In search of recs on 3 topics.
Jun. 9th, 2009 08:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
serynI am in need of recommendations.
First, if you know anything about kitchen mixers, I have finally decided I should sacrifice the space and buy one. The reviews of modern KitchenAids suggest they have engineering problems including gearboxes that leak motor oil into the workbowl. I need the mixer to be strong enough to knead bread dough. I don't mind if it's heavy because I intend to store it on the countertop instead of lifting it out of a cabinet for each use. But it absolutely must be able to handle heavy-duty mixing jobs like dual-loaf bread dough recipes that want to be kneaded for 15 minutes. The point of buying a machine is that I cannot do that kind of hand-intensive labor, so it cannot overheat, smoke, or fail while doing its job.
Second, I think we are looking to upgrade our media options. We currently have Netflix (with a Roku for downloading), an ancient TiVo with Lifetime, a $25 DVD player, and a tube-TV which does not have any fancy plugs (we bought it because it was cheap and we knew it would be an interim thing while the digital conversion hoopla was settled), we have ordinary cable from before they offered digital and have refused to upgrade because of the need for a cable box. We do have tolerable broadband but it is low-tier and independent.
So, pretty much you can assume we have nothing that we need to carry forward, but that I would like the ability to play downloaded content and DVDs.
I have heard good things about AT&T's UVerse, but have heard horrendous things about AT&T in general. We have been pretty unhappy with AT&T phone service mostly because the price isn't dropping despite how little value landlines have, in fact charges keep going up. (Mobile service through Verizon but not for any particular reason-- TMobile/Sprint doesn't serve inside my apartment, AT&T and Verizon do.)
In exchange:
I will say that we are extremely happy with both Netflix and the Roku. The Roku device is $100 plus tax and shipping, but it is exactly what it says it is, a device which downloads Netflix and Amazon (and probably others) content and displays it on your TV without the need for a computer (though it does require broadband connectivity). Netflix is Netflix, but with access to their downloadable catalog, the vagarities of mail service no longer hold me hostage. If the Roku people did a deal with Hulu, that would be awesome.
We used to be diehard TiVo supporters, but TiVo has dicked us around a lot and now their (very expensive) service comes plastered with really obnoxious and intrusive advertising. For example, whenever you pause a popular program, there's an ad for weightloss product plastered all over the lower third of the screen. The whole point of having a DVR is to be able to pause and rewind TV.
I think we might like to divorce ourselves from TV content entirely because of the Hulu type services. The shows are there, with no conflicts for recording, the commercials are minimal. Really, it's hard to beat. But we definitely would like the ability to play media in our living room so we can both watch it. Maybe we should just buy a huge computer monitor and a dedicated laptop. Then we'd need a source of local news, but my national newses are podcast.
Third, I would like recommendations on mobile phones. My LG EnV handset is 2.5 years old. I like having a keyboard available because I send more txts than I make calls. But the really locked down phone (you can't download apps or ringtones from anywhere else but the Verizon pay-for site, you can't even make your own) has limited the usefulness of what might have been decent hardware. If anything I might want to be able to do costs me $6.99 plus a monthly fee, I'm not going to do it on the phone.
I admit to being tempted by the iPhones from the commercials I have seen, but I worry that each of those little brightly colored icons they show costs the $6.99 type price and probably they're only available from the iApple iStore too. So it looks like they've got the same problem... Really expensive hardware that's extremely limited by nickel and dime fees. No idea if that's true, maybe iPhones have tons of free apps.
I've also understood that AT&T service for the iPhone sucks filthy weasel toes with athlete's foot. But again, people love to complain when things aren't going well and hardly anyone jumps up and down screaming, "It works marginally better than my minimal expectations!"
I won't say that price is no consideration, but I kept the first phone for years, so investing in hardware isn't the issue compared to the monthly pricing schemes. If it's going to take up room in my pocket, then it should be useful.
