Wednesday, October 17, 2012

iGuess

I almost did it, and I wasn't happy about it.

Regular blog readers will remember I had a Blackberry Tour a few years ago, and I hated it.  It was more phone than I needed at the time.  The screen and keyboard were too small to be really useful.  Yet, the phone was too big to be comfortably portable.  I got rid of it and went back to a traditional cellular phone.  My model has changed a couple times.   I am still without a smart phone.

Fast forward to last week.  I was in Bellefonte for the Sandusky sentencing.  A lot of information was coming at me from the office.  We added to our coverage on the fly.  There are Twitter pages and web sites that need constant feeding.  I was tied up being in front of the camera at the crucial moments, and I didn't have time to power up my notebook.  A smart phone would have come in handy.

I received input from an expert on the subject, WNEP's information technology person.  Not surprisingly, she's a huge smart phone advocate.  On line research showed Apple's iPhone made the most sense.  It seems to be the most user friendly and feature filled.

A visit to the phone store was a dizzying experience.  There are a lot of choices, plus data plans, accessories, etc.  A session with the iPhone5 display device proved it's easy to use.  A sales rep and I ran the numbers.  It wouldn't add crushing debt to my monthly bill.

The new units won't ship until early next month.  I could have ordered one, but did not.  The delay in shipping gives me more time to think about it.  I could have easily pulled the trigger on a phone from another manufacturer.  Most of my phones over the years have been from Motorola, and I've found them to be trouble free.  Still, the iPhone appears to be on its way to becoming the industry standard.  I'll quote Larry King once again, who always advised going top shelf.  It'll cost more at the beginning, but it's worth it in the long run. 

I'm still shopping, and thinking.