We’ve reached one of those crossroads in which we’ve got all sorts of things to talk about, but not a whole lot to show for it, and it’s as frustrating for us as as writers as it is for you as readers.
We could go on all day about the HTC One. (And, no, we’re not done poring over it just yet, so expect a few more features this week.) We could talk till the cows come home about the Galaxy S4. But the fact of the matter is — at least for those of us here in the States — you can’t actually buy one yet. Europe’s getting the HTC One this week. We’ve still got a month (more or less) before the Galaxy S4 goes on sale anywhere — and remember that we have no hard and firm dates from any U.S. operators yet.
Point is, this job is so much more fun (and easier, too), when we all have our hands in the honey pot, getting sticky together. (Ed. Note: Ewwwww. Gross. Ed. Note 2: You just put an editor’s note in a first-person editor’s column. What the hell, Phil?) Here’s to hoping we all get sexy slabs of aluminum and plastic sooner rather than later.
OK, I do have one new phone on my desk this week that anyone else can have, too. I bought my first BlackBerry.
- So, yeah. I got, the Z10 on AT&T. Never used one of the old-school Bold 5150s or whatever — I was a Windows Phone guy — and I do sort of feel bad about that now. I’m lacking the BBOS history that so many of you have. But I’ll be playing with this new guy — and BB10 — on the weekends, trying to get a better feel for it.
- I’m trying not to go to CrackBerry’s Z10 page, so I can figure this thing out on my own.
- A few quick observations: I rather like the idea of the BB10 Hub. A quick swipe over to get to all your messaging. But it’s still a little janky in actual use. The home screen idea (swipe left once to get to the multitasking, and keep going to get to your apps) is weird, but you get used to it quickly enough. Fonts are decent, but scrolling is nowhere near as good as it is in Android now. (Remember when scrolling kinda sucked for us, though?) The Z10 seems to struggle processing data. It sucks it down quickly enough, but then it seems to take forever to do anything with it.
- The Z10 industrial design in a single word: Unoffensive. One more word: Benign. Still one more word: Meh.
- My unscientific, uneducated 24-hour take: Windows Phone is way ahead of BB10. There’s no way I’d recommend the new BlackBerry to a first-time smartphone user yet. And Android (especially ICS and up) is light years ahead.
- On the other hand, maybe I just found a phone that my kids won’t try to steal from me.
- Mentioned this on the podcast on Thursday, but I wouldn’t trade in my 802.11n router for an 802.11ac router just yet. Sure, new phones like the HTC One and the Galaxy S4 can use the upcoming (and not-yet-final) standard. But I’m just not seeing enough of a speed increase to justify the $200 we just spent. (File transfer speed is another story, though.) If you’re in the market for a new router anyway, though, what the hell. Give it a shot.
- Starting to get Spring Fever a little bit. The good news is spring only lasts about a week here in Northwest Florida. It’ll be 90 degrees soon enough.
- One week till baseball starts! Haven’t been to an MLB game in years, but we’ve got a pretty good Double A team here in Pensacola, at a ridiculously awesome stadium. Support your local sports, folks.
Enough for this week. Let’s get to work.