If you're looking into getting a new phone, you have 2 options as far as I'm concerned.

    As you can see from the title, I only have two things in mind. I'm gonna start by saying the reason I am recommending these two is mainly because of price. These two phones show you that there is absolutely no reason to be spending $700 off contract, or even $200 on contract. I mean those big phones still offer a lot of differentiating factors to make them worth while, but nothing that you absolutely need. They will complete all the basic tasks great, and still act as a phone, which is the point of these damn things in the first place.

     First, the Nexus 5. If I didn't make it clear enough in the write up about it, this is a must have phone. Sure the battery life is so-so, and the camera may not be as excellent to all out there. You get a super fast processor, beautiful screen, and a thin body with good build quality. So when you sit back and look at the off contract price of $350 you just have to stop for a second and think about whether or not that $150 you'd save to get the S4 on-contract is worth the 2 year commitment. I don't think it is, but I'm partial to non-contract everything. 

     

     Next up is the Moto X. Now this phone doesn't offer quite the same appeal as the Nexus 5. What I mean by that is that it doesn't offer the monster specs. It has a 4.7" 720p display, dual-core processor, and 2 gigs ram. That doesn't mean it can't perform, almost every review out there says this is a very good phone as far a user experience goes. Tomorrow Motorola is doing a deal where you can snag this thing for $350 off contract. That's right, this will be the same price as the Nexus 5, and to be honest I would have probably gone with it if I had the option to switch them out. This deal is for all versions of the phone, for every carrier. Also you can get the motomaker one if you want, which of course, who wouldn't. That is, after all, one of the biggest upsides to this phone. The massive amounts of customization with the back and front colors, accent colors, engraving, and more. Plus if you want to save even more coin, every carrier has this for $99 or less with a two year contract. There are plenty of other options out there for phones, and they each offer something excellent to them. These two are just at the top of my personal wish list. One down, one to go.

Droid-Life is my favorite thing in the world.

     I know it doesn't make much sense to tell you to go read another site about phones when that's what I want people to do here (although I'm terrible at it so far). I recommend anyone who wants to read about the latest in phone tech go to this here site. It's amazing. They do exactly what I would kill to do, sit in their man cave all day writing about cell phones, tablets, manufacturers, and carriers. They do reviews of the hottest new phones out, keep you up to date on cool apps that come out, and much more. One thing they do though that I love is " The Droid Life Show". It's nothing to crazy, just a couple of guys talking about all of this, and a lot of insight of what they think is good and bad. I have seen almost every one of them so far. There is 4 main people on the show/site. The owner Kellen, second in command Tim, and then 2 contributors Ron and Eric. They each have a different way of expressing whats good and bad. Just do yourself a favor and go check it out if you haven't already.

Droid_Life

Is the Nexus 5 the Best Phone Ever, Almost.

 

