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Tuesday, February 16, 2021

Sigh... another new phone

 "If we were to measure what is good by how much pleasure it brings, nothing would be better than self-control.  If we were to measure what is to be avoided by its pain, nothing would be more painful than lack of self-control." - Gaius Musonius Rufus

I ditched the Samsung A51-5G phone recently.  Unfortunately the return policy is 14 days, and it took a few months to realize how poor the reception was on this phone.  Where I live, cell coverage is pretty spotty, so a phone with a great radio receiver is a must.  I've almost always used Motorola phones, and very quickly regretted not getting a Moto.  At home, even with the Motorola, I sometimes sound like Charlie Brown's Teacher, but at least I don't get dropped often.

Below:  Samsung A51

So, while the Samsung was nice enough, and did lots of cool things, it wasn't very good at being a phone.  The wife's phone recently started having issues - a vintage Droid Turbo 1, and we replaced it.  While at the store, we learned that Verizon was offering a program to get people to replace newer phones with a Motorola.  A top of the line Motorola Edge was available at a big discount.  

The writing was on the wall.  A discount on a great Motorola, while getting rid of the Samsung.  Sweet!

Anyway, I ended up with this thing:  Motorola Edge +

I've never been a fan of edge displays.  They seem like an obvious failure point if you ever drop the phone, and they seemed trendy.  I'm keeping the phone - it works really well.  It's just that I'm not sure about the display, and having my holding hand affect the display when I accidentally touch it.

That said, it's got some nice specs.  256 GB of memory is nice to hold a lot of pictures, and the OLED display is crisp and bright.  Most of the other Moto models use backlit LED displays and have way less memory, so for the most part it's good.  I'm still stopping apps that leak data and personalizing the interface.


3 comments:

Austin said...

I do not mind my iPhone 11 but that is mostly due to the fact that the University pays for it. If I had to spend my own money I would have the Motorola. Greg loves his.

Mark said...

Heya Dude! Long time, no hear!

Yeah, I'd be using a free phone with paid service too. I did, back when I worked for an outfit that was willing to pay the cost of making me haul a phone around. I know guys who keep two phones - one personal, one for work. That seems like a pain in the butt. One phone is hassle enough!

I'm not a fan of Apple Corp. They are really litigious, anti-repair, and worst of all, when you buy a song on iTunes, you can't migrate *your* music off the Apple platform. So if you decide you are done with Apple, kiss all that music goodbye.

Also their phone receivers are shit. Had an iPhone for the wife a while back and it would only work upstairs in one corner of the house. Other than all that, they are a fine company.

Austin said...

I have been using Spotify and then a converter to get my music on my hard drive. I am not a fan of iTunes at all, very frustrating software. Most of Robyn's family is on iPhone so she finally switched over. As long as mine is free I will stick with it, and it is not too bad. Tried taking my bike, that I have not ridden in ten years, to Performance Bicycle for a tune up only to find out they are closed. I have gotten way too fat over this last year and need to start getting out again.

Take care!!