Just FYI, I’ve recently listed my Samsung Galaxy Nexus cell phone on E-bay. It’s a great phone and less than a year old. It’s in very good shape. Of course, it’s running the latest Android Jelly Bean, which is v4.2.1. Jelly Bean gives you the 100% pure Android experience with none of the carrier goop to muddle the works or delay firmware updates.
Ever the road warrior I carry a lot of stuff in my laptop bag. There’s usually my company issued laptop, it’s power supply, a portable hard drive, some USB memory sticks. All the usual stuff.
What do you think would be the single most useful item that lives there all the time?
Goes ahead give it a guess.
If you read things hereabouts then you will no doubt find this interesting. I certainly did.
Despite the fact that I have a couple of very good wireless headsets I still find that a wired headset can be handy. This is true both in the office and on the road. While lately I’ve been traveling with a Plantronics Voyager Pro UC cordless headset I also keep an Etymotic ETY.COM wired headset in a my laptop bag.
I’ve mentioned the Etymotic ETY.COM wired headset previously. It remains my favorite wired headset for mobile use. It sounds great and has a boom that reaches around to the corner of my mouth, which is ideal for use in a noisy environment.
However, since I changed cell phones back in November 2009 I’ve not been able to use the ETY.COM with my cell phones. Whereas the Blackberry Pearl has a four conductor 2.5mm jack for the wired headset, the newer Blackberry Bold2 (9700) has a larger 3.5 mm headset jack. The ETY.COM doesn’t fit the 9700 without an adapter.
As opposed to elsewhere, where I do in depth reviews of certain devices, this is a little mini-review that reflects the experience of my first month carrying the new Blackberry 9700, aka the Bold2. If you’re looking for a more general overview of the device I suggest Crackberry.com’s review.
In the weeks just prior to the Thanksgiving holiday my 3 year old Blackberry 8100 was failing. The mechanical trackball from which the models “Pearl” nickname was derived was simply failing. I cleaned it a couple of times but each time it would again become unresponsive after just a few days. It’s time had come.
I wasn’t settled upon another Blackberry as it’s replacement. I had been happy with the handset for a long time, but felt that a full keyboard would better meet my needs moving forward.
Further, while I was interested in Android powered phones, I wasn’t willing to change carriers based solely on hardware availability. I’m basically happy with T-Mobile. I wasn’t about to move to Verizon Wireless just to get access to a Motorola Droid.
I’m pretty jazzed about the Etymotic Research cell phone headset that I’ve been using the past few months. Most people probably don’t get too excited about cell phone headsets, especially wired models. Let’s just say that I’m not “most people” and leave it at that. This thing rocks!
I have a long history of using noise canceling headsets for listening to music. This because for the last fifteen years my job has involved a lot of travel, and airplanes are noisy places. I started out using Sony MDR-NC10s, which were amongst the first noise canceling headphones offered. To frame this up in time, I used them with a mini-disc player long before the introduction of the iPod.