSD card, get one that is 4 GB or less. LG Neons do not support MicroSD cards greater than 4 GB. Getting a MicroSD card larger than 4 GB and filling it with enough garbage to bring its available capacity to 4 GB does not work either, I already tried that and failed.

If you have any additional specific questions about the LG Neon or would like me to review a specific feature or application of the LG Neon, let me know in the discussion section below and I’ll get to it as soon as possible.

Discussion

To participate in the discussion, send me an e-mail with the date of this blog post and your comment.

The Adventures of Adam Parkzer and an Acer Netbook from Target

A while back, I decided that I would get two new computers for college. One of them would be a pretty powerful desktop to keep in my room that I would use as my main computer. The other would be a cheap and basic netbook that I would take around with me, mostly for quick internet browsing and note taking.

After fishing through Dell’s website, I managed to find a pretty good desktop that had a huge discount, and a 23″ HD widescreen monitor that had another huge discount. I looked around on other websites and it seemed like this was the best deal I could find for a computer and monitor with as good features, so I decided that this desktop was the one I was going to buy. Now all I needed was a good netbook.

A few days ago, I saw an advertisement for an Acer netbook in a Target ad that was selling for $199.99. It seemed like an average netbook that would normally go for around $250 to $300, so I decided to go buy it yesterday.

After I brought it home, I powered it up and let the operating system do its regular first-boot configuration. After clicking Next a few times and putting in my user information, I left to get a snack. When I came back after ten minutes or so, I noticed that it was done loading, and had transitioned onto a plain teal screen with nothing else except the cursor. I figured that it must still be loading, and let it sit for another ten minutes, when I finally decided that something was wrong. I force-rebooted it, and when I powered it back up, the operating system fully loaded, taking me to the Windows 7 desktop.

After about ten to twenty minutes of use, the netbook suddenly blue-screened and restarted itself. Wondering what happened, I let it load again on its own, only to find that seconds after the computer attempted to load the operating system, it blue-screened again and put itself into an endless blue-screen and self-reboot loop. Instead of letting it try to load the operating system, I instead got it to go into System Recovery to take it back to a previous state.

That didn’t work any better. It seemed like it was making some repairs to the operating system, but the recovery attempt went on and on. After twenty minutes or so, I concluded that the netbook broke itself and that it was defective. I repackaged it and prepared the receipt so I could return it today.

Fortunately, after I told Target what had happened and informed them that the netbook was defective, they accepted the return and provided a full refund without charging anything extra for restocking fees (which makes sense, because I wouldn’t expect them to restock a defective netbook anyway).

So that’s my adventure with an Acer netbook from Target. While I was using the netbook for the ten minutes that it worked, I noticed how large the resolution was compared to how small the screen was. Anyone that knows me in person should know that I have miserable eyesight, and the netbook wouldn’t have helped anyway. I currently have my laptop set on a 1024 width resolution, and it’s around 15″. The netbook was also set on a 1024 width resolution, but was 10.1″. If you know that 10.1 < 15, you know that I would've gotten frustrated with the netbook eventually anyway, so I guess I'm glad that it was defective.

As for my computer plans, I more or less changed my mind and decided upon buying one good laptop instead of both a desktop and a netbook. I realize that laptops aren’t as powerful as desktops, but if I take into account the extra money I would’ve spent on the netbook anyway, and find some more good discounts, I’m sure I can find a laptop that’s as good as what my desktop would have been for about the same price as the desktop and netbook combined.

Disclaimer: Please note that by no means am I discouraging you from buying an Acer netbook. I have never used an Acer product before I attempted to use this netbook, so it’s not like all the Acer products I’ve tried have not functioned properly. Also, this simply could have been bad luck on my part when I got a bad netbook, and it is very possible (and most likely the case) that the rest of the netbooks in stock were fine. When I looked up this particular netbook online for reviews, almost everyone said it was an excellent product, and I’m sure hundreds of people aren’t lying in unison.