www.gamma.net.nz

So my phone died over the weekend. I had the Sony w950 for two and a half years but the touch screen died, so I couldn't recieve calls. It has also started playing up for recieving SMS. I had to power cycle the damm thing to recieve anything. Unlike Don, who subscribes to the "dropping my phone from chest hieght onto the floor will fix it" school of device repair, I decided to bite the bullet and actually by a new phone.

After looking around, I decided on the HTC Magic. Vodafone have recently dropped the price and on a $60 per month plan, I was able to get the phone for $219. Which put it in the ball park of a lot of standard type phones with keypads far too tiny for my fat fingers.

So far, I am pretty impressed. It is a little smaller than I thought. I pictured something the same size, or slightly bigger than an iPhone, but it is actually maybe 5% smaller. I could go on about apps and stuff, but the killer one for me is finally I have my calendar in my pocket and I don't have to do any crazy syncing - it is just there. Likewise contacts, just enter a gmail password when you power it up for the first time, and you are good to go.

Tonight I played with openGPSTracker, taking a plot of my ride home. Not sure if the battery would last for 7 hours or so like this for the Huka this weekend, but it is fun to have this kind of toy on the phone.

Ok and now to prempt the questions:

Q: Idiot, why didn't you buy an iPhone?

A: Well first up, they are still more expensive. Plus I don't really care about a music player and I'm more interested in Android. We are starting to get into some Android dev at work, and I'd like to convince Chris to work on a Koha client for Android with me.

Q: Loser, why didn't you wait for the HTC Hero?

A: Ok, like I said, my previous phone completely died so I needed a phone. Plus when the Hero comes out in 2-3 weeks,  it will be spendy. Sure the Sense stuff would be nice, but I don't think I will miss anything else. Yes it does have a proper headphone jack, but once again I don't intend to listen to music on the phone, and if that changes I'll just talk to Evonne nicely and see if I can get a snazzy pair of blue tooth headphones from her secret source.

Right off to upload the track, I wonder how much effort m.gamma.net.nz would be...