ONLINE GAMBLING AND CASINO GUIDE

“Specs don’t matter”

If you dabble in the tech field at all, you no doubt hear this refrain often.  The interesting thing about this saying is that it always comes from the same group of people.

Apple users.

You see, only in the reality distortion field of the iPerson does this phrase make any sense.  The rest of us are acutely aware that computers are all about specs.

How fast can your computer execute instructions?

How much data can it hold?

What kind of physical media can it handle?

Everything above is primarily determined by one thing: Specs.

Because of this, when it comes to computers, nothing matters more than do specs.

“Well Rex, specs don’t make a computer elegant and usable!  Specs have nothing to do with your overall computing experience.”

Of course they do.  Anyone who uses an 8 year old computer with 512MB of RAM today will tell you that their computer is almost completely unusable.  It’s too slow to handle the latest and greatest applications because the specifications are terrible.

If specs didn’t matter, every Apple user on the planet would not tune into every Apple Keynote speech, urine running down their leg with excitement as Steve Jobs announces the latest hardware upgrades.  If specs didn’t matter, then Apple computers would never need a “refresh”.  The fact that they hit a speed bump every 9 months or so is prima-facie evidence that … altogether now … specs matter.

Now, before I go any further, I need to be honest and express my own disappointment with myself.

It is very rare that I get excited about purchases.  I am aware of the psychology behind sales, and I understand the mechanics that make people “want” things.  The expectation of something new floods the brain with the neurotransmitter dopamine, and the procurement of that possession induces an inflated sense of mood that lasts anywhere from 1-7 days, at which point the process must be repeated to stave off a depressive “crash”.  This is why some people are literally addicted to shopping.  It is why people buy expensive cars and expensive houses, yet are still miserable.  It’s not the possession that makes them happy, it is the procurement of the possession.

Buying new things feels good … temporarily … and there is a completely explicable and replicable scientific basis behind why this happens.  It even cuts across all species.

For instance, have you ever given your dog a new toy?

I have, and while I am getting it out of the package, the animal literally quivers with anticipation.  Sometimes she shakes so uncontrollably that I fear she will have a seizure.  A day later, I usually find the same toy under the coffee table, all but forgotten about.  The next time I bring home a toy for her, even if it is similar to the previous toy, this process repeats.

The overwhelming human drive for the procurement of “stuff” is instinctual, and it is the basis of our economy.  It is the very reason that most people spend more money than they have (a/k/a “debt”).  Buying stuff is a drug, and perhaps the main reason that narcotics are illegal is because they greatly reduce the impulse of humans to pursue happiness through consumerism.

Now, knowing all of this, I am usually impervious to the lure of consumerism.  I’m happy with Dollar Store clothes and cars that look like they came out of a junk yard.  I don’t wear jewelry, I hate shopping, I could not care less what the neighbors think about my socioeconomic status, and for the most part … I don’t really want anything just for the sake of having it.  I pride myself on recycling just about everything I have, and making the most use out of everything I spend money on.  I am a product of 1980’s Dischord DIY Washington D.C. where Jesus Christ went by the alias “Ian MacKaye”.  In those days, nothing was more uncool than to own an expensive … anything.

Despite all of this, I have always had one Achilles’ heel: Computers and gadgets.

I don’t get them to show off or impress anyone (I put masking tape over the illuminated Apple on my 17″ MacBook), I get them because they really do fascinate me, and I actually use them.  A lot.  Possibly to the point of obsessiveness.

My wireless gadget addiction started in 1999 with the world’s first wireless PDA, the Palm VII.  Later I got a Treo 300, then a Treo 600, then a Treo 650, then a Samsung i700, then a PPC-6700, then a Blackberry, and a bunch of niche phones in between.  Don’t believe me?  I just laid only a few of the phones I still have on a table, and snapped a photo:

I followed the iPad launch online, and was fully prepared to order one immediately to complement my three existing Macs … until I learned what it was.  A 9″ iPod Touch. To this day, I’m still waiting for someone in Cupertino to let the rest of us in on the joke.

