Not so fast...

I said in my last entry that I didn't need a new phone and that I was happy with the Evo. That was well and true until I got my hands on the Samsung Galaxy S II Epic 4G Touch on Sprint (WHO thinks up these long names?!?!). I guess what I didn't know didn't hurt me until I knew it.

I now have a new phone.

The Samsung Galaxy S II Epic 4G Touch (hereafter known as the GS2) is an amazing phone with incredible speed, beautiful screen, and great battery life (in my experience; I'm getting over 24 hours with normal use).

I thought the Evo 4G was all I needed. I still believe that. It is still a great phone with great features and can still do pretty much everything I needed it to do. So why get the new phone? Well, I guess it's because it does everything the Evo does, but better. The biggest kicker for me was the screen. Super AMOLED is AMAZING as compared to the Evo's backlit screen. Especially in daylight. Everything else is just smoother, prettier, or faster.

Oh, and there's the fact that it's pretty much the coolest phone on the market right now. That's a big one that a worst kind of geek would place high value on.

Over a Year with the Same Phone

I'm slipping.

One area in which I'm not the worst kind of geek is that of the cellular, or mobile phone. In this area, I typically do what most other true geeks do: I get a new phone every year (or sometimes sooner). Fortunately, we have enough phones on our account to facilitate this early changing, and I've taken advantage of that over the past seven or eight years annually. This has changed with my last phone purchase.

Now, when it comes to cell phones, I'm once again the worst kind of geek.

On June 6th last year, I waited at the counter of Best Buy for nearly four hours while they struggled with their failing system to activate my Sprint Evo 4G. Fortunately I had an appointment and a nice, padded seat to sit on through the process. However, it didn't negate the fact that I waited and waited and waited.

Once the process was complete, however, it became apparent to me very quickly that the Evo 4G was a different smartphone than the others I had before it. This phone was actually SMART. It worked the way I expected it to. It was fast. It had a big app market. It made great phone calls. It had a beautiful screen. In short, it was everything I ever wanted in a phone.

And it still is all those things and more.

With Cyanogen Mod, the Evo 4G is even faster, smoother, and more responsive than ever. A year later, the phone still feels fresh and new, something no other phone I've had has been able to do. It still satisfies.

So, while there are new phones coming out all the time to include the Evo Shift and Evo 3D, none of them have been able to draw me away from the Evo 4G. It really is the perfect phone. For me, at least.

All Things Android

I've been enjoying all things Android for the past two months with the HTC Evo 4G on Sprint. Having been a smartphone user since WinMo 3, and having skipped the iPhone hype due to a severe distaste for all things arrogant, moving into Android has been quite an experience, indeed.

I will say that being a computer/gadget geek definitely helps with the transition into Android, but it's not necessary. I could see the average user moving into Android with little or no problem. Used a computer before? Then Android will make sense. Never used a computer? That's okay too. It'll still make sense, only there'll be a tiny bot of a learning curve as you would with any smartphone. These are SMARTphones, afterall.

The phone I had prior to the Evo was the beautiful and under-appreciated Palm Pre with WebOS. I absolutely loved that phone, but the lack of development for WebOS (it's all about getting apps, right?) and the uncertain future (this was prior to HP's purchase of Palm) led me to flee the platform and move onto what I felt was the best hope for openness, free-market capitalism, and altogether awesomeness. That led me to Android.

It appears that I wasn't the only one. Year to date, Android has grown over 800% in the number of people buying Android phones. Apparently ,by 2012, Android will overtake Apple in total number of smartphones. The big loser here: RIM. The big winner here: Consumers. Android is available on all kinds of phones, from legitimate phones made by companies like Motorola and HTC and even companies in China who make cheap (and sometimes actually decent) knock-off's of popular mainstream phones. What this does is make Android available no matter where you look, no matter what hardware manufacturer you prefer, or regardless of your carrier. It also makes moving things from one Android phone to another at upgrade/change time more convenient. Epic win.

Have you made the change to an Android phone? If so, how do you like it?