ONLINE GAMBLING AND CASINO GUIDE

Now that CES is officially in the books, it is time for a definite assessment of the state of technology, and who better to write such an article than yours truly.  The New Year was rough from an electronic standpoint, and I rang in 2010 with a bit of technological discontent.

My Blackberry has become too slow, the outages have been too numerous, and because of this I’ve spent a large part of the last week seeking its replacement.  I swore up and down that I was not going to get another smartphone, but the temptation was too great.  I bought the hype and I got caught up in the buzz.  Droid!  Nexus One!  Samsung HD!  iPhone GS!

Here I was, the world’s greatest blogger and smartest person in the solar system … yet I had a laughable Blackberry Curve that I purchased in early 2008.  The only thing more technologically lame would have been to have an @aol.com email address.

I could not allow this to stand.  I needed the latest and greatest.

This time, I went full steam ahead, and no holds-barred.  I was determined to do the review of all reviews that topped them all.  I was going to procure a new phone, crown a winner, and hold it up as the ©”greatest thing ever”.

I tried everything this week, from the iPhone to the Android to the Blackberry to the Samsung OS.  I’ve been to cellular stores, have borrowed phones from friends, and have given everything what I consider to be a serious workout in the fast and furious manner in which I actually use mobile technology.

As of today, I finally feel confident declaring a winner:

They all suck.

Anyone who could actually use one of the current smartphones for more than 10 minutes either has incredibly low standards or, with the exception of obsessive social networking, don’t do much of anything.

Today’s smartphones are like a dick.  Great fun to play with for a few minutes, but after that, it just becomes painful.

Smartphones have also turned a once great nation of creators into a nation of mindless consumerbots.  About the best thing you can “create” on a smartphone is a 140 character message informing the world of the color of your last bowel movement, and you can maybe share a photo or video here or there.  That’s really about it.

Those who spend a large amount of their time actually providing content still have one choice, and only one choice in a smartphone, and that is a good netbook with a wireless modem.

Once you’ve had a netbook, and I mean really, really had a netbook … with 1,000+ hours of real-world usage and familiarity with a 4G wireless modem … a smartphone is just not satisfying.

Sure, netbooks are larger than phones, but they are only 3 lbs and 10″ across (an iPhone 3GS is 4.5″ across).  You can’t slip them into a pocket, but you can carry them easily in one hand as you would a regular paper notebook.  Better yet, get a backpack or a man purse, and enjoy the sneers as you avail yourself of vastly superior options.  I hereby declare man purses cool.  It means you have shit to do, and you have tools to accomplish your tasks.  The only people who snicker at murses these days are people who don’t produce anything.

I tried to love a new smartphone, I really did, but everything they do, they do far less well than a mini-computer.

The one thing they do have over netbooks is pockatability, but in order to get that miniscule form factor, you must forgo the following:

