My New Phone

Blog No. 184: My New Phone

The New(-ish) Motorola Krave ZN4, AKA "The Spock Phone"

Tuesday, mom and I went to the Natomas Verizon Wireless store to look at some phones. I had complained a little bit that my phone needed to charge more and more because it was dying daily, which never happens to me. I had my original LG Alias for quite some time now and it worked just fine, even considering the increase of phone activity through the transition of graduation from high school and summer. It was always the tradition that we'd swap phones out every year as the plans went to an end at around Christmas time.

Why the wait? Well, partly because the phones worked wonders, partly because I had starting thing practical, what with the mature step of having graduated high school.

We walked in the store, bypassing all the fidgety salesfolk, to physically look at the newer models. The new Chocolate was a real downer, seeing as it just became a Razor. The Blackberries are, as always, too bulky in size and too small in keys, plus we don't use mobile web, even though mom pays for it. There was the new enV with the touch screen, but it still was a flip phone for texting, same with the Voyager. What was the purpose of having a touch screen if you still had a keypad?

Then there was an Alias 2 that was out, which seemed sturdier than the original. Its keys were more legible and had the capability to change from numbers to QWERTY with a push of a button. Its screen seemed larger, even though it was an exact size of the original. It seemed like the right phone for us.

Only, my mom budged me to look for different phones and explore what's there. That's when I came across the Krave. What attracted me was the clear flip pad and second touch screen. It apparently was the phone my uncle, also a Verizon Wireless worker, wanted. It was bulky enough to not need a case and worry about getting it lost, yet it had the operational touch screen which cell phones seemed to be more geared towards. After this, I was torn. Mom gave me a day to research online between the two phones.

So I looked up the common Pro/Con lists for both the Alias 2 and the Krave.

Alias 2~

Pros:

• Same design as original. Familiar setup with new practical features.
• Great for texting.

Cons:

• No new extra features, like for pix/flix.
• Not as capable in the applications front.

Krave~

Pros:

• Unique design. Sensitive touch screen with accelerator, ("able to tilt")
• Great for applications.

Cons:

• Going through multiple menu screens for mundane things.
• Texting disadvantages, (not available when closed and blocks the left thumb in QWERTY mode).

After all that, I looked at the Pros/Cons lists for my original Alias and found some surprising complaints, like low battery life and bulky in design, both being the exact OPPOSITE of how I felt about it. So I found that complaints are to be taken with a grain of salt.

On Wednesday, I looked at the Madison Verizon Wireless store and basically compared texting speeds between the Alias and the Krave. Admittedly, the Krave hindered my texting by a bit. However, from what I experienced, it turned out to be something to get used to, after finding a way to maneuver the flip screen in QWERTY mode.

So it was decided. My new phone is the Motorola Krave!