Devices I have purchased and used since ordering my Pyra Prototype:
Samsung Galaxy Note II. I was using this one when I made the Pyra order. US Cellular was very good - not cheap, but good.
Samsung Galaxy Note III. In the process I switched to AT&T so I could use GSM devices. The best phablet phone I have owned. AT&T, however, was a nightmare. It took 30 hours of waiting and talking to customer service reps over the course of five days to get four lines activated. It took 5 hours per month on the line with customer service and -6- months of inaccurate billing, all mistakes in AT&T's favor, several of them for over $100, to finally get my first correct bill for my 4 line family plan. The Note III was a relatively easy to repair phone. Over the course of owning four of these, I replaced two microUSB 3.0 ports, one headphone jack and one battery. This was, in my opinion, the best phone Samsung ever built. It was the last of the true tech-nerd oriented Galaxy Note phones. From there they went downhill, trying to chase Apple in a spiral of descent into mediocrity.
Planet Computers Gemini. I used this on AT&T for about 10 months. Then an update to my work's email software caused it to no longer work for work. I was fed up with AT&T and needed new devices for 2 of the family of 4, so it was a good point to switch again.
LG V35 ThinQ. At the time when I switched to Google Fi they still required the purchase of Fi enabled devices. They had a special going where they were offering $300 off of service for buying an $800 phone. I bought 4 for our 4 lines thinking I was going to get $1200 off. Read the fine print folks - apparently somewhere on page 10 of the fine print the offer was only good for one device per purchase. Because I did it all in a single purchase three of the 4 were ineligible for the offer. If I had made 4 credit card transactions to buy each one separate I would have been much better off. Lesson learned. I had all four phones activated and lines moved over and saved data transferred to the new phones inside of 2 evenings at about an hour and a half per phone. The billing has always been exactly as expected - no hidden charges, fees or 'accidental' charges. Google Fi has been the best carrier I have ever used. Since then Google Fi has opened up quite a lot and now allows a bring your own phone policy.
I used the LG V35 ThinQ for about a year and a half. Missed the stylus. Missed the keyboard. I was able to put Google Fi data only SIMs in both my Planet Computers Gemini and my old Galaxy Note 12.2 tablet. Over the three devices I was able to do things with stylus or keyboard or have a waterproof device to carry with me daily. Not an ideal solution, but not so bad. Two of the four LG V35 ThinQ phones now have broken headphone jacks.
Planet Computers Cosmo. When I received this Friday of last week I shut down the LG V35 ThinQ, pulled the SIM from it and loaded the SIM and a 400GB Sandisk card into the Cosmo. It worked - I was able to make calls, send and receive SMS, see the data card - I thought I was off and running. Then I installed a big stack of applications - and found out several hours later that I could no longer send SMS messages. It turned out that the Google Fi app that is used to track data usage over my devices had somehow got in the way of SMS sends. Figuring that out took four hard resets. But, other than that, the device is working well on Google Fi. Hopefully this will be my in-pocket go everywhere device for a few years. I can touch type on the keyboard - barely, but I've gotten used to it on the Gemini - which set me up for using the Cosmo right out of the box. Drawback? It's big, it's heavy. Big enough to print through a front pants pocket. Heavy enough that wearing a belt is mandatory if you're going to carry it in a front pants pocket. But, this thing is awesome. It is a dual display clam shell phone with a touch type keyboard. How awesome is that?
I'm still looking forward to getting my Pyra. I will be putting a Google Fi data SIM in it and using it as a portable connected computer and game console. At least for now, though, my 'phone' based connectivity is well covered by the Cosmo. Hopefully we will all have our Pyras soon.