     So what do I think about the Nexus 5, well let me just start by saying that so far I've said every phone that I had owned at the time was the "best phone I have owned so far". These being the Droid X, Galaxy Nexus, and Galaxy Note II. I have owned a dramatic amount more phones than these, but these are the ones that actually lasted in my hands for more than a month. I'm going to refrain from doing this in any sort of review styling, and just stick to writing down all the reasons I love this phone, and the very few reasons I don't.
    Where to begin, there is just so much to say. First off, this phone feels amazing in hand. Even though the body is plastic, there is a very solid frame underneath. What I mean by that is that there is no flex to the body, if you don't know what I mean grab a hold of a Galaxy S3 and just press in on the back of the phone. You will feel the whole phone kind of just flex under the pressure (obviously don't press to hard or you'll break something), you won't get that kind of feeling from this phone. And to add to the excellent build quality is the soft touch back, making it feel smooth in hand, but not slippery. It is also crazy light, normal phones with 5 inch screens have some good weight to them, but this stays on the side of not noticing it when it's in your pocket. But aside from the body of the phone, let's talk hardware.
    1080p screens are by no means uncommon anymore in the cell phone world, almost all flagship phones nowadays have one. But don't let that take anything away from this beauty. Seeing as it has a ppi of 441 (110 more than the iPhone's retina display) every last line of text or edge of an picture is incredibly crisp. Without having a microscope you'll never be able to pick out a pixel on the screen. This is an IPS-LCD screen, just like the iPhone, which means great color representation, good outdoor visibility, and low power consumption. However if you put this display next an AMOLED from samsung, or even another IPS screen like the one on the G2, you'll see that it appears to be a little washed out. Personally I'm not a huge fan of the super punchy colors of the AMOLED, so this screen feels right at home for me.
    Next is that Snapdragon 800 processor and 2 gigs of ram. Man does this thing move along. I mean I don't do to many things that would be considered intensive, but whenever I have tried to trip this thing up I've failed miserably. Basic web browsing, YouTube, ifunny, and any other small time apps don't stand a chance. Super smooth and quick loading screens, I loaded up Asphalt 8 just to see how quick it would load, and it only took about 5 seconds from the time I clicked on the app for it to be ready to play. On my Note II, which was no slouch with it's own quad-core, took between 10-15 seconds. The obvious of moving between screens and accessing Google Now shows not a single stutter or jump, something android has dealt with for years. This phone offers the closest thing to an iPhone experience, in terms of fluidity of course, of any android phone out there.
    This here is something I disagree with almost all reviews out there, the camera. I love the camera on this phone here. Now keep in mind I don't take many pictures or videos at all, but I do I have a certain level of expectations. Such as how quick it focus's, no blur or background noise, and color representation after the picture is taken. This phone has knocked it out the park for those. I use the HDR+ mode that comes on the 5 pretty much exclusively and even my wife agrees that it takes better pictures sometimes than her LG G2. Also note that the G2 is hailed as one of the best android camera phones so far, but all major reviewers, so I'd say the N5 does fairly well here. But that's just me.
    Just a quick one here, connectivity seems to be great. I don't ever drop signal, WiFi hold on fairly well, and the data speeds seem to be the same as my wife's G2. Speaking of WiFi, where I work (BestBuy) there is only one WiFi network, crazy right? And this one WiFi network host every device in the store, like all the display units. Well all the employee's complain about this because they can't get their phone to hold a connection to it, but ever since the first day I started there I have had it saved to my phone and it connects as soon as I walk in the door. This is very uncommon for everyone there, and these are all great new phones, like the Galaxy Note 3, Galaxy S4, HTC One, and such. Just a little perk that I would have other wise never checked on, the WiFi holds a good connection here.
    Software. Now this goes for all android phones, as I'm just a fiend for android, but I feel this offers one of the best software experiences out there. The main reason I say that is because it is very very very simplistic, which I love. All these new phones try to differentiate themselves through all these crazy features that sound great, but you never really end up using. This phone seems to do the exact opposite. It offers everything you'd expect from the a smartphone nowadays, and that's it. If you want all those these silly things, you can find them in the Play Store, but it's not sitting on your phone taking up space with no option to fully delete them. Last thing I'll say, every phone I've had so far I have had this dying urge to root and rom it to get some sort of experience I was searching for. Add some features, take away some, make it smoother, make it faster, something. This is the first phone I have completely forgot about it, it just doesn't need anything more than what it gives you, at least not yet.
    Despite all that has been said to this point, the price is definitely what will garner the most attention. You can get the 16 gig version for only $350 in black or white. I'll let that sink in for just a second. $350 for an off contract phone of this caliber is unheard of. Some on contract phones try to claim this kind of cash with the signature on a 2 year contract. So if you don't want to be locked in, or just want to save you're upgrade for something in the future, this is the way to go. You simply won't find anything like it.
    Now this is the only thing I have to say negatively about this phone, and I'm sure you've heard it before. Battery. Yes, the battery isn't that great on this phone. I can make it get through a full day on a single charge, but that's because I go about 8 hours a day (at work) where I don't even turn the screen on. On my days off, such as today, I had the battery at less than 50% before noon. This big beautiful screen, and crazy fast processor just tear through it, especially when I get into one of my Hill Climb Racing marathons. I kind of expected this going in, so I can't say I'm disappointed. It's just for being such a power house, you would expect to be able to squeeze out at least another 2-3 hours on it, but hey, even Michael Jordan missed a shot every now and again.
    So is the Nexus 5 the best phone ever? Not quite, but it's the closest thing I've ever seen to it. The pro's definitely out way the cons in every imaginable way. If you're not on Verizon, or in a position to leave Verizon, I would recommend it in a heartbeat. Especially when you consider the starting price point of $350 for the 16 gig version unlocked, you just don't get any better.

