Wednesday, March 30, 2011

The Annoyance of New Technology

A little over two months ago I got a new cell phone.  My previous phone (a Blackberry) had been paid for by my previous employer.  Since I was now "on my own" I could get whatever phone I wanted.  After some research and testing out different handsets I landed on a Samsung Continuum.  The phone itself has been fine.  I even can make phone calls with no signal bars showing, though I have no idea how much of that is the Verizon network and how much is the phone's antenna.  One part of the phone was really annoying, though - the Android operating system.


It isn't that I had a problem with Android itself, per se, but I had no real way of learning to use it other than trying stuff and waiting to see if it broke.  Just last week I was convinced that the phone was piece of junk because it had gotten stuck on some processing routine that was sucking battery life at a ridiculously fast rate.  It wouldn't eve make it an entire day without running out of juice.  If I was on the phone all the time that would make some sense, but I was hardly even looking at it and the battery would be half drained after less than five hours.  One day, I got frustrated and just turned it off, not restarting it until the next morning.


That magically seems to have done the trick, as it is now quite stable and can go multiple days without needing a recharge.  So what had I originally done wrong?  I have no idea.  Why did turning it off and back on again fix the problem?  I have no idea.  Is there anything I can do to keep that problem from occurring again?  I have no idea.  I don't like being ignorant like this, and it would be nice if Samsung or Verizon would provide me with an Android user guide, since being able to use it properly seems to be vital to properly using and enjoying the phone.  Alas, such is not to be.

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