I’m sort of the same way with other devices, for phones and PDAs, I’ve used Palm (legacy and WebOS), Windows Mobile, Apple iOS (v. Original-4.x), Symbian, etc. But I had never taken the plunge into the newer Android OS.  Perhaps I figured it wasn’t as stable or mature as iOS and some of the others that have been around for a while.

This past week, my wife lost her phone, so she met me at the Verizon store on her way home.  I was there about 20 minutes earlier, so I was admiring the new Droid X, HTCs and the Samsung Fascinate.  When she arrived, I suggested that we try the Fascinate since there was a “buy one get one free” special, we’d get rid of the MiFi 2200 since they have the WiFi Hotspot feature for only $20/mo more, and we’d come out a bit ahead.  We were both Upgrade Eligible, so I did everything I could to sell her on it.

Now my wife is NOT really a techy person and since she already used her iPod touch as a PDA, I didn’t think she’d go for it, but she did.  I was amazed.   Now I’m the happy owner of a new Android phone.

My first impressions are good, it’s fast, has plenty of features and customization, a decent selection of apps, great hardware while still maintaining really good battery life and form factor.

Virtually everything I needed and had on my iPhone 3G plus more are now installed on my Fascinate and I only paid for one app (WebSharing).  The camera (5mp) is excellent, the video (up to 720 HD) is also very crisp with GREAT audio quality for a phone.  The screen is very bright and does a good job auto-adjusting based on the ambient light level.

The only minor con is that there is only a Bing search widget available.  There is no factory option to change it to Google Search.  This is just wrong in so many ways.  Other than that.  The Samsung skinning of the Android interface is a bit annoying, but since I’m a first time user, it’s not too bad, but I did like the interface better on the non-Touchwiz Droid phones.

My favorite feature so far is the Swype text input.  You just draw the word on the popup screen keyboard and it intelligently pulls out the words, even if they’re names or website addresses and so on.  It is very accurate and intuitive.  The Swype website has a bunch of nice tutorials for more advanced input options.

Now that I’ve had it for a few days, I am sort of disappointed I waited so long.  Perhaps it was a good thing to let some of the early bugs get worked out.

Here’s why:

AT&T as the only carrier
AT&T SUCKS!  Need I say more?  Those Verizon commercials about AT&T are all 100% correct.  AT&T’s 3G coverage is sad, Verizon’s is amazing.  Until AT&T is gone, the only version I’ll ever get is the WiFi only and use my MiFi 2200 on Verizon for data on the move.

No front-facing camera
ALL of Apple’s computers and monitors come with webcams these days, even the iPhone has a camera in the back.  Why did they not do this? AT&T probably had some say in it, because they SUCK so badly, and wouldn’t be able to handle video conference over 3G.

No Multitasking
They touted this device as something “better” than a netbook, yet it cannot even multitask like a netbook.  ANY netbook is better than this device for this one simple feature.  This feature is “crucial” for a multi-function device like this for it to have any kind of usability outside of basic apps.

The iPhone’ish Operating System
I would’ve preferred something more of a hybrid between the iPhone OS and Mac OS X, I know that would’ve probably required more power and therefore shortened the battery life, but add only 1-2mm thickness and a lot more battery could fit in if shaped correctly.  Having a “fuller” OS probably would’ve solved the multitasking issue and would allow people to run more apps therefore making it that much more of a “usable” device.  Even with this robustness, it would most likely NOT cut into the Laptop market since it doesn’t have a mouse and sometimes you just need a mouse.

No Removable Memory Options
Apple should have simply created 2 versions, a WiFi Only and a WiFi+3G, have some onboard memory, maybe 16 or 32GB, then allow us to expand with it SD cards.  SD Cards are getting bigger all the time and would allow much greater flexibility for expansion.   Of course that would cut into Apple’s profit margins when they want everyone to buy the 128GB version coming out next year.

More Codecs
As much of a “media company” as Apple is, they still need to support the needs of the public as a whole.  Everyone, or at least most, has DiVX AVI or MKV movies that they’ve downloaded or gotten from friends.  It would be really nice if these videos could be natively viewed on this device.

Overall, complaints aside, it is still a nice device.  For the price, it’s still, in my opinion, a much better value than the Amazon Kindle line.  The Kindle is too “plain jane” and black and white while the iPad is the Kindle’s hot younger sister that still has some growing up to do.

I will watch the iPad over the next year or so and if they do make some of these improvements, especially the carrier, multitasking and front-facing camera, I’ll buy 2-3 for me, the kids, and around the house.

We all knew it was coming, it was just a matter of time. A lawsuit has been filed against Apple over what the plaintiff is referring to as the “Defective iPhone 3G,” which she hopes will become a class-action complaint. Alabama resident Jessica Alena Smith filed the complaint yesterday against the iPhone maker, alleging that the new iPhone’s 3G performance and reliability has been subpar, despite the claims made by Apple’s aggressive marketing campaign. Considering that a true fix has yet to be issued for users’ 3G problems, this could just be the tip of the iPhone lawsuit iceberg. More >>

But now, this woman wants to file a class action lawsuit against Apple due to 3G not living up to her expectations.  Even though the Infineon 3G chipset may be a bit flawed, it’s still not completely Apple’s fault.  AT&T is the provider and that can cause the dropcalls, coverage (or lack of) issues and so on.