Day full of laziness.

    Today was my day off this week, and I took full advantage of it. I'm a home body, there's no way of getting around it. Whenever I have some free time, I prefer to stay inside either on my computer, Xbox, or just cuddled up on the couch with my lovely wife. I just never get sick of it. So today went like most other free days, I spent hours on the laptop reading about phones, tablets, doing some internet trainings for my job, and watching Scrubs. I'd say it went pretty well. Around 4 o'clock my wife and I decided to go for a 40 minute walk around town just to get out of the house, her idea. Now that we are done with that, I plan to type up all of my impressions of the Nexus 5. I know it may be a little late now, seeing as I said I would do it about a week ago, but I just haven't quite got the hang of this blogging stuff, at least not enough to remember to do it consistently. I am also going to do a post of the best possible options of phones to get this holiday season, or at least what I think are the best.

Pretty great Humble Bundle sale right now.

    Just wanted to make everyone aware, Humble Bundle is doing a pretty good PC game sale. Right now you can get Batman: Arkham Asylum GOTY edition, F.E.A.R 2 and 3, Lord of the Rings: War of the north, Batman: Arkham City GOTY edition, and Scribblenauts Unlimited for a great price. If you don't know how humble bundle works let me tell you. It's a charity based site that lets you pick the price you'd like to pay and gives you something in return, this time being a few PC games. And I mean you pick the price, if you only want to give a penny you can and still get the first 4 games listed, if you want the last 2 that are listed there you have to pay more than the average amount people are giving at any given time. Right now it's at $4.63. Not a bad deal to get 6 big name games for around 5 bucks. Another great feature is that you get to choose where the money you give goes to. You can pick to give it all to the Humble Bundle crew, or maybe split it evenly amongst HB, charity, and the developers who made the games, whatever you want. This sale here lasts for another 11 days, but keep in mind the average keeps climbing as time goes on, so if you want the best deal for all 5, jump on it quick. Also this big deal here changes every 14 days, but they also have a weekly sale, they sometimes do movies, shows, comedians, android and iOS games, etc. So bookmark that page and keep checking in, even if you don't go big and give tons of money, it's still goes to a great place and you get something great out of it.

Humble Bundle

T-Mobile sims, Asphalt 8, and more....

