Margret Sloan

Samsung has taken the bull by the horns and released a new phone to compete with Apple’s iPhone. The new Samsung 3G Instinct looks a lot like the iPhone - it is shaped very similar and has the same polished black case and smooth touchscreen. But it has some features that iPhone didn’t think of.

The best one that caught my interest is that the battery is removable and replaceable. Batteries are the bane of my existence and recharging them always seems to be an issue with me.

The Instinct has 3G access for fast downloads and pageviews. It also has expandable memory - aka spend more money to keep more stuff (like video clips and tons of tunes) stored on your phone. And a really nice feature is the “haptic feedback” for the touch screen. Just like your normal keyboard keys click when you type so you know you actually hit the keys, when you touch the Instinct phone’s flatscreen keypad, the keys vibrate slightly. Very cool.

If you travel a lot, the GPS navigation combined with voice commands will be very helpful.

Already in production and revealed at this week’s big CTIA show in Las Vegas, you should be able to find this new phone in stores mid-June.

I was a cell phone hold out for a very long time and only began carrying a cell phone because my job required it. I traveled quite a bit and I admit it came in handy many time. If I was still doing that job today I would probably carry a PDA now, but that company folded up and I’m gone, which broke my heart.

So I decided to get my own cell phone and signed up with the company that has our home phone service. The phone was free with a 2 year agreement yadda yadda yadda. Well, I can see why the phone was free - it isn’t worth more than $5 in my book. I can’t hear it ring half the time no matter what setting I put it on. When I do talk to someone I can’t hear what they are saying unless I am in a closed room with absolutely no background noise. If I’m in the car or out in the yard, forget about it.

The phone has way too many extra bells and whistles that I’ll never use and don’t even want to have on there - to get to the couple of features I do want it is a long and laborious process clicking through too many menus and scrolling through too many submenus.  Even the voicemail stinks - it does not record the day and time of the voicemail message, so I have no idea when someone called.

My 2 year agreement is up in April - I have yet to decide if I’m even going to keep a cell phone anymore. This one doesn’t meet my needs and it’s an expensive convenience I might be willing to do without.

About a year ago I saw a good price on a computer package and decided on impulse to splurge and buy it. I bought an HP Pavilion Slimline that came with all the bells and whistles, Windows Vista and a beautiful flat screen 19′ color monitor. It set up quickly and I haven’t had any trouble with it at all - knock on wood.

So I thought it would be good to buy another one just like for the home office and we can give the old PC to our grandson. He has just started school and he loves to play with letters and numbers, he can read a couple hundred “sight words” and he like to play with numbers, too. I’ve shown him how to get online to play a couple of good children’s sites games, like Thomas the Train and Dora the Explorer. He can even play a couple simple card games. We are so proud of him!

So I’ve searched everywhere for this Slimline PC and can’t find it for sale anywhere!

This morning, Motorola CEO Greg Brown said he will break Motorola into two separate companies: one company for mobile phones, and another for everything else, which includes set-top boxes, police radio systems and tools to run wireless networks.Iits troubled mobile devices business will become an individual publicly traded entity under a new management team.

This will be a strategic move to try to regain Motorola’s #2 position in world-wide sales. Multi-faceted Samsung holds the #1 spot and LG is currently in #2.

The new invisibleSHIELD case for iPhones, iPods and other electronic devices originally created for the U. S. military to protect helicopter blades. It is a specially patented thin, polyurethane film that does not scratch.

The invisibleSHIELD case is invisible and invincible - the shield does not scratch and protects your cell phones and MP3 players, digital cameras, etc from getting scratched. It has a “grippy” feel, which even makes it less likely to slip out of your hands or get dropped. There are case designs to fit over 2,000 branded electronics, and if they don’t have exactly what you need they are willing to custom make it for you.

If you are looking for an iphone case you should check out the invisibleSHIELD website and watch the cool online video demo.