I live in Kentucky and don’t even have 3G where I live, so I cannot really vouche for the quality, but I did get a chance to travel to Lexington KY this past week and had NO problems whatsoever… Actually my 3G was much faster on my phone that one of my friend’s tethered BlackBerry.  I brought up pages much faster on my phone than he did on his laptop.

Some people just don’t have anything better to do… Just ask for a refund and get a different phone… geesh.

Finally, I got to the desk and the girl went back and got it for me and started chatting up a storm about it… I told her I already had the 2G and already knew everything about it, if I don’t, I’ll read the manual.  I also voiced my disappointment with having to pay $10 more for 3G in an area that doesn’t even have 3G service.  Isn’t that “illegal” to charge more for a service that isn’t even offered?   They tried saying, and it must be the official AT&T stance, that the higher price was to be “more competitive with the other data plans”, not because of the faster 3G speeds.  Competitive?  By raising the price higher towards the crackberry plan?  COME ON!  I’ll admit that I knew I would have to pay $10 more a month, so I didn’t make that big of a stink.

THEN, she asked if I wanted SMS messaging…  Prior to ordering, I didn’t realize they stripped out the 200 SMS messages that came with the 2G plan… This is getting silly.  Apple and AT&T are really letting this iPhone thing go to their heads. So I had to pay $5/mo for just 200 SMS messages.

So basically, due to the lack of my area’s 3G coverage, I am paying $15/mo more just to have the same level of service that I had on my 2G.  They better be investing on getting 3G in my area and loosen up on the SMS.  SMS is probably the most efficient use of the network and they charge the MOST for it!  COME ON!

I ended up calling and making a stink about the SMS and got 5 free months of SMS + 1000 extra rollover, which I’ll never use.

They activated it in the store and synced up my contacts with MobileME via WiFi before leaving.  Once I got home, this is where the waiting started…

Syncing with iTunes took about 60 minutes.

It had to:

1. Restore from yesterday’s backup of my 2G. (20 minutes)
2. Backup the new 3G config. (20 minutes)
3. Then it did some iTune maintenance (5 minutes)
4. Then proceeded to sync up my measly 3.5gb of music and apps. (15 minutes)

The backup thing runs like ALL the time now instead of being manual and although I appreciate the backups, I don’t feel like I need it EVERY time I add or change something.  Especially when it takes as long as it does.  The other day, after not syncing for a week or so, it took 30 minutes or so to just do the backup.

THEN, I couldn’t use any of the 3 cradles that I have for my phone due to the physical differences between 2G and 3G… A Dremel tool easily solved this, but again… This is a negative for Apple.  At least they didn’t decide to change the actual connection layout of the plug.

Overall, the audio is much better in the earpiece, the external speaker is louder… Some things seem a bit zippier and the keyboard seems a bit “tappier” and faster to type on.  Maybe it’s the more comfortable feel, I dunno.

I am going to do my best to get this “$15/mo more for nothing” thing remedied, but most likely, I’ll just have to eat it.

I’m actually what you could consider a recent Apple “fanboy” but I am starting to feel the euphoria I felt about Apple for the last few years starting to fade.  If they get any worse, they are going to lose me and my evangelism about Apple and surely, I am not alone in these feelings.

Most of the base features are the same, like the flash storage capacity, but Apple did take suggestions from the community and improve the design, such as making the headphone jack flush as to not require a special adaptor to use non-Apple headphones.

The 16GB model also has a white backed version as well as the new Black backed and the front of the phone is wholly unchanged…

Included accessories, everything is pretty much the same:

• iPhone 3G
• Stereo Headset with mic
• Dock Connector to USB Cable
• SB Power Adapter (A bit smaller now)
• Documentation
• Cleaning/polishing cloth
• SIM ejector tool (a paperclip!)

Look for the new iPhone to reach stores around July 11th. Hopefully supply will be able to hit the demand that I anticipate. I plan on getting ahold of one for myself.

Today, Steve Jobs announced at an Apple Event that the iPhone will, by summertime, get a full version update to 2.x… The 2.0 update will provide ActivSync Microsoft Exchange capabilities including full PUSH email, calendar and contact syncing… The new 2.0 will also provide the framework for the next level of iPhone/Touch apps. Click the image above to see more.

This is very exciting news and is going to usher in the next stage of smartphone domination by the Apple iPhone.

My next main hope is at the release date, Apple will release an 3G iPhone as well as additional improvements, perhaps even a slightly larger screened enhanced phone/PDA more geared towards Fanboy/Power Users that will be more multimedia oriented and perhaps even be able to stream video and interface with the movie element of iTunes, but I’m just dreaming here.

I still think a tablet type Mac that is small, very portable, priced competitively and powerful enough to provide a desktop level experience would be really cool. Then add a docking station that can hook it up to a mouse/monitor/keyboard. If I could have something like this that could be everything for me, I would get one in a heartbeat. PC, Cellphone, VoIP phone, PDA, mobile computing platform, etc.

The Axiotron Mac OSX unofficial Mac Tablet is good, but still a bit larger and more expensive than what I describe above.

Apple has filed patents for something of this sort (the docking station concept), perhaps someday it will leave the vaporware stage.