Time To Get A New Phone?

I guess I am eligible for the $100 discount for owning my RAZR for two years (although from my post it looks like I have not quite reached the mark). I had been looking at the various crappy phones that Verizon had to offer, but many of them were too clunky or felt kinda cheap. Moreover, none of them seemed to be much of an improvement over what I already had.

However, I heard that Verizon is introducing three new phones this summer. I will be checking out the Dare and the Chocolate 3. The Dare looks especially cool, but I heard that it is the same dimensions as the iPhone, which may be a bit bigger than what I am looking for (OTOH, the LG Prada that the Dare is based off of is slightly smaller than the RAZR). My RAZR is 2.1 x 3.9 x 0.54 inches, and I would like something smaller. Taller is ok, but narrower and slimmer would be nice. Additionally, I am not sure I need extra texting and data features yet, especially if they cost extra.

I’m willing to wait a little while, since my phone still works. Several of the shiny pieces and rubber things have fallen off, but it’s still in pretty good shape.

Turn Left In Parking Lot

I finally got a GPS unit. I was so inspired by Kungfucius’ GPS that I decided I had to have one for myself. I bought a more reasonably priced ($199) Garmen Nuvi 350 after checking a bunch of reviews. So far, I am pretty pleased.

The Garmen updating software was simple enough to use, and I added some voices and car avatars (so that I could make the GPS car look like my car). We have given the “Jill” voice a chance to prove herself. The first test last night was to locate the McDonalds, but I think Jill got confused about which McDonalds we wanted, since she told us to go in the opposite direction. On the way back, however, Jill was excellent at directing us back home, and the route recalculation was speedy.

The one place Jill got completely and utterly confused was when we turned into the condo parking lot. I guess Jill thought we were ignoring her and driving around in circles, since we went in through the secondary entrance.

Edit: Doh, less than a week after I bought the Nuvi 350, it dropped about $34 in price! I’m trying to see if I can get the amount credited to my account instead of returning the Nuvi and buying it again at the sale price.

Edit 2: Success within one business day!

But It’s Pink

I finally convinced Bunky to get a Nintendo DS Lite. She’d been considering it for a while, but was wavering on the fence. Unfortunately, as soon as she decided to get one, we found they were sold out everywhere. Originally she wanted the black one, but when it looked like that one wouldn’t be in for a while, I managed to convince her to just get the pink one (which we were able to find 4 of at a Target store). She also grabbed Nintendogs, Yoshi’s World, and Mario Kart.

For some reason, Bunky was really against getting the pink DS. I have no idea why, since I think it looks fine, and she is totally a girly girl. She thinks people will not take her seriously, but how serious are you when you are playing Nintendo? So far she’s really enjoying the DS, especially on the rare days off from the office. These DS games are perfect for her because they are not as difficult as the Wii games, and facilitate short (but frequent!) play sessions.

Now With Five Times More S

A few months ago, I’d been contemplating getting a new camera, and yesterday my shiny new Canon S5 IS arrived (right after I took my first MBA midterm). It also came with a bonus 2GB card, which is good because the default card is a pittling 32 MB one (WTF…). I was too tired to give it a thorough workout, but what I saw really impressed me.

The main knock against the S5 is that it is not much of an improvement over the S3, but by all accounts the S3 was very good. The 12x zoom was too much for the apartment to handle, because we don’t have enough square footage to take advantage of it. When I zoom in all the way, I can’t even tell what I am looking at. The lag is so much lower, and the pictures I took were very crisp and clean. I didn’t even optimize the settings, but I was able to capture cat pictures better than before. Also the big, well-designed buttons made it easy (a snap even) to move from menu to menu quickly.

When zoomed in, the IS really helps, and you can take great pictures at a lower ISO than normal. The lens cap that I heard so many complaints about wasn’t too bad, and it is clearly supposed to pop off easily in case you forget to take it off before turning on the camera. The flash is not awesome, but the camera has a hotshoe. As for the size, it is not that big, but unfortunately this is not a camera you can put in your pockets (unless you are MC Hammer).

Not So Good Vibrations

I fell victim to impulsive buying, and got one of those disposable battery-powered vibrating toothbrushes. The idea is that it vibrates while you brush your teeth and this helps dislodge plaque.

It was not nearly as thrilling as this article would suggest. It feels weird brushing your teeth with the thing, and since you don’t hold a toothbrush still in your mouth the vibration feels redundant. I’m not wholly convinced, but you can still use it like a normal toothbrush if you don’t turn it on, so it’s not a complete waste.

Speaking of Pictures

One of the nice parts about having kept this blog going for so long is that I can go back to read old posts and find out when I bought something. So by trolling through my archives, I see that it has been over three years since I bought my first/last/only digital camera. Looking back on the purchase, I’d say it was a good one. My current review of it would be as follows:

Good: Small form, pretty good picture quality, has not had any problems (including the dreaded memory card error)
Bad: The flash sucks, slow shutter speeds

There are a few really annoying things about my current camera. The first is that a lot (and I mean a LOT) of my pictures are blurry. I know this is because of camera shake, but it’s pretty bad. I do have a tripod, and when I use it, pictures look totally awesome and crisp. Unfortunately, who really wants to carry a tripod around all the time (it is a pretty cool tripod though)? With my current camera, I can’t really take pictures very quickly, which is a bummer because I like to take active shots as opposed to passive shots where everyone stands still in front of an object and flashes a victory sign.

So I’ve recently started thinking about getting a new camera. I’m not sure I can afford a nice one right away, but they have really come down in price. The things I am looking for:

1. Image Stabilization: Obviously I can’t be trusted to not shake it like a polaroid picture
2. Low lag: Just like in FPS, lag can ruin your day
3. More than 3x zoom: I c wut u did thar
4. Better flash: Because not every picture is going to be taken outside on a moderately sunny day

I kinda liked the look of the Canon PowerShot Pro S3 IS (also here). It has a lot of the features I’d want at a pretty reasonable price. However, I wonder about the size of the camera. It was definitely nice having a small camera to just slip in my pocket, but I’d like to have better pictures too.

Of course, in all likelihood my camera is perfectly fine and I just need to L2Shoot. Probably the default settings suck and if I knew what I was doing I wouldn’t need a new camera… I have played around with ISO settings, and while sometimes they help a bit, the pictures are not as smooth, and picture quality suffers.