Note: That’s “Silicon,” not “Silicone.” We have no need for the latter right now, but hey, maybe in a future post…

Recently VerizonWireless dutifully informed me I was now eligible for a “New Every Two” phone upgrade. That was so nice of them, wasn’t it? I was so excited to run right down there and plunk down $100 for some cool new “smart” phone and in the process, indenture myself to Big Red for another two years… On a recent day off I escaped the surface of Mercury heat and ducked into my local Verizon hot spot (which was cool) to check out the smokin’, new “Droid X,” a large hunk of Motorola hardware running Google’s hyped “Android” software. Complicating the whole thing is some iEnvy regarding Apple’s imperfect phone. So it drops some calls… It’s still über cool and there’s an app that simulates drinking a cold one from it. Isn’t that why we want a phone after all? Still… I pondered making the switch to AT&T’s maligned (mostly by Verizon) network…

Aside from all the feature/function/form/coolness juggling was an internal battle resembling the old video game asteroids occurring in my head between me, the raging consumerholic who wants another cool toy, and me, the principled anti-big business individualist who hates how products are shoved down our corn-fed pie holes whether we need them or not. Actually, upon inspection, the Droid X left me wanting. It’s fast and that 4.3” screen is sweet for surfing, but even with the additional acreage, the on-screen virtual keyboard didn’t perform much better than the one already on my two year old Samsung Omnia i910. My Omnia… It’s been a good phone, and while the iWannabe “Winterface” purchased software simulated the iPhone look, it wasn’t an iPhone. Plus, the phone was a little buggy, producing occasional irritation from issues with the memory, touchscreen and receiving email…

I’m a researcher, a lifelong learner who loves to read and know everything I can about a product before and after I purchase it. I also enjoy tinkering with technology and trying the latest, although I don’t have the time for that I once did. However, a recent Monday off when I had plans change, I found myself with a block of time to enjoy some home cooking. “Cooking” in the smartphone world is slang for creating software implementations to replace those imposed on us by our wireless carrier, in this case Verizon. These programmer “cooks” usually scrap much of the crappy, sometimes outdated software on the phone and replace it with software combinations, a “ROM,” that are not only cool, but they work much better than the software the phone originally came with. The one little problem is that if you want to “flash” your phone with one of these cool ROM’s, there’s a little risk:

i910 ONLY — FLASH AT YOUR OWN RISK —

Please remember that you flash at your own
risk and I am not responsible for any
bad things that happen to your device.

The “bad thing” is that you can “brick” your phone, which means it will perform like a brick (i.e. dead phone), except you can’t use it to build stairs… I calculated the risk and rationalized a new Droid X in case I rendered my Omnia brick-like. The process was a little techno-scary, but not too complicated, and when it was over I had a “new” phone with speed, shiny cool weather graphics, no memory issues, improved screen response, and email that performs so well that I receive my work email on the phone the same time I receive it on my laptop! To which Joyce dryly replied, “and you consider that a plus?” Joyce’s teasing techno-me aside, I love my new phone. Hopefully it’ll continue to infatuate me until an iPhone comes to VZ.