Confessions of a Gadget Whore

I love gadgets!  Whether it's the latest and greatest kitchen tool, graphics card for my desktop, mp3 player, or smart phone, I gotta have it.  I've managed to cool off my consumption and not buy anything major in six months, which is a huge milestone for me. Sad, I know.  I'm up for my biyearly upgrade of my cellphone and I'm left to wonder, which phone should I get?

I currently have a Blackberry Storm, which has served me well the past 18 months.  The Storm and I have grown a lot together.  This was the first phone I've hacked the operating system for, bought apps for, and learned to love browsing the interwebs whenever I wanted.  Blackberry is way behind in the cellphone race, so I decided earlier this year to go 'droid.  "Amy," you say, "why not go with an iPhone? Why 'droid?"  I'll tell you.  I decided a long time ago never to get combination anything.  No television/dvd players, no microwave built into my exhaust vent over my stove, and lastly, I'll keep my music in an iPod, that way if anything goes wrong with it, I still have a phone and vice versa.  Some people would think I'm crazy for wanting to carry around extra baggage.  Oh well!

So here's where things get a little more complicated...  I have my eye on three phones, the Droid X, the Samsung Fascinate, and the Droid R2D2.  The geek in me says to go R2D2, and then the gadget whore in me gets all kerfluffled...

Honestly, I'm pretty much 85% sold on the Droid X. It can be a wifi hotspot, has a large screen, 8 mp camera, and seems pretty solid.  The only drawbacks are that it's pretty big (the price you pay for a large screen) and there isn't a Defender Otterbox case available for it yet.  I may be a geek but I'm also a huge klutz, I want to protect my investment the best I can. Other than that, it's a kick butt phone.

The Samsung Fascinate has many of the same features the Droid X has.  It's a hotspot, has long standby time, it's smaller than the Droid X, and is wifi ready.  Downsides are that it has Microsoft Bing installed (if I'm buying a Google phone, why in the world would I want to use a Microsoft search engine?  Bad move, Verizon!), it only has a 5 mp camera, and the flash memory is only 512 mb. 

So here's the Droid R2.  I wouldn't be lying to you if I told you the padawan in me really likes this phone.  Other than the Star Wars special R2 sounds, wallpaper, the fact that it has a keyboard, and the R2 case decoration, it's no more advanced than the Fascinate.  I would probably be getting an Otterbox no matter what phone I get, so no one but me would know what lies underneath.





I will tell you this, the commitment to date someone is so much easier to cancel if you don't end up liking their "features."  Once you get past the trial period on the phone, you're stuck with it for at least two years.  In the end I'll probably go with the X but I'd love to hear any other opinions on what to get.