The HTC One to Win or Snag

I hope that you'll forgive that this post is long overdue. Between moving in with and getting married to my now husband, the past few months have been chaotic to say the least, now I finally have a chance to share what I have been meaning to for months! On the day before my move, I was invited to hang out with editors from accross the world as we got to try out the HTC One while touring the city on a special HTC Design Tour.

Our tour was curated by the staff at HTC and gave us an inside look into a city that I have lived in for the past seven years. Fortunately for me I saw places that I never would have thought to go. Adventures that I might not have otherwise taken. Design to want to own and new places to make wish lists for all while testing out the HTC One. After the tour, I was a believer that the HTC One was the slickest phone around.

With dual front speakers and sound by Beats by Dr. Dre, the phone offers unparalleled sound. What silly industrial designer decided to put speakers on the back of a phone originally anyways?

In addition, the camera was fully loaded to take burst shots where you could save all or just the best shots, slow-mo video, take pictures from your video footage, snap pictures and video simultaneously and the cherry on top of it all the HTC Zoe.

What is the Zoe? It allows you to take high definition 3 seconds snippets of footage at a time. Sort of a moving snapshot that can be combined with photos and videos at the end of the day for a seamless low effort 60-second music video of your day without any effort at all. For me, I used HTC Zoe to record moments during my honeymoon and share the events of each day in an exciting format with my friends and family on Facebook to which I received many oohs and ahhs. There are 12 exciting and different themes each with their own photo effects and music.

Now taking a note from the gold hardware and accessories that are ever popular with the fashion set, the HTC One is getting a limited edition luxury upgrade to win. From now through January 5th, six lucky tweeters will have the chance to win a very special 24kt gold HTC One! 

Starting, November 25th, HTC will be unveiling a digital billboard in Times Square showcasing beautiful photos taken by visitors to Times Square and people across the U.S. In addition to the thrill of having their images splashed across Times Square, those who submit photos may also be eligible for a chance to win an HTC One each week, and two lucky winners will receive a special edition 24kt gold-plated HTC One valued at more than $2500. For more details click here.

If you're not up for trying your luck at winning, HTC is offering a pretty amazing two-day Black Friday offer for the HTC One with service from Sprint or Verizon. For just $29.99 you can snag your own HTC One on November 29th and November 30th. For those customers that can’t wait or don't want to deal with Black Friday madness, the HTC One with Sprint or Verizon service will be priced at $49.99 starting November 25 through December 7.

It is seriously one of the best phones on the market and I prefer it to my husband's iPhone 5S for both the sound and the camera features. He is a bit jealous of the Zoe abilities in particular! So why wait to check it out!

Back to Basics with Droid Incredible 2

So I think in some ways as I look back on my nearly 5 years in NYC I have become one of those New Yorkers who are always moving, thinking what's next from moment to moment and finally realizing it's a little unhealthy to be constantly frazzled, constantly moving and feeling stressed out by impending deadlines, crushed by my inbox or at times hounded by overly eager PR folks simply trying to pitch story after story. Yes, I need of a vacation. So when the opportunity arose and the lovely folks at HTC invited us for a spa day of relaxation, I couldn't refuse. I took a mini break from my everyday life and decided it was worth it to take a half-day from my day job.

Lani and myself surrounded by some of our favorite Blogger friends had the chance to relax, sip cucumber and have a refreshing lunch of fresh fruit, mini sandwiches and some Mediterranean fare at the Townhouse Spa. We learned about some of the new features of the phone and then got to use demo models to check out some of the unique new features including an 8 megapixel camera and new larger screen size. Since I have inadvertently become somewhat of a tech junkie since starting the blog a few years ago I couldn't wait to take it for an immediate road test. 

HTC since re-designing the Incredible really felt like they were going back to basics and so they thought it would be a great excuse to help some fatigued New York City bloggers a chance to get back to basics while getting manicures, pedicures and mini massages.  Since I enjoyed the HTC Incredible so much last round, I was like a kid in a candy store with the device and immediately ripped open the box to start using it while I was getting a pedicure.  Even while drying my nails I was using features while chatting with Nicole, the woman behind designing the phone about how she got into working in Tech and into designing phones.  Turns out that she worked with phones many many years ago but back when phones were simpler there was not much to design, so she left stopped for quite a few years.  Now that phones have become so much more multi-dimensional she’s really enjoyed putting a woman’s touch to the design and getting feedback from other women what they think about the product.

Initial thought are that the new phone has a larger screen and is slightly wider than the previous model and features a rubberized finish in matte black to help keep a good grip on your phone and prevent fingerprints.  Although it’s slightly larger, the weight feels pretty comparable.  Like it’s predecessor, it’s blazingly fast and super intuitive to use using HTC Sense to help make uploading multiple photo’s to Facebook a snap.  The joystick button has been removed and the phone is entirely touch now, save for the side volume control and the power button.

