Phone advice, and ridiculousness to make up for it.

[gement]

I'm in the last stages of deciding to upgrade to a smartphone. Due to having a legacy plan with a lot of minutes and them also having a cheaper family option, I'm sticking with T-Mobile. (Yes, yes, I know they just got bought.)

It looks like My Phone is the LG Optimus Prime T, described by places like CNet as a solid and excellent starter smartphone. As I don't intend to take HD video and can't be bothered to upload the pictures I already take, that sounds about perfect.

The other selling point is that it's light, as in slightly lighter than an iPhone when most Android phones seem to be heavier. I use my phone as a phone. Like holding it up to my ear. I have enough neck and shoulder problems without having a phone that weighs almost half a pound.

So, last sanity check, has anyone got a warning about the LG Optimus T or a better phone T Mobile can sell me for <$60 (with contract)?

Now that we're done with the boring bit, my friend Max made an entertaining logical leap regarding my writing the other day. I compared vampire misbehavior with the way our cat, Bamf, will start prowling around killing the toy mice extra hard when her human isn't home. Bored, petulant, and just needs to give something small and tasty a good swat and neck-breaking shake.

Max says, "I can see it now..." and describes the following:

[SCENE: DRAWING ROOM, EARLY EVENING, with LORD ALDO, a vampire, and LORD TWITTERLY, a human friend, sitting and conversing. They have clearly been talking for some time.]

TWIT: So, I was just thinking that... Aldo?

ALDO (staring intently out the window): Sss.

TWIT (lowering his voice): Aldo, are you all right? What is it?

ALDO (head ducking, starting to crouch in his chair a bit): There's a bird.

TWIT (relaxes): Ah, so there is! How lovely!

ALDO: I could get it.

TWIT: Uh. Sure. We can open the window and shoot it. That will be fun.

ALDO: Nuh-no. I could get it.

TWIT: Ah. I see. [Backing out of the room.] You... have fun with that, then.

[ALDO is prowling out of his chair and starting to do the little pre-pounce butt wiggle thing. He has neglected to open the window.]

Comments

[mimerki.livejournal.com]

I have nothing useful to say about smartphones, but I love the silly ficlet.

[tylik.livejournal.com]

Do you have any interest at all in rooting your phone, and perhaps installing an open source OS? If you do, some phones are vastly better supported than others - but this might not be a priority.

[gement.livejournal.com]

I am unlikely to do so, but wouldn't rule it out. If you have known yes/no recommendations off the top of your head, or a resource to link, I'd love to hear it, but not if it takes more than 5-10 minutes of your time. Thanks!

[stolen-tea.livejournal.com]

This confirms my suspicion that the two most dangerous words to hear from a vampire are "bored now"...

[tereshkova2001.livejournal.com]

I was going to make an Obligatory Vampire!Willow Reference, so I'm glad you did first. :)

[grum]

Oh, dear! The poor window. I hope it's Aldo's drawing room and not Lord Twit's.

[gement.livejournal.com]

This just means I am picturing Vampire!Willow doing the butt-wiggle pounce thing in full corsetry, you know.

[tereshkova2001.livejournal.com]

This is a bad thing?

*makes an effort to look innocent, but fails entirely*

[stolen-tea.livejournal.com]

But I'm at work!

[annissamazing]

If it helps, my Sprint rep actually recommended the Optimus. I have no experience with that particular phone, though.

[gement.livejournal.com]

That does help, thanks. Now I'm just giving it a 48 hour buyers' remorse period, and also that's time to find a store and hold one in my hand and pick a color.

[tylik.livejournal.com]

The Nexus One and Nexus S are particularly hackable. If you wanted to poke at what ones have the best community support, the xda developer site is the place to look.

(I have a G2. Before that I had a G1. The G2 is pretty excellent, but it's not cheap.)

[adularia.livejournal.com]

tylik brought up a good point, which I didn't consider before I got my phone (a myTouch G3.) My phone is NOT very easily rootable -- the instructions exist, but they're tricky -- and it prevented me from installing Tor with root privileges, so I can't so easily use that. I also can't install an alternate OS that doesn't have all the silly bundled garbage on it. But neither of those things is very critical to me.

Re: ...so now Bamf is OUR cat? ;)

[gement.livejournal.com]

Ohoh! I did not realize she had an Optimus. I will bug her the next time we cross paths... days from now...

Regarding ownership of the cat, it was an editorial simplification. "My sister's cat" doesn't imply living in the same house. And at this point I change the litter box about as often.