Matthew Felsted
Evaluation: Palm Pixi Plus Verizon Cell Phone
I was looking to buy an apple Iphone but when I saw the price tag of $650+ on Amazon, I realized I should shop around first. I came across a small and sleek phone. It was called the Palm Pixi PlusVerizon Cell Phone, for just $36 you could get it set up with no contract! The phone lets you choose your own service provider. I was able to find one that charges only $30 per month. This includes 1200 minutes, 100 megabytes of data, and 2000 text messages. I had asked my friends how much they were paying for an Apple Iphone’s monthly service plan. They told me $90 - $100 per month.
I wanted a phone that had internet access, phone, text, and GPS-like ability to help me navigate and to use with google maps. I had seen these features on the Iphone, and instantly wanted one. After finding the Palm Pixi Plus phone I decided to read up on it, and decided to buy. When I received it by mail I was excited. I tried it out and realized I had made an excellent decision in buying this phone. I opened it up and quickly inspected it.
I wanted a phone that had internet access, phone, text, and GPS-like ability to help me navigate and to use with google maps. I had seen these features on the Iphone, and instantly wanted one. After finding the Palm Pixi Plus phone I decided to read up on it, and decided to buy. When I received it by mail I was excited. I tried it out and realized I had made an excellent decision in buying this phone. I opened it up and quickly inspected it.
It started up with a video tutorial on how to use it. The voice gave me a set of tasks to complete. Along the way it boasted of its features. Not only could it access the internet quickly, it could also interpret multi-touch commands with a touch screen. It indeed does what it claims to be able to do.
To determine if this was really a good deal or not I used a few criteria. My primary requirements were that the phone would have standard voice, text, and data capabilities which it did. These important secondary requirements were also met: low price, option to choose own service provider, size, camera resolution, internet access, and a navigation tool like GPS.
After several months everything works fine. It doesn’t “sweep the mess under the rug”. The resolution is crystal clear for both text and images on the internet. It is very simple to mute incoming calls and texts with a simple switch on my phone. It also checks my email for me all while allowing multiple browser windows to be open.
I do have some criticism for the phone however. Sometimes the phone calls people when I’m only trying to go through my contacts. Texting is annoying unless you have the number in your address book. The dialer is hard to use because my fingers are too big for the numbers on the touch screen. While this is frustrating, the other features of the phone more than make up for these small problems. Text message history is little difficult to access. It's ok but it is just a little confusing and takes a few steps. Everything good about the phone outweighs the complaints that I have.
How does this technology affect the community? With the ability to track your location at any moment there is the obvious downside of threatened consumer privacy. If the consumer’s location is known and someone gains access to this information they could manipulate the user and threaten their security.
Technology is not an ageless topic. The processing power inside a modern day cell phone vastly exceeds the sum total of all of NASA when it sent men to the moon in 1969. (Knopfdoubleday.com). The overall trend fits in with the technologist’s enthusiastic law, called Moore’s Law, which states that computer power doubles every 18 months. This is why cell phones of just 2 decades ago earned the nickname “brick phones”, while today they are slender, far more portable, and much more reliable. Cell phone coverage today is nearly ubiquitous, where as cell phone coverage back then was severely limited. If you want an idea of what the future of civilization will look like, look into Ray Kurzweil’s idea of The Singularity.
I highly recommend the Palm Pixi Plus. From the moment I first started using it I have found it to be quite a leap from my last phone. Google maps knows exactly where I am without me telling it and how to direct me to my desired destination. It has all the benefits of GPS as far as I’m concerned, without the heavy price tag. Internet access is intuitive. The extremely small text is crystal clear so even if you have bad eyes, you can read it. I originally wanted to get an Iphone. I decided on the alternative for a price was 20 times less expensive. Lucky for me, the Palm Pixi came with everything that I wanted in the Iphone.
Bibliography
Grisham, John. "Your Cell Phone Has More Computing Power than NASA circa 1969 « Knopf Doubleday - Doubleday." Doubleday « Knopf Doubleday - Doubleday. Web. 02 Nov. 2011. <http://doubleday.knopfdoubleday.com/2011/03/14/your-cell-phone/>.
"Amazon.com: Palm Pixi Plus Verizon Cell Phone - No Contract: Cell Phones & Accessories." Amazon.com: Online Shopping for Electronics, Apparel, Computers, Books, DVDs & More. Web. 02 Nov. 2011. <http://www.amazon.com/Palm-Pixi-Plus-Verizon-Phone/dp/B004IPAC10>.
The images used in this evaluation were obtained from Amazon.com’s product page.
Technical Specs
- 3 G connectivity
- GPS Navigation
- USB compatible
- 8 Gigabytes of internal memory
- Internet access