Never again shall I be an ‘Early Adopter’ of technology.
Until 2 years ago I had never been one of those first in line for an electronic gadget. I always preferred to wait, first for the technology to improve, and second for the price to drop. New gadgets are always cool, you know; new features, new hardware, software, sleek packaging etc… BUT, there are almost always issues with new tech.
Example: Windows Vista. Even before launch everyone knew that it was going to suck and you should wait for Windows 7. Certain generations of Walkmans (Walkmen?) had issues, plasma TVs still have issues, and the latest LCD TVs are priced less than a 6th of what the first gen cost….[speaking of which, if you’re planning on buying a REALLY BIG TV, check out the DLPs. They are currently running much cheaper than LCD, and most are full HD and 3D ready] the first ebook readers just sucked. Even when Netbooks were first introduced no one wanted one. But things change, 3rd party accessories become available and subsequent generations get better and better.
I’ve known this for a long time. And there have been those times when I was tempted to jump in and be an early adopter. But I always held off, waited, and was usually rewarded with either something better and cheaper, or the tech would fail, market would devour it, and I’d be glad i didn’t pony up for it. This did not work for the first Android phone, the T-Mobile G1. As soon as it was announced, I knew I would get that phone. Finally, a mass market smartphone running a Linux OS. And I’d have one! Well I won’t do that again. Hopefully.
The biggest issue I guess was that it was stuck on using the pokey-ass, incredibly awful GSM/EDGE network. (I think it was Cnet that described the t-mobile EDGE network as ‘pokey’ in a review of the newest Sidekick[2008]) And it is indeed pokey. Much slower than VZW’s regular 2G. It would have been fine if 3G were available on T-Mobile (or ATT) in my area. But for some reason T-Mobile insisted on having the smallest 3G network in the world. It only seemed to exist at the center of large cities such as Phoenix and Los Angeles (well, ok, there was some 3G in Desert Palm, CA. See my roadtrip notes from January). I had been hoping that the networks would get upgraded SOMETIME within the next 2 years, but i was wrong. Instead they decided to completely skip 3G for half of America and jump right into pretending their 4G works (it might, i don’t know or care any more).
The OTHER issue was Verizon. I did a lot of research in late 2008 early 2009 on weather VZW would get an Android phone. Could not find anything that even hinted at the coming Droid Storm. Granted, it did take a little while for Android to ramp up. But still.
Cut to a year later, January, 2010. At a small party in my house a friend shows me his Droid. HOLY CRAP. only about 100x better than my G1. It was unbelievable how much the technology had progressed in just a year. Shortly after that we saw the Droid Incredible, then the Droid X. By the end of 2010 there were too many Android powered phones for me to count.
Today: We’ve switched carriers, yet again. This time I think we’ll stick with what we know works, and hey, we even got a kick ass deal on the phones (Droid 2 Global). So, give it some time, alow the market to develop, let the tech move a bit and see what happens. Case in point: The iPad. Sheesh. I know it was hailed as the second coming, BUT, this weekend the iPad2 is out, and an army of Android tablets are converging to take down the monolith. Wait another 6 months…
…or a year.