My First Month with a Smartphone

IIt's been about a month since I joined the 21st century and its new-fangled smartphone craze. I was even a late adopter into the cell phone era, only knuckling under so I could more easily handle phone interviews for my freelance writing assignments.
I've never been too keen on people who get so tethered to their phones that they lose track of what's going on around them. I definitely didn't want to become one of them, but I did like the idea of being able to fire off a quick e-mail or look something up on Google Maps without requiring a laptop.

My old Nokia was also four years old and battle-scarred. I wasn't unhappy with my T-Mobile provider, so I hit the nearest T-Mobile store to see what sort of deal I could score.

After two visits and some research (both online and good, old-fashioned questioning of tech-savvy friends), I wound with a Motorola Cliq XT.

Why the Cliq XT?

It was the cheapest smartphone I found that had Swype. This is a neat typing feature. Rather than just the old-style QWERTY touch-screen keyboard, Swype allows you to draw your finger over the letters you need. Most times, the word automatically pops into the document you're writing. Other times, you might have to pick from a few words. At first, I despaired that I'd never have coordination to master it. A few days later, it was indispensable.

I also heard good things about the Android platform that powers the Cliq XT. It cost my $150, but I'm also getting a $50 rebate. Not bad!

What I Don't Like

Life is suffering, right? So that means I have to find some fault. Like almost all cell phones, the sound quality of any phone call is far inferior to and landline telephone hardwired into a jack. That's just a fact.

The batteries also drain quickly, and recharge slowly. Making matters worse, the package doesn't come with an adaptor for charging in the car.

There are some nifty stock applications, like Shoutcast radio. But I can't get Shoutcast to play more than 30 minutes without at least one major interruption. I wind up getting so frustrated that I just go to the tunes I put on the phone's SD card.

And where exactly is that SD card? Buried inside the phone itself. It'd be nice to have the externally accessible.

What I Do Like

There are tons of free applications available for Android phones. I downloaded a bunch, many of which I haven't tried yet. But just being able to tweet (which I do using the Sobees app) or hit Facebook are great - not to mention just the workaday tasks like looking up maps and phone numbers. The Chuck Norris app is also a bit of fun. I'm also fairly impressed with the voice commands function.

Oh, and here's something nice: I get online coupons from Borders all the time. Now, rather than wasting paper printing them out, I can pull the coupon up on my e-mail, and the staff can scan the barcode. Cool!

What it Needs

I've heard rumblings that apps are in the works for airline boarding passes that will work much like the Borders coupons I mentioned before: Pull it up on your e-mail, scan the bar code, head to your seat.

I'm not sure whether it will satisfy the TSA agents, but it should work at the gate. We'll have to see how this unfolds.

I'd also like Motorola to have some sort of "So You Decided to Buy a Cliq XT" primer online. It would be very handy for first-time smartphone users (like me) who have no idea how to even scratch the surface of the Cliq XT's features.

Bottom Line

I feel like I made a good purchase. The Swyping is awesome, and I have yet to get infuriated with the Cliq XT. Not bad considering I'm not exactly Mr. Smartphone Savvy.