Of Apples And Androids: The Technological Minefield Part II

I loved the Acer Liquid E for about five hours.

It was cheap (for a smartphone), Android is organized in a way that’s much easier to manage than iOS and it has a few perks (like the notifications bar) that had been missing from my smartphone experience.

Again, for about five hours.

That’s how long it took for my battery to die. Which wasn’t itself a horrible thing; the 3GS had made me accustomed to charging my phone twice a day. But a funny thing happened when I plugged the phone in to charge for the first time.

It got hot. Intensely hot. Burned my daughter’s hand hot.

The tech lesson I learned that day was:

NEVER BUY ACER. 

Not even if it looks like a really, really good deal.

Just don’t.

When I got the phone back to the store for an exchange, we opened it up to discover that the SIM card had, in fact, melted.

But I’d still really, really loved the Android interface. So I did some research and bought was to be the first of way too many sweet bars of Android goodness; the Samsung Galaxy Captivate.

Around the same time, the iPad came out and, while I didn’t rush out to line up with the lemmings, its pull proved too powerful and soon enough I had one clutched in my hot little hands.

I bought it originally as an ebook reader. Which seems excessive in hindsight; the Kindle probably would have been a far more economical choice. Very quickly though I found reason after reason to pick up the tablet instead of my laptop. It was great for watching movies, listening to music, gaming (oh the early days of my love affair with Angry Birds and Lego Harry Potter) keeping the kids distracted long enough to make a coffee in the morning, etc. The iPad quickly became my default gadget of choice.

Between the Galaxy and the iPad I felt like I’d really nailed down the right gadgets for my mobile computing requirements.

So why, a little over a year later, am I now using a Nexus S and a Sony tablet? Because too much variety and punishing array of media coverage of every new device launch has turned mobile communications into the new crack cocaine. Even now, with absolutely nothing wrong with my current phone, I’m drooling at the prospect of the next Nexus release. I’m combing over my RSS feeds for any hint that the next iteration of the Tablet S will be arriving soon and in a unibody aluminum build.

This has become my train spotting. And it is very, very expensive.

The thing is, with each round of purchases, I’ve improved functionality and productivity with these tools.

So am I done?

To be continued…