    Just a heads up to any one out there looking for a few cool deals, here's a few that I think are worth a look over. For starters, T-Mobile is selling it's SIM starter kits for $0.99 online. This is great considering they normally go for 10-15 dollars, and this also comes with free shipping. Even if you don't have T-mobile for service this is something to look into for a few reasons. First, if you have any tablet that supports mobile networks, T-Mobile now offers free data on all tablets. Now this is only for 200 mb a month, I know it's not a lot, but it's free. Second, T-Mobile offers a really awesome prepaid plan that's super cheap. $30 will bag you 100 minutes, unlimited text, and unlimited data with 5 gb's of 4G speeds. Now if you are just some one who wants to test out their coverage, or really want to save some cash but not willing to make the switch now, pick up one or two of these sims now and through them in a drawer to activate at a later date.
     Next little deal isn't really much of a deal, just a heads up. Asphalt 8: Airborne is now free in the Google Play Store. It was only $.99 before, so it wasn't to super expensive then, but still I would have recommended it as a steal at that point, but free?!?! No reason not to grab it now. Keep in mind it is a rather large file, about 1.5 gigs. So if you have a phone with no expandable storage, or even just a minimal amount, keep an eye on watch you will need. The game play is very smooth, the graphics are really really nice, and any phone with at least a dual-core will handle it fine. There are tons of awesome cars, like corvettes and Lamborghini's, and a large amount of upgrades to spend time working towards. If you like to waste some time with mobile games, this is on to take a look at.
    Lastly is a little app called Google Opinion Rewards. This is a new app from Google that came out today and is pretty straight forward. Take a survey that Google offers to you, and get Play Stores credit in return. It's a pretty simple app and they say that you'll only get a survey about once a week, so don't expect to be racking in the credit anytime soon. The surveys are between 6-10 questions, and should only take a few minutes to complete. So for about 5 minutes of your time a week, you'll get a little spending money. Keep in mind that this credit is not just for games, you can use it towards anything in the Google Play Store. Including any apps and games, music, movies, magazines, and books. Not to shabby if you ask me. Take a look over these few things and see if you want any of it, I'll put the links for each at the bottom.

Asphalt 8: Airborne
Google Opinion Rewards

I'm way more excited then I should be.

     It's here, it's finally here. I'm way too excited for something most people don't care much about. To be fair to myself though, I get this excited every time I know I'm going to be getting a new phone, let alone one from a line of smartphones I've been staring at since I got into the whole technology stuff. The Google Nexus 5, made by LG. Talk about a steal of a smartphone. For $350 for the 16 gig option you get top shelf specs, give or take 1 or 2 things. There's a 5" 1080p IPS display, quad-core snapdragon 800 clocked at 2.26 ghz, 2 gig of ram, 16 or 32 giga-bytes of storage, and 8 mp camera with OIS, 2300 mah battery, all in a rather smooth package. The only things to be slightly concerned over are the relatively small battery, and 8 mp camera. I say slightly because those or both things that great depend on how the user uses their smartphone.
     My first impressions of this thing are great. For starters it's a Nexus, which means it is very developer friendly. Within 10 minutes I had the bootloader unlocked, rooted, and a custom recovery loaded up. This is not really all that necessary for me, since the only reason I rooted in the past was to get a stock experience, and this phone here runs pure, unaltered, stock android. But in the future it'll come in handy, flashing new roms always keeps the phone feeling fresh, makes it seem new again. Either way, the experience you get right out the box is amazing. The pure speed is incredible, no lag, no stutters, and everything launches in a second, including intensive games such as Asphalt 8 (which is free by the way). I am not to sure who is more the cause of this, stock android, or that processor.
    I'm not much of a shutter bug, but the camera does enough for me. Pictures are sharp, colors are relatively accurate, and the shutter speed is manageable. I would like it if it was a little bit quicker, but that's entirely software related, so who knows maybe it'll come later with an update. Also, I clearly haven't had it long enough to test any sort of battery life. I'm not to worried about it though, most of what I do is internet browsing, and checking sports scores. If I ever do play games extensively, I'm usually at home or around a charger of some sorts anyway.
     Lastly is size. I've come from all big phones lately, so it's not that big of a deal to me. Example being my last to phones were the LG G2, and the massive Samsung Galaxy Note II. Needless to say this is a breathe of fresh air as far as size goes. Probably the closest in size to this phone is the Galaxy S4 or S3. If you've ever dealt with one of those then you'd be right at home with this. And if you come from an iPhone or something small like that, it is definitely worth it to make yourself accustomed with something a little larger. I'm not saying that because of my personal love for android, but all phones are moving to the 5" range. Not just android either, the iPhone rumor mill is starting to say that the next phone will be in the 4.5"-5" range.
    Like I've said a thousand times, I want to be a reviewer. With that, I will write up a review of this and do my best to do everything I can to put it through it's paces. I don't work till Saturday, so expect it to come right around then. I can tell you right now though, I would recommend this phone to any one and their mother. I'm already in love with it.