Last week I downloaded the Yelp and Path apps on my phone, which let you “check in” to places much like the Foursquare and Facebook apps that I already use. It’s overwhelming. I think I need to delete them. I really ought to spend less time “checking in” with my phone, and more time “checking out” the actual real-life places I visit.

Normally I wouldn’t break the grammar rules by alternating between spelled-out numbers (“two”) and numerals (“2”) in the same title, but these are the actual trademarks, so I have no choice.

I upgraded my smartphone. Literally upgraded, because I simply went from the HTC Droid Incredible to the HTC Droid Incredible 2. I loved my Incredible, but I decided it was imprudent to delay upgrading, especially considering that I could get the newer version of the same phone for only a penny. The Incredible 2 added a larger screen, front-facing camera, newer versions of Android and HTC Sense, and far superior battery life.

Oh, and the coolest part, even if I never use it? It’s a global phone, so it can roam anywhere in the world. I can even unlock the SIM card and use it on AT&T or T-Mobile here in the USA, although I have no idea why I’d want to do that.

I got sick of my Droid Eris draining its battery and lagging all the time, so I upgraded early (via Craig’s List) to a Droid Incredible. It’s likely to have similar problems eventually since it’s also made by HTC, but it starts out with a faster processor, a newer version of Android, and a lot more storage space, so it should take longer to become obnoxious. My favorite feature of my “new” phone is that the camera has a flash; that should help make it a little more useful as a camera.

I thought about getting a non-HTC Android phone instead, but I honestly can’t get away from HTC’s enhancements for Android. Their mail client alone is worth dealing with their crummy phone book. And they really have made great strides from Android 2.1 to 2.2, an upgrade which the Eris would never receive.

This will at least tide me over until August, when I’m up for a real upgrade, and there should be a slew of 4G/LTE phones available.

I would just like to take a moment to point out that I have a cute dog. I have a cute dog. I’ve noticed that most of the photos I’ve taken on my phone camera are of my dog, including this one. I can’t help it: she always seems to be posing.

As a registered Starbucks cardholder, I received a birthday coupon for a free drink of my choice. Now I’m sitting in the Starbucks on the east side of the Orange Circle, where I can easily judge the suckers who chose the Starbucks on the west side of the Circle. Those fools! Their Starbucks may be open later, but it’s not in a historic building.

Using my phone to type this post, I’m reminded of an Android app that I’d like to see: an app that automatically logs me into WiFi hotspots with web-based authentication, like Starbucks or Coffee Bean. It’s annoying to have to launch the web browser to log in and use the WiFi. Then again, unless I’m doing something particularly intense like watching YouTube videos, the 3G is fast enough.

So anyway, I got a white mocha.

Ash and I were both eligible for phone upgrades as of December 24, so we went out that morning and used our “New Every Two” credit to get two free (after rebate) Droid Eris phones.

The phones take a little getting used to since we’ve never had smart phones before. For instance, it automatically downloaded all my gmail contacts into my phone book, and I had to figure out how to stop that from happening. So there’s a learning curve. But it’s nice to finally have a device that I think is every bit as useful as the iPhone, yet on the Verizon Wireless network so it can make phone calls inside Friday’s at the Block, or at Rainforest Cafe, or at any other place where we’ve seen the iPhone fail at being a phone.

Today I picked up my new Jhane Barnes glasses at the optometrist, and I received my new phone in the mail. It’s an enV2 from LG, which is similar to the enV but smaller. I like it so far. My big complaints about the enV (which I had for a hot second) were the small keys on the front of the phone and the big overall size. This phone’s smaller, but with larger keys, so I’m pleased now.

On Saturday I was eligible for my “New Every Two” discount from Verizon Wireless, so yesterday I went to the Verizon store and upgraded to the new LG Chocolate. It’s a sleek, black phone that looks way more like an iPod than a phone, obviously because they’re trying to encourage people to listen to music on their phones. It slides open to reveal a keypad when you want to use it as a phone, and the rest of the time it’s really small and thin.

Verizon didn’t have the cable yet to transfer my phone book from my old phone, but with a USB cable and BitPim (set for the VX8300, which is pretty much compatible), I was able to transfer my phone book as well as all my photos. BitPim also let me create a custom ringtone out of an MP3 of “Such Great Heights,” so that was pretty awesome.

Verizon uses Windows Media Player 10 to sync music to the phone. It only comes with a tiny 60MB of memory, just enough for about an hour of music, so I put the Postal Service’s Give Up on there, and I might get a microSD card later to store more music.

I waited over an hour (literally sixty-three minutes) on hold to talk to Samsung’s Level Two Tech Support. When I explained the software bug in the web browser on my Samsung a670, they informed me that they don’t have a working a670 in the office, so they can’t test it.

Remind me not to buy Samsung stock.

Anyway, I explained my complaint: The manual says to hold down the “CLR” button to return to the browser home page, but when I hold down the “CLR” button, it does nothing at all. After talking with his supervisor, the tech support guy told me, “it’s a misprint.”

Remind me not to buy Samsung phones.

So there’s this phone called the Motorola T193m.

According to Motorola, the phone is available with both T-Mobile (formerly VoiceStream) and Cingular, it’s relatively small and lightweight, and it has GPRS for high-speed internet access.

Unfortunately, T-Mobile doesn’t list the phone on their site at all (although the original VoiceStream site does), and Cingular offers the phone but won’t let me choose any internet options for it. Other sites like GetConnected and Point.com offer the phone (for free, after rebate), but they don’t offer the internet options either.

Meanwhile, Motorola claims that the phone is 3.3 inches tall, while the other sites say it’s 4.7 or 4.1 inches tall. Judging from the ratio of its height to its width (because they all agree that it’s either 1.7 or 1.8 inches wide), I’d say it’s about 4.3 inches tall. But I think the only way to know would be to see it in person.

And of course, the only way to actually purchase the phone and internet service for it at the same time would be to go to a store and do it in person, since the web sites either a) don’t offer the phone, or b) don’t offer the internet service.

So although all of these companies have gone to a lot of trouble to make it possible to purchase a wireless phone and service over the web, I still need to make a trip to the store if I decide to get a new wireless phone. Arrgh!