'Dare' to Be Different

Despite my sometime status as a "prominent gay blogger," make no mistake when I say that I'm an extremely low-tech kind of guy. I can't Twitter to save my life (huh?), and I only got my first cell phone two years ago. When it died earlier this year, I went to the Verizon shop and insisted that they give me the crappiest model possible as the mere thought of one that was more complex than what I had gotten used to was more than I could bear. All of that, however, was B.R.B. -- Before Robert Buckley. So distraught was I that Michael and I only had a cell-phone camera on us when we ran into the "Lipstick Jungle" hunk last week in a restaurant -- and determined not to carry multiple devices with me everywhere I go -- I decided to spend my weekend looking for a new camera phone that could make me proud. With my trusty iPhone-loving pal Jean in tow -- but with an AT&T-supported device out of the question since Verizon is my carrier of choice (it's by far the best service here in Manhattan, and the only one that works in every room of my apartment) -- off we went to Union Square in search of the next best thing. I won't bore you with the details of how I was (at first) NOT ALLOWED to give these freaks my money for a new handset (and pay for more services) because I had already "upgraded" by getting a phone that works to replace my dead one, in the end we worked things out and then came to the conclusion that the only way to get a really strong camera on a phone was to go for an all-around media-friendly device. I wound up with the snazzy-looking LG Dare and while I'm only just now finishing my first weekend with it, the jury is definitely still out. As I said, the camera was the key (I'm still scarred by the Dylan McDermott incident of '06), so with a 3.2MP model (compared with the iPhone's 2.0MP) with face recognition, auto-focus and flash, plus photo and video editing software, the Dare seemed like a shoo-in. The test shot in the store (up top) was impressive (this thing's like a REAL camera, with a USB cord and memory chip!), but by the time I tried using it in a restaurant on Saturday night (sans perfect lighting), it really didn't seem much better than my crappy Samsung flip phone I had just gotten rid of (that was free to begin with).

All the other bells and whistles -- high speed Web access, full multimedia support, a 3-inch touchscreen with handwriting recognition (!!!) -- really seem unnecessary for me. I have no desire to stop using my iPod and listen to music on my phone (wouldn't want to do it on an iPhone either -- it would only serve to piss me off that I'd already spent hundreds on an iPod)). I still use a paper calendar that I write important dates on. And I'm usually not far from my home or office computer long enough to warrant checking my e-mail remotely> So I'm starting to second-guess my decision.

I just found this review of the phone (above) and learned some promising new things (including the fact that the phone has a "smart pix" feature that I just used nicely on Larry, below). So I'm hoping between this and spending some more time with the trusty instruction manual, I will decide I haven't just flushed money down the toilet.

Would love to hear from anyone else who has one to see what your feelings are.