Book Reviews and Money Saving Tips

DroidX Continued The bloom is still on the rose. I love this phone. A note for those of you who travel, when arriving at my vacation destination in Florida I had 3G service for a few days and then it stopped. The Verizon tech I spoke to had me *228 and update the programming. My 3G returned. He suggested that when ever you travel to a destination beyond your home coverage that you do a *228 to insure that your phone finds the local towers. That may be common knowledge but it wasn’t to me so if your 3G suddenly disappears while you are traveling, you may want to try the reprogramming rather than wait on hold for 24 minutes to get a tech.

So who cares what the newest smart phone may be? The cell phone owners that live in Verizon’s bogus green zone reception areas aren’t going to get any better reception with a smart phone than they do with their dumb phones. I’d love to have a smart phone and would be willing, albeit grudgingly, but willing to pony up the $30 per month data plan if, that’s IF I could get decent cell phone reception where I live. Some how the Verizon solution of installing a cellular repeater for a couple of hundred bucks so I get a signal where I live, seems to run contrary to their advertisements of their great cellular coverage. I’m far to ornery to spend that money on getting cellular service I’m already suppose to have from my carrier So I repeat myself, until Verizon truly has great coverage who cares what new smart phone is being released, sob, regardless of how much I might want one.   There is no  love so sour as the love that is unrequited.  Someday, someday as ...

My intent isn’t for this blog to become a cell phone rant fest. However looking at my past few posts, I am beginning to wonder if that is where I am going. I keep reading these great articles about how AT&T service is horrible and how great Verizon’s cellular coverage is. One article at PC World   was very convincing on why you should switch to an Android based phone and choose Verizon for your cellular coverage. I can only say, "Come stand in my front yard and see what kind of vaunted Verizon coverage you get. It just ain’t here!" Please note that I do not, repeat do not live in a cave or some kind of remote area. I am in a populous suburb in not so rural Bucks County, PA. When I went to the unofficial but nevertheless labeled Verizon Wireless store with the Droid Incredible I returned I could not get one bar of service consistently. The clerk told me that they don’t have good signal strength at that location. The store is in the county seat of Bucks County hardly a...

I have suffered with Droid envy for months. It used to be iPhone envy but that would have entailed a move to the dark side. I could cheerfully move to the Droid but reluctantly to the iPhone. The $29.95/month data plan was also a hang up. (pun intended) However I succumbed to my desire and ordered the Droid. When it didn’t arrive on the time schedule the Verizon rep had told me to expect, I called. Five frustrating calls later I found out it was not “really” in stock but would be soon. Finally the anticipated day arrived. I felt like a 8 year old on Christmas morning. My frustration with activation is detailed on previous post. After activation I added a couple of neat applications. I added a bar code feature that allowed my phone to capture a bar code and then do a Google search online for the product. That was pretty cool and this is just a small peek into how retailing is going to be fraught with change. I liked being able to set up my music as ring tones. That seems like th...

I have Verizon for my cellular carrier. I was going to upgrade my phone to the new LG enV Touch. I have the LG Dare which I really like but I liked the idea that I could load documents into the enV and read them. Thusly I would be able to stick a couple of books into my phone for those long Drs office waits, traffic jams etc. where you wish you had a book. I went into the Verizon site to upgrade, added in the stuff I wanted and got to the review portion of the order. It showed a $9.99 per month data package. I didn’t want a data package. If I was going with a data package, I would go with the new Droid. So I hit edit and tried to take the data package off. After many frustrating minutes, I called customer service. It turns out that you can’t get that phone unless you get the data package. It is interesting that the only time you clearly see that requirement is when you are ready to finalize the upgrade. If you aren’t careful and don’t thoroughly read the upgrade...

I have a Samsung Flipshot phone and Verizon service. I got the Flipsot for the 3 megapixel camera which although it sounds pretty good, the photos are still pretty lame compared to my digital cam eras. The theory was that I don’t always have my camera with me but I almost always have my phone with me. Anyway, I don’t take many photos with the phone due to the poor quality of photo. You can see the difference in quality from the 5 megapixel digital camera to the 3 megapixel phone. The phone aspect isn’t all that great either but I can’t blame the phone for the poor cellular network. My big frustration is the Verizon service. Apparently I live in a dead zone to Verizon. I get no signal in my home and an occasional signal if I stand outside on one foot with my left hand pointed to the north star. Verizon, of course, tells me there is a really good signal just over the hill north of me and if I was closer to their other tower I would get a good signal. My buddy lives several miles closer...