Tech & Nonsense

  I've been a big (huge!) fan of smartphones ever since the days their dinosaur ancestors roamed the earth. Dinosaurs like the one pictured above - the Dell Axim X51V, which I think was the second generation of that device I owned. Back in a time that feels like a hundred years ago (and probably is in "tech years") I used to be fascinated with the idea of having a computer in my pocket.  And Pocket PCs like the X51V were my favorite type of gadget for a number of years. I used them for taking notes at work in an office or at client sites, when studying for a technical certification exam, to keep up with RSS feeds for my favorite websites, for securely storing passwords, and more. Axim devices, and similar ones running some form of Windows Mobile or Palm OS were the forerunners of smartphones. When the iPhone came along, that was pretty much the end for that class of device. I'm not mourning them at all - smartphones right from the start were far more versatile, powerf...

** Note - This post was first published on Medium back in September of 2017. I'm adding it here as I try out using Blogger to share some thoughts. Well, my time with the Essential Phone ended up being very brief. I decided to return it to Amazon after just a week — and replaced it with a phone from one of my long-time favorites, the OnePlus 5 from OnePlus. The OnePlus is still my joint favorite phone I’ve ever used, alongside the Nexus 6P — and I still have it around as my backup phone and always enjoy using it when it’s in service. I also enjoyed the OnePlus 3T, and I’m loving the OnePlus 5 after getting it just a couple days ago. Here’s a quick rundown on why I got rid of the Essential Phone: Poor Performance : Apart from the one big, bizarre bug I mentioned in my  quick initial thoughts on the Essential Phone , the phone also frequently required 2–3 screen taps to get response as well as some slowness on switching between apps.

*** Note: This post was originally published on Medium back in September 2017, but I'm adding it here while I try out Blogger as a place to share some thoughts. Some very early (day 4) thoughts on the new Essential Phone, by Essential Products - the company founded by Andy Rubin, of "The guy who founded Android" fame If You’ve Never Heard of the Essential Phone … I’m sure you’re not in the minority on that. As a brand new entrant in the smartphone space, it hasn’t had a lot of hype or promotion so far — though there have been a number of good early reviews of it on tech sites. Here’s what I think could pass for the quick gist of what Essential themselves tout the phone as, and some common thoughts from early reviewers: Essential promises a phone that’s an impressive combination of ‘ premium materials and true craftsmanship ’ and a guiding principle that ‘Simple is always better’. The premium materials include titanium and ceramic, and the simple approach is ...