Thursday, June 24, 2010

So long myTouch Slide, Hello myTouch

I came back from our recent trip to find that when I closed the keyboard on my G1, it would turn off. This made using the phone just a little tricky. So I did the only reasonable thing - I went out and bought a myTouch 3G Slide. Out of curiosity, I gave T-mobile a call and asked about having my G1 repaired.

Shocker #1: My G1 was still under warranty.

Shocker #2: After describing the issue to T-mobile they said they would be glad to send me a replacement phone.

Shocker #3: The T-mobile rep explained that inventory was running low on G1's and if I'd like, they'd be glad to send me a replacement myTouch 3G.

While the myTouch 3G isn't nearly as fancy as the myTouch 3G slide, it's still leaps and bounds ahead of the G1. They made me an offer I couldn't refuse.

With a new myTouch, I decided it was in my best interest to go ahead and return the new Slide. The obvious reason of course is cost. If I can use the myTouch for just a few months, chances are the Slide will come down in price. Or, another possibility is that a follow on model to the Slide comes out, and I can go ahead and upgrade to that one.

I also had another reason for returning the Slide: I wanted to experiment with owning a phone that doesn't have a QWERTY keyboard. My expectation is that I'll hate this -- but I think it's important to at least give the approach a try.

In some ways, the experiment is working out. I've been using the voice dialer and voice search, and I'm very impressed by both. I've also been using swype - which is nothing short of amazing. From the description of it, I expected it to be a zero, but it actually works amazingly well. Turns out, the only type of input to the phone that I find gives me issues is the standard virtual keyboard.

All in all, I feel like I took 10 steps forward with the Slide and then 8 steps back with the myTouch. But, having an opportunity to play with a new phone, and knowing that an upgrade isn't too far off in the future makes it all worth it.

2 comments:

  1. I'm looking forward to hearing about your experience with a keyboardless device. I still don't think I could make the switch. I've played with Swype and ShapeWriter, both are an interesting replacement for the physical keyboard, both making an amazing use of the touchscreen, but just never worked as well for me as a real keyboard. This could be cause I'm still coming from the old Treo days where I've had a phone with a touch screen and a physical keyboard since before the iPhone was a concept and the idea of not having a physical keyboard had not yet surfaced. Please keep me posted on how you like it.

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  2. Nick -

    Every time I enter text on the phone I get a teensie bit more comfortable with the virtual keyboard setup.

    At this rate, in just a couple decades I'll be ready to replace the real keyboard with a virtual one.

    I sure hope my brain will re-wire itself already...

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