Joining The 21st Century

I did something remarkable over the weekend - I joined the 21st century and acquired a smartphone. You have to understand how radical this is for me. I've been using the same budget flip phone for the last four years and it's only NOW starting to break apart a bit. Still perfectly usable. I had a hard time adjusting to my Chromebook, which is also at least four years old, because the OS is app based and all functions are stored on the cloud.

So I ordered a new phone on Virgin Mobile's website a few weeks back and had it shipped to my mom's place (debit card address complications - it's resolved now) and this weekend we drove through a damn blizzard to go pick it up. It's the same brand as my flip phone, so I felt comfortable at least staying in the same " family" and it's Android, so I'm familiar with a lot of the app functions.

Let me introduce the Kyocera HYDRO Reach:


It looks a little blue-hued on the stock photo, but it's pretty much black. It runs a mini-version of Chrome OS and comes with a bunch of useless pre-installed apps - many of which I already disposed of. After activating it Sunday night, I proceeded to spend much of Monday afternoon customizing it. I changed up my wallpaper, set my notification sounds, and even installed the tumblr app.

The biggest hurdle now is getting used to the keypad. I'm not really a huge fan of touch-screen technology, so texting has been a headache. I'm sure I'll become accustomed to it though.

To test out it's battery life and video quality - I watched a livestream of a Youtuber gamer last night and even played an episode of a Korean drama. The battery only dropped about 30% and the device itself didn't get too warm. So I'm fairly impressed.

Tell me the story of your first smartphone (if you possess one) and what features were most notable and interesting to you! 

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