HTC Hero Is Mine
A both unfortunate and fortuitous happenstance has caused me to upgrade to an HTC Hero a bit sooner than I’d thought — my Blackberry got washed with my jeans earlier in the week. After a few days of being cellphone-less, I finally got up to the CellularSouth “Discovery Center” in Ridgeland, Miss., and stepped in to see what the damage was going to be.
Things didn’t turn out too bad — I was able to “early upgrade” the Blackberry to the HTC Hero, got an instant rebate instead of the threatened mail-in variety and, after a switching fee and buying out two months worth of wireless, I walked out for less than $150 with taxes. (In the same transaction I moved another phone from my personal account to the corporate account, saving $20 per month in the process.)
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Is There Android In My Future?
So, Cellular South announced yesterday that it would be offering an unspecific Android handset by the end of the year, which didn’t surprise me since they’ve been running a “design an Android app” contest for the past few weeks. (Full disclosure: Cellular South recently became an advertiser with the JFP, so I follow them even more closely than I did a few weeks ago when they were just our main mobile carrier. Mostly, though, I like shiny things.)
Since I find my Blackberry dull and lifeless — which is true of pretty much any mobile phone I carry for more than six months — I’m stoked about this. I’ve been surfing on and off for days looking for clues as to which handset we (er…they) might be getting. (Whether or not “we” get one or not is gonna be up to upgrade pricing.)
My first inclination was to believe that the LG Spyder2 840 that Cellular South also recently pre-announced might be that Android handset, although I based that belief on (a.) the coincidence of its timing with the Android App contest, (b.) its similarity in appearance to the T-Mobile G1 and (c.) the use of the term “GSensor” in the features description, noting that the GSensor will offer an “excellent game and Web experience” and that sounds faintly, well, like the “Google” version of the accelerometer in the iPhone and others.
My subsequent surfing has not borne this theory out — it seems that no other mobile watchers I’ve found have tried to make that connection and there’s the suggestion that the LG 840 is an update of the LG 830, which was pulled somewhat early by carriers after lackluster reviews.
Also, GSensor seems to be a common name for an accelerometer, which makes so much sense that I probably should go ahead and edit that last paragraph and not tell anyone I thought it had something to do with the Google. I’d now revise my guess and assert that the “g” has something to do with “gravity.” Duh.
Cellular South Readies NetBook Deal
I can’t tell you how impressed I was this week when I received an e-mail from Cellular South (our Mississippi-based cell provider for most of the phones in our office) touting an upcoming service — NetBooks. Pictured is what looks to be a 10-inch Dell Inspiron Mini, configured with a 160GB drive (current size as the one in my MacBook), Wi-Fi, 3G and, of course Windows XP.
Oops. Why would I be excited about a machine running Windows XP? Actually, I’m not excited about the Windows part. (Although they could do worse than XP.) I’m particularly excited about the fact that so many people have had luck running Mac OS X on a Dell Mini, and that my local cell phone company might make that prospect even easier for me by bundling the 3G wireless access. A little mini Mac OS X machine with unlimited 3G wireless is exactly the sort of thing that I probably don’t need — but that I wish I had anyway for my upcoming trip to Tucson, since I’m giving a presentation there and it would be very much fun to have the coolest gizmo in the room. (Shiny!)
And, OK, even if I couldn’t run Mac OS X on it, I’d probably still find a use for it — like taking it on sales presentations, sneaking off to the coffee shop to write opinion pieces or assigning it out to our reporters and interns who need 3G Web access while they report, blog and Twitter.
Assuming the data plan is as attractive as CS’ Blackberry plan ($50 a month for 500 minutes voice + unlimited data & text) then I may just be an early adopter.
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