It was not an easy decision, T-Mobile held me hostage for nearly 9 years and making a move was a very emotional and personal journey. The hours wasted on TMo’s dropped calls alone was enough to make a grown woman cry.
My T-Mobile contract expired in July and it took me this long to make the leap – It is so strange to ask myself, “Hey Me? What do you want in a mobile device and a carrier?”
I came up with 3 Key Requirements that I scoped out for myself (:
1. As a “mobile” consultant, I would need a carrier with excellent connectivity, i.e. no dropped calls and good coverage
2. As a grlGeek, I need a fancy gadget that looks like… well… ME?? Or at least something I would carry around and live my life with.
3. As a human being, I need a carrier that is not the devil.
Conversation in my head regarding Requirement #1:
I am located in New York City and quite frankly the best coverage in NYC is Verizon.
Conversation in my head regarding Requirement #2:
The iPhone has positioned itself nicely on top of the gadget ladder with the most storage and the greatest number of APPS. I would have to go with AT&T.
Conversation in my head regarding Requirement #3:
AT&T is not not the devil, but we assume everyone knows that Verizon is the devil.
(*Which means AT&T could be the devil too.) There is always SPRINT.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qla5LvFrvGc]
DEEP DIVE DIALOG IN MY HEAD:
The fact is, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I went with Verizon – the red “V” in the logo represents the devil, as far as I can tell.
AT&T is an *option*, I had them on the table, except they can’t support all the APPS on the iPhone, their coverage is reportedly present, however there are still a lot of dropped call complaints and they could be the devil.
At the end of the day, the Carrier I felt and feel most “spiritually” compatible with is SPRINT – they have a good message, believe in equal access and open applications – i.e. Mathew Oomman at the FCC hearing on Technology/Applications and Devices – and SPRINT-ers are aggressive in keeping up with the anti-christs’ of Telcos with aggressive pricing models and a series of weird commercials that speak to my soul.
The GrlGeek in me is more of a PC than a MAC so I figure the PalmPre is more like a PC and the iPhone is more MAC like…. WebOS seems pretty straight forward, maybe instead of bitching about lack of APPS I will learn their SDK and develop my own damn APPS.
CONCLUSION:
I went with SPRINT and the PalmPre. It took me about 3 minutes to set it up, enter my email address, Google Calendar info – just like it says in the commercial, I was gesturing away spam and downloading Soduku from the APP catalogue.
I am still nervous about the quality of connectivity I will get with SPRINT, I see the bars going up down and back up again, but I haven’t had it long enough to really call it “road tested”.
I will post updates and stories as my service is fully ported over from T-Mobile. But, I have to admit, so far I love my Pre and it does look like… ME! I LOVE HER!! I LOVE MY PRE!!
