So I picked up this little gem about a month ago after getting fed up with AT&T. I originally had an iPhone 3G, which I found to be a great phone aside from the disadvantages of being on the AT&T network. When release day came for the Evo, (June 4th), I was a bit worried that since I did not pre-order, I may not be able to find out. I called every Radioshack and Bestbuy within 30 miles or so of my house. I managed to find a Radioshack that had 1 left due to a pre-order customer canceling. I quickly drove down to the store to pickup my new toy. Due to the Sprint activation network being overloaded, I sat there for about 2.5 hours waiting for my phone to get activated. I didn’t mind too much, other than the fact I was going to be late to a meeting at work (whoops!).

The wait was worth it!

The Evo is a beast of a device, both in size and specs. The 4.3-inch 800×480 screen is nothing short of amazing. No other device available in North America has an 8-megapixel camera that shoots 720p video and a forward facing camera for video chat. The EVO 4G is a well-oiled machine thanks to the 1GHz Snapdragon processor. And let’s not forget about the kickstand or 4G WiMax support, as well as wireless hotspot functionality. Bottom line: It has everything you need.

One downside that I’ve noticed so far is the device ships with Android 2.1 rather than the latest Android 2.2 that contains many updates including:

• Automatic application updating
• OTA app downloads
• Remote wipe for enterprise
• iTunes sync
• Native hotspot support (There is Sprint Hotspot, though)
• Support for Flash 10.1
• App storage on a microSD card

Fortunately for us, it has already been stated by Sprint that the Evo will be getting an update to android 2.2 in the near future.

From my experience and day to day usage, the device is quite capable of handling anything that you would expect from a smartphone. I believe the initial scare of the battery issues may have been due to specific apps that people are running, because I honestly do not have any problems with my Evo lasting throughout the day assuming I am not running on 4G, watching movies, or using the GPS the entire time.

The 8-megapixel camera is decent for a cell phone, though it seems to struggle in low light situations. The 720p camcorder also suffers from the same issue, but is fine for just tooling around taking short videos and snapshots here and there.

The 4G wimax access is pretty nice if you’re in an area that supports it. Fortunately Atlanta is one of the first markets to have it, so it works pretty well in the city. Unfortunately I live a ways outside the city and struggle to get a connection at home, not really a big deal considering I have Wifi here.

The HUGE selling point for me was the Sprint plans that are paired with it. Sprint offers the most affordable voice/text/data packages of any carrier currently. You can get 450 voice, unlimited text/data, unlimited mobile to mobile (any carrier!), and unlimited nights/weekends for just $70/month. Unfortunately they also tack on an extra $10/month fee specific to the Evo, which is rather annoying to say the least. Do not let the 450 minutes a month scare you, remember that only applies to landlines! In this day and age, most of us make 90% or more of our calls to cell phones anyways.

I have not had a chance to test the mobile hotspot feature yet. Sprint is charging an extra $30/month for it, and to be honest, I completely understand why they would do this. Unfortunately for them, I cant afford it, and I can just root my phone to get the same functionality for free.

In conclusion, this is a great phone. If you’re on the wall on whether or not to pick one up, I urge you to give it a shot. Sprint offers a 30 day money back guarantee to try it out, so you really have nothing to lose.

So former Mexican president Vincente Fox did a speech in Kennesaw yesterday urging the US officials to “renew the debate about legalizing some drug use.”

Now, I’m not one to disagree with such things, but it really sounds like Mexico is trying to push blame for their own drug problems onto someone else. We spend billions of dollars every year on drug control, I’d love to see the numbers that Mexico is putting out for the same issues. I highly doubt its even close. We all know a large portion of the US drug supply is flooding in from Mexico every day, but is it really our responsibility to help Mexico control their problems?

Fox continued to say that he thinks the US should form a joint effort with Mexican military/police to help stop the cartels from distributing in the US. Again, this seems to have an alternate motive. The cartel is responsible for over 10,500 deaths since the Mexican military started an offensive against them in 2006. How the fuck is this our problem? Is it really our fault that your military cannot handle them? You don’t think we have our own problems?

It’ll be interesting to see how Obama responds to this. Personally, I think it would be easier if we just legalized marijuana and let mexico deal with their own problems. We don’t need to stop the Cartel’s to help drug violence in the US. If anything, legalization in the US would become a booming business and might help our struggling economy in these tough times.

Source: Associated Press – Fox encouraged about US cooperation in drug war

Ok, Let me start by saying that I typically do not buy wireless mice. Usually the problems I encounter with them are due to reception, or they just don’t feel right.

During a visit to Microcenter as I was headed to the checkout lane, a nice smallish mouse caught my eye. It was cheap (around $15) so I figured I’d give it a shot. I got it home, popped some batteries in it, and was suprised that it worked quite well and felt good in my hand.

About a week later, I found out why it was so cheap. It started jumping around on the screen, and generally working very poorly. I quickly found out that the brand new batteries I had put into it were nearly dead. I figured, “OK, maybe the batteries were just duds” and put a couple new ones in there. Like clockwork, a week later I started experiencing the same problem.

Are these things really that bad at conserving power? I even notice that the mouse shuts itself off after a few minutes of inactivity and can only be turned back on by clicking. This was annoying but I was willing to deal with it for prolonged usage.

Long story short, I’m back to a wired mouse, never to stray again.