Gadget Splurge!

I have spent a significant amount of money over the last month gratifying my needs to have the latest in fancy tech gadgets and while one side of my mind goes tut..tut..on this splurge the other side is as delighted as a 5 year old kid getting lots of candy. For the moment I have let the "kid" part of my mind take over and indulge in the small delights that the functions of these gadgets seem to bring.

Once again I would have to thank dearest mom from whom I very shamelessly took 10K for the purchase and of course the only other person I can think of who seems to give me anything selflessly without any thought..my dear wifey! My contribution to this entire splurge was 5K. Yeah I know..shameless but I still love it :-)

Apart from the new iPad2, the latest addition to hit Gannu's gadget family is the Samsung Galaxy S2. A phone that I can only describe as 4.3 inches of total awesomeness! I ordered it on the 5th of July via Flipkart and as always Flipkart's delivery and service was impeccable. I got the phone delivered to my doorstep on 7th afternoon. (I did spend a good part of the afternoon looking through my bedroom widow at the apartment gate and checking if my package had arrived).

I read a lot of the S2 reviews and although I more or less knew what to expect, the first thing that blew my mind was just how incredibly light the phone was. Yes the back cover is very flimsy and plasticky but that is just a small price to pay for the phone is super slim and light. The display is out of this world. I cannot even compare the iPhone 3G I have with me to this one.

The biggest difference is however on the total experience of using the phone. Being in Apple's walled garden the last few years will mean that navigating around the Android world will take time getting used to. So I now have a device on the iOS platform and one on Android and hopefully I will get the best of both worlds. 

I was dreading moving my contacts from my iPhone to the Galaxy S2 and found a pretty east workaround. I copied all my contacts from the iPhone to my Outlook Contacts via iTunes. I then downloaded Samsung Kies and then synced all the contacts from Outlook to the S2. 

Speaking about Kies, I have to say that although Samsung have built a super phone, the desktop software that accompanies the phone (Kies) is totally crap! It's slow, and a horrible effort on Samsung's part to give us something that they think matches iTunes.

I also had a very hard time updating the Android version using Kies. The phone was not recognized during the upgrade and several reboots later it suddenly seemed to work. I will have to figure out an alternative to using Kies.

The iPhone is now being prepared for use by mom! The missus still prefers using the Nokia I gifted her last year. 

The integration with Google is of course totally bullet proof and if Google+ is anywhere near successful as Facebook, I believe the integration advantage that Android brings with it, will allow Google to reap rewards big-time. I still haven't analyzed the battery performance on the phone. I just completed charging up the phone this morning and will see how long it lasts.

When it comes to the intuitiveness of the OS, I still think iOS is ahead but Android is not far behind and I am looking at having a long innings with the S2, that is if some other mouthwatering piece of gadgetry doesn't show-up down the line which is today's world is almost unthinkable.