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A Girl and Her Android

Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc SOkay, I caved! Despite countless attempts at avoiding the blasted things, I’m now the, erm… proud owner of an Android phone. I have desperately tried to hold on to my old Sony Ericsson phone, because I just wanted a phone. And something that can handle being smashed into the pavement and dropped in the toilet a couple of times… Somehow, I don’t think this one will survive it just because I blow dry its battery afterwards…

My new phone might be an Android thingy, but I’m grasping at straws and managed to at least get another Sony Ericsson! It’s a Xperia Arc S, and I admit it’s shiny… But I still wouldn’t have gotten one if it hadn’t been practically thrown at my head. Despite being of the young ‘hip’ generation, I’m very old-fashioned when it comes to phones. I can barely type on a phone keyboard, much less a touch-screen, and as I said, I don’t handle breakable things very well…

My mother has been pestering me about my phone for a long time and have offered to buy me a newer one several times. See something wrong with this situation? Both my parents go through 3-4 phones each by the time I pull myself together to get a new one. I was never the teenager begging her parents for a new phone, I was the one insisting my old one was good enough and I didn’t want them to buy me a new one. Somewhere along the way, I think we got the scripts got mixed up…

Anyway, about a month ago, my mother shoved a list into my hands and told me to choose any phone from there, as her company had made a deal with the phone company and would pay for whichever one I chose. And I might not have wanted a new phone, but I do like free stuff. So I went through the list, but was still hesitant to give up my old phone. I really do hate touch-screens…

I told her that I was not really sure if there was anything I wanted and I really thought I meant that I wasn’t sure. Apparently, in my mother’s head, it meant that when I had mentioned a few I would check out on the internet, it meant that I would like one of those. Didn’t really matter that a few of the ones I had checked out weren’t even phones as I had first thought, but tablets or netbooks(And I do afterall have a perfectly good netbook with teethmark from my dog on the lid!).

Didn’t last long before my mother happily called me and said that my new phone was ordered and on its way. My new what now? But I didn’t point out that I hadn’t actually ordered a phone, because when my mother says I have ordered a new phone, I have ordered a new phone.

She also informed me that she had decided on an iPhone for herself. I very nearly disowned her then. No relative of mine voluntarily buy something which name begins with “i”. And for the love of Bill Gates, if she starts considering switching from a laptop to a Mac, I might do something drastic…

Back to the subject: I have now had my Android phone for a total of 4 days, and I still haven’t figured out how men with big fingers ever learn to type on one of those screens. I have very thin fingers myself, and even I feel like a bumbling fool when I use close to a minute to type what would have taken me a couple of seconds to write on a computer keyboard. The ones saying that tablets are replacing computers are clearly the same people who think “U” and “R” are complete words. Apple is one of the biggest companies in the world. Just think how big it would be if Steve Jobs had had a proper keyboard to write on!

But don’t get me wrong(I say that often in my blog posts, don’t I?), there’s good stuff about this squishy little phone too. For example, I finally have a phone where I can download ereader apps to! I don’t own a Kindle or any other ereader for that matter, so I have been using the Kindle app for PC to read ebooks. That kind of limits the time you spend reading ebooks, don’t you think?

I have also discovered a lot of other useful apps in my search. An interactive notepad, for one, and one for keeping track of your sleep patterns. And one simulating a shotgun, to scare the fluff out of my dogs! How did I ever live without that?

I’m still learning, though… I think the word I have used the most in the last few days is “Ooops!”. Damn things opening all over the place if you aren’t careful…