Awhile back I finally decided to upgrade from my old-ish flip phone and leap into the smartphone era. And it's a good thing I did because just about everyone I knew who didn't have a smartphone also decided to upgrade within the following six months (including my mom. Yes, I got a smartphone just six months before my mother.). I went with the iPhone because it was cheap and because it had decent recommendations from friends. My contract is up early next month and I have been counting the days until I can get a new phone. I have enjoyed my time with iPhone but have been unimpressed with certain aspects of it. Mine is a 4, so it's one of the older models but the phone itself was brand new when I got it. And yet I've had issues with it that you would expect from a used one. Around Christmas of last year, it started having issues with wifi. Instead of connecting to wifi whenever I was around a signal, it would switch over to data without reason, and usually when I was doing something like watching a video or listening to music. I ended up turning off data altogether when I was home and having to turn it back on whenever I leave the house, which is annoying. It's also had a media playback issue where it just flat out refuses to play anything until I restart it. That happened a few months ago just as I was about to head out and run errands. I turned it off (which I'd also had to do the day before) and then when I went to turn it back on, nothing happened. The Apple logo came on the screen but that was it. Panicking, I hit the on, off and reset buttons multiple times but it still wouldn't work. I called the carrier to see what my options were since my upgrade date was three months away and I needed a phone a lot sooner than that. They said I could get my upgrade date moved up to that day but only if I got the phone from them at its current sale price, which was $150. I wasn't crazy about that (I've never paid more than $100 for a phone), but headed out to the store to check out phones when, miraculously, mine started up again and seemed fine. I later found out the battery indicator isn't quite accurate anymore but it's only off by a couple of percentage points. As if iPhone and I needed anymore excitement, I accidentally knocked it into a dog's water dish like a week after I thought it was dead. It was only wet for a few seconds and only on one side but after drying it off, I noticed I couldn't get any sound from it, via speakers or headphones. I Googled what to do and resigned myself to having to get a new one after all when, again, it somehow seemed to come back to life and begin working normally. I'm glad it survived the incident but it also made me realize I should probably get something more durable.
I've been toying with the idea of going Droid for months now, but only after some recent research have I pretty much decided to make the switch. I was going to go Galaxy 4 but the newest Galaxy has come down in price and after I trade my phone in, it'll be even cheaper. I loathe the look of the iPhone's operating system so even though the 5 is likely to go on sale around the time of my upgrade (when Apple is expected to announce the 6), I don't have any interest in going that route. It's the lowest rated version of the iPhone anyway and everyone I know who has one hates it. The Galaxy offers a lot more options for customization and even allows you to view two apps at once in some instances. I'm not crazy about the size or how thin it is but I suppose I'll get used to that. And I do find that I have trouble texting on the smaller iPhone screen. Then, of course, there's the final thing that makes you want to get the latest phone - when your mom's phone loads faster than yours and she says to you, she say, "4G, son. FOUR. G.". Yep. That'll do it. Hurry up already September...
