Say Hello to My Little Friend

That's the Samsung Vibrant, my fancy-pants new phone.

I'm already a little bit in love with it. Although I have to say - it did come with quite a few features that I didn't care about at all. For example, to show off its amazing HD video capability (seriously, the screen on this thing is awesome for a hand-held device), it came loaded with the movie "Avatar," which most of you know I have no desire to see. I watched the first 30 seconds of it to see what the picture was like. That's about the extent of it, though. Now I just have to figure out how to delete it.

I wasn't planning on getting this phone. I wanted something cheaper. Instead of top-of-the-line, I wanted the top-of-the-line from last year. You know - the phones that have dropped in price to a place where they're affordable. No, I wasn't planning on picking up the most expensive phone in the store. But there was one thing that swayed me: included pre-loaded in the phone was an Amazon Kindle reader.

I've been having an internal debate about the Amazon Kindle (or the Nook from Barnes & Noble) for months now. Is it worth the money? Would I actually like it? Will I stop reading paper books if I get one, making my entire book collection moot? Is it really worth the money?

For this one, I didn't have to pay a dime (well, I had to pay for the phone, but I probably would have gotten it anyway). How could I say no? I already downloaded a bunch of old classics that are available for free. Even better, using the application on my phone doesn't seem to have too much of an effect on the battery level, which seems to be the main weak point with this thing. The battery barely lasts all day if I use the phone too much. But from what I understand, that's common with smartphones - so if that's my biggest complaint, I think I'm satisfied.

So I have a new phone. I love it. It's so pretty.