As elitist as it sounds, I actually have a great deal of disrespect for people who have purchased an iPad.  I’m not sure if I can take these people seriously.  No Flash, no multitasking, no camera, no SD card slot — it’s just a ridiculous device built 100% around a brand.  Once you put the external keyboard and camera kit into a carrying case and sling it over your shoulder … you have a device that is no more portable than a laptop, yet no more powerful than an iPod.

In my opinion, carrying an iPad is the technological equivalent of walking around with your pants around your knees.  To me it says “I will follow a trend regardless of how stupid it is”.  I expect this behavior from children and teenagers, but it makes me sad to hear that 2 million grown adults have purchased the device.  It also validates everything I know about the human animal, which is that we are nothing more than sheep that have learned to walk upright.

Anyway, needless to say, I did not purchase an iPad.  Hell, for many of the reasons mentioned above, plus the inability to run non-weird-androgynous-guy-approved third party apps, an iPhone was also out of the question.  I don’t want to be part of an ecosystem that insists that I am too stupid to know what I want, and I don’t like the thought of having to walk on eggshells and risk completely wasting my time should I decide to write my own app for distribution.

From a technological standpoint, things were looking bleak in Rexville.  I had outgrown my BlackBerry Curve, yet there was nothing on the horizon that really motivated me to throw the outdated device away.  It looked as though toting a laptop/netbook and modem everywhere was the only way I would get the combination of speed and power that the world’s best blogger with my social security number needed.

And then came the announcement …

Sprint, a carrier I have had for the last 12 years, was getting a new phone.  This phone was called the EVO, and the specification sheet that accompanied the announcement induced an involuntary case of priapism in yours truly, the likes of which Viagra could never approximate.  I could not take my eyes off of the press release.  I was mesmerized.  The EVO was Yoko Ono and I was John Lennon.  The EVO was a chubby intern and I was Bill Clinton.  The EVO was a hairless Asian boy and I was Steve Wynn.  You get the idea.

I immediately knew that it had to be mine.

Fast forward a couple of months.

On Friday morning, June 4th, 2010, I woke up at 4:55am and was unable to get back to sleep.  You see, I got a “tip” from a Sprint Store Employee (who I later learned reads the blog), and he directed me to a store in the far reaches of the Las Vegas Valley.  He told me that if I arrived at this particular store before 9am, he would make sure that I got an EVO.  Not wanting to risk a delay caused by a flat tire or a space alien attack, I left the house at 6:45am, and arrived at the store at 7:30am.

I was the 6th person in line, but the first person out with a phone.  Now, I’m not going to lie and say it was easy.  There was an “incident” between myself and the store manager who insisted that she could not sell me the device unless I bought $100 worth of accessories, but I’ll have to save that story for a later day.

The important thing is that I made it out with an EVO, and I was quite possibly the first “consumer” (non-reviewer, non-Sprint-employee, etc) in Las Vegas to do so.

I immediately went home, applied a screen protector, swapped the 8GB microSD card for a 16GB card, put the EVO in a case, and charged the battery to 100%.  When I finally got the green “fully charged” light, I embarked on a 48 hour, sleepless journey designed to attain only one goal:

To conduct the most thorough evaluation of the EVO that had ever been conducted in the city of Las Vegas.

For the most part, I think I achieved this goal.  Up until now, the EVO has left my hand only to charge, but no longer.  I have used every feature that one might possibly use with a stock device, and I literally immersed myself in both the Android and the EVO experience.

Thus, even though it has only been a meager two days, I think I have gathered the necessary experience to render a pretty informed verdict on the Sprint HTC EVO 4G.

And so I shall …

Read: EVO: Once (Part 2/3) | EVO: Footsteps (Part 3/3)

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