First, if you know anything about kitchen mixers, I have finally decided I should sacrifice the space and buy one. The reviews of modern KitchenAids suggest they have engineering problems including gearboxes that leak motor oil into the workbowl. I need the mixer to be strong enough to knead bread dough. I don't mind if it's heavy because I intend to store it on the countertop instead of lifting it out of a cabinet for each use. But it absolutely must be able to handle heavy-duty mixing jobs like dual-loaf bread dough recipes that want to be kneaded for 15 minutes. The point of buying a machine is that I cannot do that kind of hand-intensive labor, so it cannot overheat, smoke, or fail while doing its job.
Second, I think we are looking to upgrade our media options. We currently have Netflix (with a Roku for downloading), an ancient TiVo with Lifetime, a $25 DVD player, and a tube-TV which does not have any fancy plugs (we bought it because it was cheap and we knew it would be an interim thing while the digital conversion hoopla was settled), we have ordinary cable from before they offered digital and have refused to upgrade because of the need for a cable box. We do have tolerable broadband but it is low-tier and independent.
So, pretty much you can assume we have nothing that we need to carry forward, but that I would like the ability to play downloaded content and DVDs.
I have heard good things about AT&T's UVerse, but have heard horrendous things about AT&T in general. We have been pretty unhappy with AT&T phone service mostly because the price isn't dropping despite how little value landlines have, in fact charges keep going up. (Mobile service through Verizon but not for any particular reason-- TMobile/Sprint doesn't serve inside my apartment, AT&T and Verizon do.)
In exchange:
I will say that we are extremely happy with both Netflix and the Roku. The Roku device is $100 plus tax and shipping, but it is exactly what it says it is, a device which downloads Netflix and Amazon (and probably others) content and displays it on your TV without the need for a computer (though it does require broadband connectivity). Netflix is Netflix, but with access to their downloadable catalog, the vagarities of mail service no longer hold me hostage. If the Roku people did a deal with Hulu, that would be awesome.
We used to be diehard TiVo supporters, but TiVo has dicked us around a lot and now their (very expensive) service comes plastered with really obnoxious and intrusive advertising. For example, whenever you pause a popular program, there's an ad for weightloss product plastered all over the lower third of the screen. The whole point of having a DVR is to be able to pause and rewind TV.
I think we might like to divorce ourselves from TV content entirely because of the Hulu type services. The shows are there, with no conflicts for recording, the commercials are minimal. Really, it's hard to beat. But we definitely would like the ability to play media in our living room so we can both watch it. Maybe we should just buy a huge computer monitor and a dedicated laptop. Then we'd need a source of local news, but my national newses are podcast.
Third, I would like recommendations on mobile phones. My LG EnV handset is 2.5 years old. I like having a keyboard available because I send more txts than I make calls. But the really locked down phone (you can't download apps or ringtones from anywhere else but the Verizon pay-for site, you can't even make your own) has limited the usefulness of what might have been decent hardware. If anything I might want to be able to do costs me $6.99 plus a monthly fee, I'm not going to do it on the phone.
I admit to being tempted by the iPhones from the commercials I have seen, but I worry that each of those little brightly colored icons they show costs the $6.99 type price and probably they're only available from the iApple iStore too. So it looks like they've got the same problem... Really expensive hardware that's extremely limited by nickel and dime fees. No idea if that's true, maybe iPhones have tons of free apps.
I've also understood that AT&T service for the iPhone sucks filthy weasel toes with athlete's foot. But again, people love to complain when things aren't going well and hardly anyone jumps up and down screaming, "It works marginally better than my minimal expectations!"
I won't say that price is no consideration, but I kept the first phone for years, so investing in hardware isn't the issue compared to the monthly pricing schemes. If it's going to take up room in my pocket, then it should be useful.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 09:27 pm (UTC)iPhones have tons of apps available, but most of them cost $1-5. darkforge has an iPhone with no SIM card (just wireless access) for work purposes, so I browsed a bit. Yes, pretty much just via Apple's App Store.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 09:51 pm (UTC)We have mobile service with Verizon, landline service with AT&T and cable from Comcast. (Thus why I am absolutely certain I can score a better deal.) Verizon is OK. I generally have service everywhere. Recently I took my phone to the butt-crack of America and everyone who has AT&T did not have service, but I had 3 bars. 3 years ago, about 6 months before I got mobile service, we had guests and all the major service providers were represented. So I asked everyone if they were getting a signal in my kitchen and crossed the Sprint/T-Mobile people off the list because they did not. (The Sprint and T-Mobile people share a network at the underpinnings and it was my personal experience that the service area gap was exactly the same.) But the decision was near random.