After geeking out a bit, I got my glam on!  On my toes I tried Liz and Ginger Goin’ back to Cali and on my nails I went for OPI Dutch Tulips with OPI Black Shatter on top.  After a drying break, I snagged a mini massage and I was ready to melt into the chair.  While Lani was getting her make-up done, I called my mom on Skype and caught up with her!  I just logged in using my Skype ID and all my contacts imported in automatically including contacts that I already had saved in Google.  Pretty awesome!

Feeling like a a truly polished lady and with sparkling nails, toes and faces, we left feeling rejuvenated and ready to face the rest of the week.  I forgot what a difference that even a few hours away from the regular can make in a girl’s life.  Thanks HTC for such a fabulous day.  We’ve been putting our demo phones to good use the past couple weeks!

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.8

Kin Phone Review

Sorry for the delay but I wanted to give this phone a fair shake to accurately be able to review the product. Unfortunately just days after I finished sorting through all my thoughts, Microsoft has decided to "kill the Kin" just 6 weeks after it's launch. However, it is still up for sale on the Verizon website should you still be interested.

I've never had a touch screen phone before so it took a little adjusting but the Kin is a great little phone if you don't like complicated. It's really straightforward and easy to use. It's a phone but it's also a great tool for keeping you in touch with your friends and aware of what is going on.

It's interface is super simple to use as you can slide between 3 screens and tap to select or press a button to go back. If I was still a teen I think I would be in love with this phone as it makes social networking a breeze and only took minutes to set up my Windows Live, Twitter and Facebook accounts. Once these accounts were set up they instantly imported contacts to my phone. The Kin also has a visual feed of my friends on the main page, called the Loop, of real time status updates and tweets. I also think the phone has a great feature with being able to send Facebook and Twitter updates not only with ease but simultaneously! It's also super easy to comment on friends Facebook updates by clicking on whatever it is on the feed that intrigues you. Unfortunately replying to Tweets is not so easy and must be done manually. I also wish the phone had a feature to easily Re-Tweet and also remember your friend's Twitter handles.

The design is little and cute with it's rounded edges. It almost looks like a make-up compact! It slides open to reveal a full Qwerty keyboard. Clearly this phone was created for the young as there is a symbols button that takes you to a variety of emoticons ready to put to use but you have to hit next to a 2nd screen before you can find a "$" or "_" which can be mildly annoying if you are writing about sample sales as I often do or typing out a friend's twitter name.

Kin is actually the first cloud phone so it doesn't store data on the phone itself but instantly transports all data onto a website that you can access all your contacts, photos or anything else you might need in the event you forget your phone on a mirrored website called Kin Studio. It's great because you lose your phone you don't lose everything that's on it. It also makes for super speedy photo/video upload capabilities. I've recently tried uploading photos/video via a Droid Phone, and with the Kin there is no waiting but the Droid took some time for multiple photos even when using wifi.

The camera is quite decent for a little phone and it even has a flash! The flash is super useful for taking pictures of friends while you're out but doesn't work very well if you try to use it at a distance for scenery or concert shots.

I personally found that talking on the phone is a little digital sounding but I'm not sure if it's the phone or the Verizon network. I also liked how the phone grouped text conversations and call history. I do also wish there was an easier way to re-dial friends that you've just been talking to like on most phones, instead of having to look them up in your phonebook/favorites.

At first I was shocked that battery life couldn't seem to get me through the day (it would be fine but if I were to go out late at night it would want to die before I got back home) but after turning the brightness of the screen way down it seems to do just fine and I can make it through the day with ease. All phones that are used for features other than just talk/text seem to suffer the same battery life issues. Fortunately, as most recent phone releases this one charges on a USB cord which can come in handy for emergency charging sessions at the office/a friend's house.

A couple of things that bother me about the Kin are the lack of Calender and lack of games. I definitely am one to use my calender all the time as I have a hard time keeping track of events, concerts, parties and hang outs. Apparently since the phone is still relatively new, this was lower on the priority list after surveying people of their most important daily needs. I am not much of a gamer but I love them for waiting on the subway or to kill time when waiting for friends. As a phone that is geared towards young people I would think that this would have been a more important feature that would have been developed.

Checking email on this phone is a breeze and I love that you can effortlessly switch from account to account by just sliding your finger sideways. It's great if you're like me and have multiple email accounts to check back and forth between. I also loved that with a 2 finger tap you can delete multiple emails at once. It really comes in handy if your account becomes bombarded by email advertisements/newsletters that you don't really have time to read as mine often does. The only downfall with the email function I found was not being able view emails that had code/images embedded with ease unless I later returned to them from an actual computer.

In terms of music, this phone features Zune music player but as my current laptop is very old and decrepit (4+years) I wasn't able to properly run Zune without everything on my computer wanting to die, so unfortunately I couldn't test this feature.

I think I would have loved this phone as a teenager or conversely if I was someone who didn't grow up using computers and wanted something simple, straightforward with extras that make it a little bit more than just a phone. However, if you are looking for a smartphone, this is not a smartphone, even if monthly service plans are priced as though it was. Verizon's monthly costs will run you about $70 (thanks @jonfingas), which is the same as a Droid phone which is capable of doing much more. Perhaps pricing/carrier choice may be the larger reason for the phone's failure than the product itself.