In a moment of powerful affection, The Sibling gifted me
a new toy – the Samsung Galaxy Ace!!!!!!!!
I have been a Sony Ericsson loyalist so far – and I still
am. I was among the first to hop onto the K750i bandwagon. That was in early 2006.
Since then I resisted every temptation thrown my way - Nokia smartphones,
Blackberry, I-phone – I may have drooled over pictures of all of them but I held
steadfastly to my beliefs that my K750i served all my phone, text message and media
needs. My digital Man Friday.
I even turned my nose up at mp3 players. I had a memory
card shoved into the expansion slot and my music needs were taken care of. Sure the Paleolithic
music player’s primitive shuffle capabilities are a minor annoyance. But that’s
hardly worth abandoning a trusty friend over.
I have played (Java) games on it. I used it as an e-book
reader (v. tough). I browsed gossip sites through GPRS and read email on its
tiny screen. It is still my mp3 player for the occasional jog.
So when I opened the Galaxy Ace packaging and had my
first glimpse, I was skeptical. It was HUGE compared to my candy-bar styled
phone of over 5 years. I was suspicious about the lack of the physical keyboard/dialpad
– I have a strange need to feel the keys depress and squeak to be certain that I successfully
made that call or typed that SMS. And I missed my K750i joystick. But I warmed to it and very quickly at that.
I don’t make too many calls but I do keep playing around with
the ‘convergence device’. It is a wonderful blend of many different,
extraneous-but-nice-to-have features.
Sure it may be a blatant I-phone clone.
Sure many cool games and apps are incompatible with its
weak processor.
Sure I am still on the Android 2.2 version and waiting
for Samsung to release the 2.3 upgrade.
Sure sometimes it just shuts down for no reason.
And sometimes the Wi-fi doesn’t work.
I am also saddled with a huge bunch of factory loaded
useless apps that sit around consuming valuable phone memory and cannot be
deleted or moved to SD card.
The media player included does nothing to enhance the
experience. The sound capabilities are BAD. Music sounds flat and dull. That is
CRIMINAL in my book.
I think I can go on a little more but let’s look on the
bright side - it’s a cool touch-screen phone. More importantly the massive online
apps and games market ensures that I will always keeping tinkering around with
this instrument. Content is king.
I won’t be abandoning my SE phone, no sirrah. The abysmal
sound quality of the Ace sealed my K750i’s fate. But I have welcomed the Ace
into my home and heart. We make a comfortable trio as we embark on life’s adventures
together.
Who says three’s a crowd?
