Phones, as explained to my Dad (motorcycle enthusiast)

rhodeskc:

Hi Dad,
Coralee told me you were looking for a smart phone. Here’s my assessment of the 4 major players:

Blackberry - It’s like owning a Hyosung. Inherent design flaws, cheap, and designed to be thrown away. Friends don’t let friends ride a Hyosung.

Android - It’s like owning a secondhand, restored CB500. It seems like a good idea at the time. It’s cheap. You get lots of stuff for cheap, and in general it works reasonably well. But you quickly learn that it’s outdated, it’s near impossible to upgrade or fix without doing some incredibly hacky stuff, and the inherent niggles that you didn’t know at the time only show themselves AFTER purchase, and there’s nothing you can do about it. (Android phones typically do not see a security update once they leave the factory.)

Windows phone (the new 7.5 Mango ones) - Like having a Triumph Triple (various engine capacities apply here too) with a service plan. It’s a wonderful piece of technology that will work great, gets good reviews, you’ll love it and it is as fun to use as it is utilitarian, but every time you need a service you’ll probably be waiting on replacement parts for a while. It’ll still function just fine without it, but there’s that lengthy delay. The end result is a good quality working bike though. There’s plenty of farkles out there, but not a HUGE amount.

iPhone - Like owning a Honda CBR series bike. You get one because your friends have one, everyone knows what it is, and because it puts a smile on your face every time you swing a leg over it. The Crème de la Crème of motorcycles. Generally a close call between this and the top tier competitors. Quickly gets outdated by the next latest and greatest model. Farkles galore that all cost money, high availability of parts, if you have an issue with it there’s shitloads of information on the web already, but designed to consume-consume-consume - that is, sucks gas like crazy and the real hit to the pocketbook is not the initial purchase, but the ongoing costs of servicing, tires and parts