• 9 hours of actual, web-surfing battery life under continuous use conditions.
• An SD card slot from which to quickly offload real 8 Megapixel photos and videos taken with 300mm lenses.  Sure, this live photo method is not as fast and convenient as “click and send” from a phone, but under realistic conditions, from the time I press the shutter to the time I hit “upload” on the netbook, about 45-60 seconds have elapsed.  Given the slow and shitty processor on most smartphones, it takes about 15 seconds anyway.
• Real web browsing.  Mobile browsers smoke much pole.  I want to use Firefox with all of my bookmarks and plugins.  I want to be able to press ‘F11′ to enter fullscreen browsing mode, and surf in a completely usable 1024×768 environment.  I want to be able to watch YouTube and Hulu while sitting in the doctor’s office waiting room.  I want to be able to play flash games whenever I feel like it.  I want 10 tabs open.  I want to be able to use every plugin ever invented.  With a netbook, I can.  With a smartphone, I cannot.
• Real email with attachments and filters.  Thunderbird is the best email client available and it runs smoothly on a netbook.
• Blog posts.  I have access to all of my interfaces, and they render and function exactly like they do on the desktop.  I can make a full photo-intensive blog post while riding on the Deuce.  I’ve tried doing this with the Blackberry.  Fail, fail, fail, fail.
• Forums.  I can actually interact with our users.  I can make posts, reply, post photos, etc.  I’ve tried doing this on the Blackberry.  Not as big of a fail as blogging, but slow nonetheless.
• Preemptive multitasking that actually works.  Firefox, Thunderbird, Picasa, Tweetdeck, and Google Earth side by side?  Yes.  5 programs opened at the same time while music streams over my bluetooth headphones?  No problem.
• Image/Video editing.  Picasa and Gimp run perfectly.  Basic video editing is also a frequent use for yours truly.
• A keyboard.  The netbook I purchased has a full-sized keyboard, although the keys themselves are smaller.  It’s awkward at first, but after several days of practice, it is second nature.
• Google Voice.  I can send and receive text messages from the browser very quickly, and receive all of my voicemails.  Add Skype (which works perfectly), and you’ve also got an unlimited super-multimedia telephone.
• Tweetdeck.  I never got into Twitter terribly much, and one of the reasons is that I hate mobile Twitter apps.  You can’t follow anyone because their twats scroll off the screen immediately.  You can only view one screen at a time, and well, it sucks balls.  Period.  I don’t know how anyone can use mobile Twitter while following 100+ people.  They certainly are not paying attention to the people they follow.
• Google Earth.  Not the slow phone version that takes forever to load each new tile while you stare at it cross-eyed.  The real thing.
• 160GB of disk storage (easily expandable)
• VGA out port so I can hook it up to any mouse or monitor and use it as a “real” computer in a pinch.
• Webcam, speaker, and microphone so I can have video chats.
• SD card slot.  I can offload my camera card and keep shooting without carrying multiple memory cards.
• Powered USB port which acts as an AC outlet to recharge any other device … even when the netbook is off.  No more searching for power outlets.  The netbook is a power outlet.
• No “app stores”.  If it runs on fucking Windows, it runs on the netbook.  Hell, you could install World of Warcraft if you wanted and run it on dogshit settings and still be able to play.  Steve Jobs has no say in what I run on the device I own.  Also, I can run those apps immediately.  No waiting for “approval”.  There are far more Windows apps than iPhone apps.  If I can download it via Firefox … it runs.

With the exception of serious video editing, rendering, and file format conversions — a netbook does everything my iMac and MacBook Pros do … albeit slower.  Even though it is much slower than a true laptop, it’s still immensely faster than a smartphone.

People complain about netbook slowness, and this is a valid complaint, but they are still hugely overpowered compared to smartphones.

My netbook has a 1.66Ghz Atom processor and 2Gb of RAM.  This destroys the 600Mhz ARM processor and 256Mb of RAM found in the iPhone 3GS.  The performance discrepancy is so great that the netbook flips the iPhone over and screws it up the ass just to show it who’s boss.  And the netbook still gets better battery life.

Stripped down, Windows XP sucks (you have to use Winblows for 4G), but when you only use 5-6 programs in full-screen, the OS is irrelevant.  The browser is the Operating System for all intents and purposes, and I have yet to blue screen.  XP on a netbook “just works” … it “just works slowly”.

Yes, a netbook runs iTunes, and it does so flawlessly, and with real bluetooth stereo … a/k/a better than an iPhone.

Since I prefer OSX to anything Windows, when the time comes, I may very well replace my netbook with an Apple Tablet, but as of right now … there’s no such thing as an iTablet.

For all of you out there agonizing over your next smartphone choice, take my advice.

Spend $299-$399 on a netbook.  Carry it in your hand or spend another $20 for a manbag.  Chances are, you already carry such a bag anyway.  In this case, you won’t notice the extra 3lbs.

Stop worrying about what content is and isn’t supported on your phone.  Stop trying to keep up with shit that becomes obsolete 3 hours after you buy it.

While I would be absolutely thrilled if the functionality of a computer were reduced to a handheld form factor, the fact is … this technology does not exist in 2010.  It’s not even close.  Smartphones try to emulate computers, but as of now, they fail miserably.

Phones are getting larger and computers are getting smaller.  Why get a big phone when you can get a small computer?

Sure, if you are a guy, the iPhone will help get you laid by another guy, but for people who ©”just do stuff” and who don’t worry about image or the sexiness factor of their chosen device … the netbook is a no brainer.  If you simply have to have a smartphone, then do what I do and use both … but if you can have only one, get the book.  I could do without a smartphone, but I could not do without a netbook.

Going forward, and barring the release of an Apple Slate, the netbook/Blackberry combo will remain my smartphone of choice.  The Blackberry for text messages and for quick, crap photos … and the netbook for everything else.

This post was typed and uploaded from a netbook.

Let’s see you do 1,800 words on an iPhone.

This article is the definitive smartphone review to end all smartphone reviews, and it puts the debate to rest once and for all.  I am right, and if anyone disagrees with me … they are wrong.

And that’s all I have to say about that.

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