New Phone

After a long on-again, off-again relationship with my first generation Blackberry Curve (yes, the one that came out in 2007), I gathered up the money for a new phone. I wanted an unlocked phone (I want to choose whether not to get a data plan, on my own time; I didn't want to be forced to get one based on what phone I wanted), and after much deliberation I got the Sony Xperia Arc S.

It ended up being $300 on Amazon, for the white one, and has all the important features I wanted to have in my next phone: a large screen (at 4.2" it's only .1" smaller than the screen I've gotten used to on my Archos 43), a good camera (8 MP, since I rarely bring my point-and-shoot around with me anymore), and a microSD slot. You'd be surprised how many phones lack that last feature; I probably would have gotten the Lumia 900 if had an card slot (and was able to upgrade to Windows Phone 8, but that's a whole other story).

It's frozen on me a couple times, but no more than my sister's jailbroken iPhone, it responds quickly, and has a battery that lasts for the entire day (which is impressive, seeing as I'm on it a lot). It runs on Ice Cream Sandwich, and the only bad thing about that is the fact that the music app DoubleTwist doesn't work right on it, but since the stock music app syncs perfectly with Windows Media Player, so I have no complaints. It came with an 8 gig memory card; eventually I plan on getting a 32 gig one so I can use it as my official music player.

All-in-all I'm satisfied with it; it has a nice weight in the hand, solid but not heavy, thin but not small. For a more comprehensive spec list, go on over here.