Chp 454. My new S4

Ever since I bought my first Android phone back in 2010, there had been no looking back. Back then, everybody around me were buying iPhones and Blackberrys, with a strong percentage held by WinMo devices as well.

Android was considered the cheap rebel, a phone with no class, a phone that doesn’t get you laid. Everybody in office laughed at me when I decided to switch from WinMo to Android.

“But Kima, what shitty device is this Android? It’s not gonna survive in the market at all. Buy a blackberry. We have BBM. We are the majority. We are the masters of this universe!”

“Dude, don’t listen to him. Buy an iPhone. I don’t know what is so great about the phone but everybody says it’s great so even I bought one. I still don’t know what is so great about it, but I am an iPhone user now so that means I have more class than others. Come become an Apple fan.”

But the geek in me was completely fascinated by the possibilities of an Android device. I became the first person in our office to own an Android device. And I did it with style. I bought the Galaxy S, the first of its series, the I9000, Samsung’s flagship back then.

It cost me 29K, which was more than my monthly salary back then, but thanks to EMI option, I had my dream phone. As the years slowly rolled by, I started converting more and more people in our office to Android. We became close friends. More than that, we became a secret society, a pack of blood brothers, shying away from the condescending glares of iPhone and BB users. We shared many jokes only we understood, signaled each other in codes, developed our own sign language, and went on weekend trips and clandestine operations to assassinate evil dictators.

Anyway, yes, this is not a techie post. I am not going to talk about the specs and features because I’m sure most of you would know already.

So why the S4 for 41K?

I know that’s a lot of money.

But before you judge me, hear my story first.

I’ve been using the Galaxy S for the past three years. I rooted it. I even soft-bricked it once. And yes, for the past one year, it used to hang at least once or twice a day and I eventually had to remove the battery for a force restart. Apart from that, most apps either do not run or are extremely slow. I had to go through all that frustration and stress because I value my hard earned money. I never went for the S-II or S-III, or any other android devices like the Nexus 4 or HTC One.

Sometimes all my contacts would get deleted. And other times it would be my messages. I even upgraded my OS from Éclair 2.1 to Gingerbread 2.3, completely bypassing Froyo 2.2! That’s how laidback I can be sometimes. And history repeated itself because I am now on 4.2 Jellybean directly from 2.3 Gingerbread, completely bypassing Honeycomb and Ice Cream Sandwich OS! So yeah, to me, this had been a HUGE leap for me.

I really love the dual shot feature where I can take a photo or video of what’s on either side of the phone at the same time! Apart from that, there are various awesome photography modes, like the ability to record sound along with the photo, richtone photography etc.

Other features like the ability to scroll pages without actually touching the phone (merely waving), or turning pages by simply nodding or how a video stops playing if I move my head away are simply mindblowing new features I’ve been missing out for a long long time.

Hoping to have a great experience using this phone :)

Cheers :)