Vapor Life

Vapor life... My life as it is, as it should be. *********************************************************************************************************** Life is something that happens when you can't get to sleep. Fran Lebowitz (1950 - )

Monday, January 30, 2006

Why Ampd mobile isnt for everyone...

“Watch for this company, Amp’d” my cell phone insider friend said…. This was a year ago. I was pretty sure by his tone that he thought Amp’d would make a big splash.

So as the news came out, and the products started to roll out I was watching with as much interest as anyone. I have to hand it to them, it seems like genius incarnate. I mean getting the Verizon’s EVDO network, beautiful. Taking aim at the young and hip with a slick marketing campaign, double genius. Promising crazy downloadable content while alluding to the coolest phones… I was in love.

But when it rolled out, I met their offer with a resounding … Eh!

Here is the way I see it there are two kinds of cell phone junkies… hardware junkies and content junkies.

I am the former, and when I heard “cool phones” I expected the mega-pixel muscle you would expect overseas and their VGA camera equipped slider phones just don’t do it for me. Where is my FM radio with RDS? GPS? Garage door opener? Cute jet for black phone angel for white phone theme though guys. Sure they have a 1.3 mp flip coming out soon but come on for all the hype I wanted the “coolest phones” I was promised even this seems anemic. Like I said… Eh.

But holy content batman! Everyone knows selling music downloads at .99 cents or a loss of .26 cents a song could lead to trouble. Who do they think they are itunes? Of course not the have to make it up somewhere, where would that be.. oh there it is! Costly data plans. Today on their site they are giving seemingly affordable 18 months (?) contracts but the data is only 3 months free and then what? Not very clear on the site. Want an unlimited data plan, sure just fork over almost 200 value meal items a month, ouch. In there defense they do seem to stream more stuff the new river after the spring melt.

Standing on the precipice of cell phone greatness Amp’d, if your going to slay the goliath(s), you are going to need a better rock…even if the one you have rocks .99 downloads.

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