The new iPhones claim to have the same battery life, 5 talk hours and 300 hours of standby time. That's 14 days. Everyone I know who has one charges it all the time. But mostly that commercial where you shake your phone and it tells you where to eat.... that totally entices. I might even pay for that, if it worked, which we know it doesn't.
Thanks for looking... I have no idea what I'd want in a phone, but I keep looking at mine and wanting it to do more or cost less.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-10 02:50 am (UTC)Verizon does have good service coverage, but I wouldn't touch it with a pole of whatever length because it charges through the roof for data use. It's the most expensive of all U.S. carriers, in fact, if one wants any data. I'd rather pay roaming charges the few times in a year that I travel outside my carrier's service range (Sprint till last Dec, T-Mobile now). (FWIW, within my ltd traveling experience, Sprint and T-Mobile do not have identical coverage areas, no.)
Certainly it'd be cheaper for you to pick up an iPhone than for an existing AT&T customer to upgrade, mostly because AT&T is stupid and untrustworthy. (Before I had Sprint for two years, I was an AT&T mobile customer. heh.) Before you did so, however, I'd recommend going on a weekday midmorning or early afternoon to your nearby-ish Apple store, when the crowds are likely to be less; parking doesn't cost much, there are places to get lunch without moving the car, etc. Play with an iPod Touch if you can't get your hands on a store-display iPhone, but try out the virtual keyboard and the navigation before making up your mind. Some people like it, some hate it. My hypermobile/double-jointed thumbs are too fast for a virtual keybd to keep up, so it doesn't matter how clever Apple's predictive software is; it doesn't fix my typos in time to be useful. (Also, I use big words it doesn't know, I guess.) No iPhone for me, therefore--at one point I did consider a Touch.
For me, the big difference between Sprint + Verizon and AT&T + T-Mobile isn't coverage areas; it's no SIM card and CDMA versus SIM and GSM. Having a SIM card makes switching phones and providers much simpler. If you buy a phone locked to Sprint, it's compatible with Verizon's network, generally, but you can't switch it over to their service unless you go to the trouble of unlocking it (technically illegal).
If your bar is phone = 1mo svc, then all the smartphones (except a switch-to-AT&T-deal iPhone) are out of reach, and that's the market I know, mostly. Many people like the BlackBerry Curve, but Verizon data costs too much, IMO. If you just wanted QWERTY for better texting, you might look at Verizon's Blitz, which is currently pretty cheap, IIRC. It doesn't support fast data transfers (EV-DO), but then, that's fine if you don't want/need a data plan.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-10 04:51 am (UTC)Service providers..., if it doesn't work in my apartment, I'm not going to be happy. I don't know about other companies coverage when I travel, because I don't bring you with me. (You'd be welcome, but in all the years I've known you and even though you've been around the world twice in that time, we haven't met, so I'm not holding my breath.)
It isn't illegal to unlock your phone. Unless you're under a contract where a discounted handset was part of the pricing. Once you've fulfilled the contract, you can unlock it. But that doesn't mean any other company has to accept foreign hardware. There's supposedly a law about it, but I don't have any sources and I don't remember where I read it even generally. Usually by the time a 2 year contract is up, the technology is old enough they don't care so much.
You said you were looking at your SO's phone, and I interpreted that as being because I'd asked for the information.
I might wait. The new Sprint ads are for "4G network", so obviously there's going to be a significant change to the marketplace this summer, not that we weren't expecting that with the new iPhone.
Most people I know in real life think that mobile phones should be free. There's no reason to buy a handset because one should be included, with free upgrades every couple of years. That's do-able almost everywhere, but free phones are not usually feature-rich. Considering that the big expense is the obligation to 2 years of service, I don't see why it's a big deal to spend a bit on the actual device. A surprisingly large range of options open up if you're not limited to just the free phones.