Snacking with Adel

I left my iPad at home, I think the first time in a long time that I did. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I did.

I left it and its nice Crumpler bag and Bluetooth keyboard case and stylus and headphones in the house, and frankly, I sorta feel naked and incomplete without them. Just stuffed the bare Nexus in the right front pocket of my jeans and headed on out. I usually bring my reading glasses and put it in the bag, along with the various and sundry little things I needed that day, but now I left them all behind. (I couldn’t bear leaving my reading glasses at home so I brought it instead, parking it on top of my head until I needed them, and left behind the sunglasses normally parked there.)

It barely fits in the front pocket, and juts out a little bit. It’s kinda a little bigger than is comfortable, and I can’t sit as I normally do, I have to slouch back a bit. Had to put my wallet in my back pocket (I normally put it in my right front pocket) and be a potential target for the hordes of pickpockets out there. But it’s workable.

So I’m here in my usual spot in Starbucks with the much debated-upon Nexus 7, leeching off the Personal Hotspot of my iPhone 4 for its internet fix.

I spent the night charging the thing. It took a long time to charge, almost 14 hours. Damn. I think it must have been something to do with the Asus charger that should have come with it. The manual that I downloaded last night warned me to charge it with the included charger, and using others would either take forever or not work at all. The previous owner sent over a charger wall wart that had HTC on it, obviously not the original one, and I think that’d also take as long to charge. Should I ask him about it? Maybe not anymore, it’s just not worth the effort. Serves me right. I shouldn’t really mind, I got it for cheap, and cheap is what I got.

Spent the afternoon and part of the evening yesterday deleting apps and looking for, and downloading, the ones I liked, along with some new ones that I don’t have any experience with, like app launchers and themes. I settled on the Apex Launcher for the meantime, while I get used to the Nexus.

It’s basically the same, yet not. My favorite apps, like Flipboard and Zite, work similarly, but I couldn’t find equivalents for Tweetbot and some other iPad programs I was accustomed to. There were a few that did, but I’d have to pay for them, and since I didn’t have a credit card, was impossible for me to do until I got one.

What irks me most is LogMeIn, which charges around P1200 for the privilege of using it. This morning before I left, I put my torrent app on the iMac as usual, so that when I’m out of the house I’d log in using LogMeIn on the iPad and not have to start it up from there. Except today I don’t have the iPad with me. Imagine that.

It’s kinda off-putting to have to use my iPhone’s Personal Hotspot to access the net with this tablet, knowing that Smart charges me P5 for every 30 minutes I’m on, and I’m watching the clock more than usual. But then again, I’m putting my unused, but charged for anyway, minutes on my exorbitantly overcharged (now, anyway) Smart subscription plan. So I guess it’s OK.

I’m typing this post on the Nexus onscreen keyboard now using the WordPress app (no Blogsy on this baby), and I’m slowly getting used to it. I was typing in portrait mode earlier, using my thumbs to type, but that got old really fast and I ended up in landscape mode, setting the Nexus flat on the table and typing like I normally do. It’s OK, if only I can hit the space bar more accurately; I keep missing the damn thing and end up with run-on words.

I don’t know yet if I’m going to get a case/stand for this thing, or a specific bluetooth keyboard. A case will make it bigger and most likely difficult to put in a jeans pocket, and that was the whole point of my getting one. Using this with the ability to just grasp it in one hand will be more difficult, as is the case with my Kindle Paperwhite. And I can’t imagine a scenario where I’d prop it up on the desk with a stand and surf from there; with a tablet this small it’s kinda hokey, same as typing on a physical keyboard too.

Oh well. First day blues.

I’m just glad to have it.