This is why we can't have nice things.

My wife and I came to an agreement: She had to take care of her smartphone from now on.


My wife has been hard on phones since she got the OG Droid.  The all but destroyed that phone.  Thankfully she worked at Verizon back then and ten months later she was able to get another phone.  She ended up falling in love with the Fascinate (Galaxy S).  She loved that phone to death and ultimately... she murdered it by taking it on a swim.  I convinced her to get Galaxy Nexus, because I loved mine.  She hated it.  It wasn't easy and friendly like her old phone and it didn't have the Touchwiz shortcuts she liked.  She got a Galaxy S3 just after release and she LOVED it.  She loved this one so hard that she shattered the screen, cracked up the back and dinged all of the corners up.  This all occurred in a period between July of last year and March of this year.  That's not even a year!  I had to pry it away from her after the second time she sliced her finger on the screen.

I had recently auctioned off all of our old smartphones and doo-dads to get myself a new phone and have a little extra cash to play with.  I picked up an iPhone 4 for her, because I thought she'd like it.  She HATED it.  She complained with regularity about it.  She did a better job taking care of it, though.  She understood that after this there was no Facebook on the go, she was going to be relegated to the cheapest and shittiest thing I could find on e-Bay.  After about 5 months I found a great deal on Amazon and picked her up a Galaxy S3, again.  The Galaxy S4 is a bunch of shitty gimmicks and isn't that great, in my opinion.  She doesn't need all of that shit, anyway.  I bought it and picked out a case and had it shipped.

She was shocked.  She was so excited to get rid of the iPhone and get back into a phone that she enjoyed.  It hasn't even been two weeks.  She lost it tonight.  I don't mean like she sat it down and asked me to call it.  I mean she LOST it.  Yelling, kicking stuff, nearly crying.  Thankfully, I'm fucking awesome.

I went into action.  I jumped on the Play Store, found the app I needed and had the phone located in 10 minutes.  Android Lost is GREAT for this kind of thing.  It isn't the best app for locating the device, but if you've already lost it... it's hard to beat.  I installed it right from the Play Store.  I then fired up the website for it and sent off a text to her phone.  The text activated the app and allowed me to remotely access parts of it via the features menu on the website.  I turned on the alarm and went looking.

There it was.  At the bottom of the garbage can.  Covered in the nastiest, stickiest, shittiest stuff my house has to offer.  Not ALLLLLL the way at the bottom, but damn close.  I dug through and found it.  I pulled it out and my wife snatched it away.  Determined to use it, she wiped it down and went to work.  I've since had to disassemble the Otterbox and pulled the phone apart.  It will need a good wipe down and I might want to dry out any wet and sticky nastiness on it, but I think it will be fine.  I think this will make her very happy, which makes me happy.  I don't really wanna spend $150 than I paid for the phone to replace it.

Android Lost is great.  Before you freak out, give it a shot.  Let this serve as a PSA to all of those nerds out there who have wives that just don't get it.  Stay calm and use this as a bargaining chip for sex later on.

I'm willing to give the Moto X a try

I might talk a lot of shit about Motorola.  I might even be a little disenchanted with the steps Android has been taking.  That doesn't mean that I'm not secretly excited about the Moto X.

Motorola has been making handsets that piss me off and remind me of a brick for years now.  Style hasn't been something that Motorola has been very good at since the glory days of that sexy flip phone (you know what I'm talking about).  I take for granted some times how good the phones are in terms of signal quality, too.  Especially when compared to Samsung.  However, I do see a good flow of "Yes, just hold down the volume down and power" issues with the device.  A lot.  It might come from people using their phone to download shitty apps and play on Facebook all day, but that is also what the phone should be designed for.  The components aren't normally bad, but they rarely command the same respect as what HTC of Samsung put into their top-tier devices.  Nothing has changed.

That being said, I'm still excited.

The device has some decent specs.  I don't think it is a game changer and I'm not sure that it is a phone that I'd want to live with for two, entire, years.  As a 12-month device, yes.  The device seems to hold it's own against some of the big dogs we have seen lately.  This isn't a win by any stretch of the imagination and it isn't pushing any boundaries.  Let's be honest for a second, there isn't a whole lot out there that is pushing smartphones anymore.  We are now getting to the point where low power and optimization are going to play key roles in development, as opposed to sheer power and speed.  As a hardware guy, that hurts my feelings.  As a mobile enthusiast, I've got a tech boner.

Do you know what happens when it uses less power and maintains a similar speed?  They add more cores.  They add a different architecture that is not only faster, but can do more things.  They pave the way for the next generation of power hungry beasts.  Then... we shrink it down, keep it cooler and figure out how to maintain the same performance at a fraction of the price.  We are close to turning a mobile corner here and I'm pretty excited.  I think this might be good for Motorola.  They are done with the "Droids" as we know them and this is the end of that part of their history.  Google is now ingrained, releasing stuff and pushing them in a direction that could be awesome for everyone.  Tech.  Boner.

If I have the chance, I'll give it a shot.  If the prices are decent or I feel like financing it would be feasible, I'd be willing to try it out.  Customizing the device in the color or flavor of my choosing ain't so bad, either.  If nothing else I feel like the device will function for an acceptable duration and will allow me to trade in that OG Atrix for a respectable smartphone to use for Google goodies (my WP8 phone would still be my go-to phone).