I’m Over iPhone Envy

Hi! My name is Musings from Me. I am envious of iPhone users.

Hi! Musings from Me!

I said it. I admit it. I had iPhone envy. If I was a little kid, I would probably hang on to the arm of the iPhone user. Jump up and down shouting “Can I try your iPhone? Pleeeeaaasssseeeee!” But, I am not a little kid, so all I can do is look enviously at iPhones and Sigh!

The iPhone is simply too expensive for our budget. As a one-income family supplemented by the money I make writing, buying an iPhone is not a sensible option. Plus, if you know us, you know that we are Verizon people. Land line since 1990 when we got married. Cell phone since 1995 — the “only use if you are going in to labor” phone. FIOS since 2009. We now have 1 landline and 4 cell phone lines…all Verizon.

I was contacted by Verizon to test a Verizon Palm Pre Plus phone. If you follow me on twitter, you know that I and quite a few other uses have tweeted our likes and dislikes about the Verizon Palm Pre Plus phone using the hashtag — #VerizonPalmPrePlus.

As the campaign wraps up, here are my likes and dislikes about the #VerizonPalmPrePlus:

Likes

• The phone is compact.
• Fits easily in pants pockets…even dress pants. The iPhone is so much bigger.
• Since the phone has a shiny exterior I can find it in my jumbled wicker basket of phone cords and camera rechargers.
• With my old multimedia phone, I dabbled with an online calendar. It was frustrating since the interface was tricky. With the Verizon Palm Pre Plus, I searched for the Cozi.com calendar and hey presto! I found all my dates and schedules that I had entered in to the Cozi calendar on my home PC. I now enter all appointments, deadlines, kids’ activities directly in to my phone. Cozi sends a copy of the calendar to my husband plus our tween and teen. I may miss an appointment here and there, but the Palm Pre Plus and Cozi keep me connected and on schedule!
• I had a few missteps using the screen. You scroll up with your finger and scroll down. It took me more than a couple of tries, but I got the hang of it.
• The main screen of the phone has five icons at the bottom. Phone. Contacts. Calendar. e-mail. Arrow. The arrow if clicked goes to the icon screen. On the icon screen you can find the Camera, Device Info, Help, and an App library. The phone is user-friendly once you get the hang of moving your finger across the screen.
• Twitter and Facebook are loaded under the web icon. So is my Cozi calendar.
• I have several e-mail addresses. I pulled all three in to the Verizon Contact list. I can send and receive e-mail from all three addresses.
• I linked my Facebook account, too. I’m not sure that this was necessary since I NEVER phone any of my Facebook friends. Our interactions are online. But, I can e-mail them if their Facebook page includes an e-mail address.
• The Verizon Palm Pre Plus keeps me connected to work friends, home friends, and family.

Dislikes

• I live in a semirural, partly residential, formerly farming community. I have the best of both worlds. I look out my kitchen window at rolling fields and galloping horses, but I am close-ish to a mall and Walmart. BUT, our cellphone signal is spotty. I’m #notatechie, but I would guess that we don’t have enough cellphone towers. Many of the farms in my neighborhood are in historic preservation. Perhaps, you can’t have a cellphone tower when the land is preserved. All I know is that our signal is patchy in parts of our house. The road I use to go north to one town and south to another town is a dead zone. I wait until I hit the cross highway to make a call. Still love the Verizon Palm Pre Plus phone…just wish that cell phone reception in my immediate area was better.
• I had a problem with the Contact List. When I started using the Verizon Palm Pre Plus, I gave my old phone with my old phone number to my teen. She was thrilled to inherit my Samsung Rogue. At some point, I changed our cell phone number data in the Contact list…which resulted in my Contact page being linked to my daughters. It was confusing, but I unlinked us.  Have I mentioned that I am #notatechie??
• There are some iphone apps that are not available yet for noniphones. My daughter and son found a bunch of free apps…Balloon Pop.

I was given the Verizon Palm Pre Plus phone and one-month’s service as part of my review.