Cell phone

Time for a new cell phone.

Two reasons: First, I am really, really tired of T-Mobile's poor coverage where I live in the mountains of Central Oregon.

Second, my Samsung Nexus S phone is busted up, the display cracked in many places. A friend loaned me a phone just in case this one fails before I find a new one.

I would prefer a GSM phone because it is a world standard and has simultaneous data and voice on the older networks that serve my area. Still, I haven't been out of the country in a couple of years and am not that good at multitasking.

And since I am giving up on T-Mobile and won't do ATT, that eliminates GSM. Sprint made me angry by charging me an extra $10 for data priviledges they did not provide on my HTC Evo last year. That leaves Verizon.

Verizon has the best coverage by far in rural Oregon, in the mountains or at the beach. A friend on Verizon can talk for 10 miles past the Cascade crest on our way to Portland, while my T-Mob phone has been dead for a half hour.

Two phones are coming to Verizon that interest me: the new Nexus, and the Moto Razr. I love pure Android, and I hate the crapware that most phones are loaded with, and their "skins." HTC Sense wasn't too bad, but pure Android is cleaner. I used to like my whiskey straight up as well.

But I can't say I have been happy with my Samsung phone. Some of the breaks are absolutely my fault. Dropping the phone onto my concrete floor without a case. What did I expect? Other cracks ... perhaps they were the result of the curved display being cracked once, but I don't think they should have happened.

So, I will probably get the Razr and give up pure Android until the boys and girls at XDA figure out how to snooker the locked bootloader and I can run the newest Android Ice Cream Sandwich. I love the look of the phone, the clipped edges and thin profile. I wish the display were a little higher resolution but it is good enough for now.
It is the right size, the iPhone is too small and the 4.5 inchers just don't fit my hand.

I wish Google would get rid of the three or four buttons across the bottom and allow the phone makers to get rid of as much of the bezel as possible. Integrate a home button into all apps. No, I don't want an iPhone.

That would be ideal: A beautifully designed, indestructible handset I could run on any network for which I had an account, a phone that was all display and no bezel, thin, that would function as a high speed modem for my laptop or tablet when I needed more visual real estate, completely flexible to load or download MP3s or anything else from anywhere. A communicator that would only open to my voice or thumbprint but would do so instantly.