Please tell me it's worth the cost to get a smartphone!

[ny biker]

Just an update -- I'm soooooo glad I got this phone. I love being able to check google maps when I'm out on a ride, or check the weather radar map when I'm way out in Paeonian Springs and it looks like it's about to pour down rain.

I like the camera and camcorder. The photo quality is good and it's very easy to upload photos directly to facebook, picasa, or flickr, although the transfer is a bit slow and for photos above a certain size you need a wifi connection because it won't go over the 3g network.

Yesterday my car stereo died -- naturally these things happen at the start of a holiday weekend. I need music when I drive, so I just transferred a bunch of songs from my pc to the phone's sd card so I can play them in the car. Of course the sound quality won't be nearly as good as a real stereo, but it beats listening to the car engine for hours.

Also, I found a great word game that's kinda sorta like scrabble without the scrabble board. It's addictive.

I'm still playing with some of the voice-activated stuff. There's a voice search -- you say what you're looking for and you get a google page with whatever you just said. I tried the voice dialer but it didn't work well -- need to try that again. Also need to test the voice-to-text.

I do think it's hard to see the screen when you're outside in bright sun, but this is not nearly enough of a downside to make me regret getting the phone. It's such a great tool. I love this thing.

BTW I did download a Formula 1 engine for my ringtone. It's hilarious.

[OakLeaf]

Have you been able to play music in your car?

I can't do it with my brand new Droid Incredible and DH can't do it with his iPhone. He explained it to me just a little bit ago - the jack in a phone, unlike the jack in an iPod, is for a combined microphone/headphone, so it takes a different plug from the stereo cable that you can easily find in male-to-male. Cables are apparently available but kind of expensive. I suppose we could fabricate one pretty easily with parts from Radio Shack.

Loving the Incredible so far, after four days, but it's way too big to run with and borderline for cycling. I'm thinking I'll put my old phone on a pre-paid plan, if that's possible, for running - although it is nice having access to weather radar on the bike.

[ny biker]

I haven't tried to use it through the car stereo. But I can take the earphones from my mp3 player and plug it into the phone and listen to music through them. Isn't that the same kind of plug?

[ny biker]

I would just like to say that technology is so cool.

My new favorite album (Foo Fighters Wasting Light) goes on sale in 2 days. They made it available early to listen to for free on their website, but it's not possible to download it yet for storage on a hard drive or memory card.

So today I fired up the browser on my Droid Incredible, went to their website and pressed the "play" icon. Then I started up the car, turned on the stereo, plugged the phone's power cord into the outlet inside the car console, plugged the phone's earphone jack into the Aux-in port inside the console, and cranked the volume. I was listening to music from the internet in real time through the car stereo speakers while driving around northern Virginia. Awesome.

(BTW I'm able to use a standard male-male plug from the phone earphone jack into the aux port. I got it cheap at Target.)

[Aggie_Ama]

I am ridiculously addicted to my Blackberry Torch. Never understood the obsession with the smart phones with internet. Now my email box is cleaner, I can check the weather on the fly and I get directions if I am without my Garmin. Plus I gave into Facebook when my closest of friends got lazy with email but will check Facebook daily, I love how easy it is to use. I really hate how much I like my Smartphone.