And Back Again…

I was so happy when my husband decided he wanted a Galaxy SIII and I could take his Galaxy Nexus. I was able to overlook the bad battery life.  I picked up a MyCharge, threw it in my purse, and considered it done. I was able to overlook the fact that I’d miss some apps and accessories, but I figured I could use my iPad for that stuff and have the best of both worlds. I could over look the bad camera, I’d just filter the hell out of the photos so they looked intentionally bad.

But after a month of using the phone, I could not get over the call quality. Particularly the call quality over my built in Bluetooth in my car. I had up until this point, not even considered call quality. I use my phone as a pocket computer 90% of the time. I communicate with my friends via text. And for the first month it really didn’t matter. Until derby practice picked up again, and really the only time I could talk to my parents or husband was on the drive home from work.

This wasn’t “less than desirable” call quality. This was “bad 90s standup” call quality. The calls would drop, or I’d only hear every other word. I tried to make excuses for a while.

“The snow must be doing something to the towers.”
“Maybe Verizon is having issues.”
“Maybe there was an accident that took out a tower.”
“It could be my case blocking the signal”

To be fair, my husband’s Galaxy SIII does not have this issue with his aftermarket Bluetooth. Maybe it’s my car for all I know. Regardless, I don’t have these issues with my iPhone. So I’ve gone back to using it.

What does this mean for my ongoing struggling relationship with Android? It might become a side fling. Maybe I’ll get an Android tablet (because a computer, the Nexus was brilliant). But even that’s a bit of a long shot unless Google can strike content deals with publishers like Apple has so I can get the digital copy of a magazine free with my subscriptions.

I really want to love Android. I live in the Google –verse. I love the idea of supporting a company that gives it’s engineers 20% of their free time to work on awesome stuff like Google Glass and self driving cars. But for my day-to-day life, it just isn’t working for me.