I Bought the Apple Watch Series 8!

I was supposed to wait a while before purchasing an Apple Watch, and it was supposed to be a Series 7, but I saw that Amazon was having a sale, specifically the Amazon Prime Early Access sale that occurred on 11-12 October.  I wasn't even aware of the sale until 12 October at maybe 9 PM.

I ended up purchasing a Series 8 45mm GPS model in silver aluminum, for $379.  That price was good enough to where I decided not to pass it up.  I didn't want the steel version, as there's no way I'm going to spend $700 on ANY smartwatch, which also left out the Ultra.  NO SMARTWATCH IS WORTH THAT MUCH.

I ended up ordering it the day before I went on vacation to New England.  It's already been delivered at my home and it's awaiting me to open it.

Yes, I deviated from my plan of purchasing the Series 7, but that watch would've been refurbished if I'd chosen to buy it from Apple.  I'd thought to buy the Series 7 through Amazon, but didn't want to worry about Apple not offering support with refurbished Series 7s and didn't know if I could find new Series 7s on Amazon.

I really didn't want to worry about support (if the watch ever had an issue) and wanted the max support duration possible, so Series 8 was the best choice.  I'm also tired of always getting older tech equipment, so this time I bought something that's been recently released.

I'll eventually be buying a watchband for this watch.

The Fitbit Sense will be used at night only (it has good sleep tracking) and maybe for workouts (it has great workout detection and tracking - probably much better than the Series 8).

I'll document my experiences with this watch on this blog.

Fitbit - Replacement on the Way; Fitbit Support is Iffy

I've been without a functional Fitbit Sense since mid-July.  It is currently the end of September.  I'm only now getting a replacement.

I paid a good deal of money for this smart watch.  No, it's not an Apple Watch or Garmin product, but damn...since when is $200+ not a decent chunk of change?  I think most folks have lost their money sense nowadays.

If I'm paying that much for a product, I expect it to last more than 8 months.  I didn't get through 365 days before the watch stopped functioning.

The replacement watch will be at my door next week (Oct 5).  That's very close to 3 months wait time.  Granted, I didn't immediately escalate the issue to Fitbit, as I kept troubleshooting the issue, because I kept seeing Fitbit support posts making recommendations and I kept trying different solutions (none of them worked).

Fitbit support was extremely slow in all parts of the return process, almost as if they were reluctant to address the issue and were intentionally slowing the pace of things.  Even after they had received my watch (they wanted me to return it to them, and I did), they held onto it for close to two weeks before notifying me that they've initiated the replacement process.  I don't understand why it would take that long to assess a replacement for a watch that is locked to the bootup screen.  What part of this process would warrant two weeks of process time?  Yeah, we're still experiencing the negative affects of COVID-19 - I get that, but damn...

I'm very tempted to sell the replacement watch.  I no longer want it...what's to prevent the replacement from exhibiting the same issue?  I'm dreading trying to sell this thing, though - it's going to be a pain in the ass and I'll end up losing money in the process, since the Sense 2 was recently released.

I'm soooo tired of buying smart watches that aren't dependable.  I'll probably keep the Sense but only buy top-end smart watches from now on.  I know for a fact that Apple wouldn't have taken almost 3 months to replace a broken Apple Watch.  Even Samsung has better support than that (but that's not saying I'll buy another Samsung watch, either).

Edged Up...Also Got the Note 3!

So, my daughter's 13th birthday was yesterday.  The wife and I got her an iPhone 5S (which is what she wanted).  While we were at the Verizon store, I was told that I was eligible for the Edge program (I will not explain Edge here...most Vz customers will know what Edge is).  I was curious, as I'm tired of always being locked to a phone for 2 years, so I had the Vz shop explain everything to me.  I believe the Edge program would benefit people who like to upgrade ahead of 2 years.  So, I went home and did some thinking.  I'm aware that the Note 4 will eventually be out...I always miss these releases.  I almost decided to wait until my contract with my Note 2 ended (that wouldn't have been a bad idea, either).  I did some research online and it was very difficult for me to decide which phone I'd like to upgrade to, because the Note 2 is THAT good...seriously.

There were two other phones that caught my eye that I could get through Verizon:  The HTC One Max and the LG G2.  The thing I didn't like about the Max was that it is just a big HTC One M8.  It is also extremely large at 5.9" in display area...that might've been too much for me.  Those cons weren't the kickers, though.  The kicker was that the back camera was 4MP (really???)  And a phone that big (I hate the word phablet, so I won't be using that term) needs a stylus.  The LG G2 looks like it would've held my interest...it has LOTS of features and the phone appears to be more responsive than the Galaxy S4 (probably due to Samsung's Touchwiz bloat).  The Note 3 is better than both of them, although I was willing to compromise (but only to an extent).

I ended up getting the Note 3.  I might've been happy enough with the HTC One Max, but I would not have been happy with that camera.  I came close to getting the G2, though.  What lured me toward the Note 3 was the fact that I was already familiar with the Note 2, which would help me when using the Note 3.  Also, the phone on the Note 3 is spectacular and has slow-motion (120fps) capture and 1080p 60fps capture as well.  The charging/syncing port is different, too (using USB 3.0 now and has a funky new port that can still use a regular micro-USB cable to sync).

I got the black version and got an Otter Defender case (will have to sell the Note 2 Otter Commuter case that I have).  I sorely missed the belt clip, which the Commuter case doesn't use, but I could never find a Defender case for my Note 2 in local shops.  One thing I don't like about the Defender is that built-in screen protector...my stylus doesn't like it at all, so I've been using my finger when texting.  I was tempted to cut out the plastic, but I'll try using it for a few weeks instead of being hasty.  Another thing:  I got my daughter a Lifeproof case for her phone...that damn thing was expensive, but I wanted no excuses that she got it wet or broke it.  I wanted to get one for my new phone, but apparently they aren't making them for the Note 3.  That's OK, though, because it doesn't have a belt clip.

For some reason, migrating my data to the new phone took forever, but I've been using the Note 2 heavily the last year, so there was much more data that had to be pushed to the new phone.  As well, I was never near wifi for it to complete the syncing (was shopping after I got the new phone).

My next purchase will be a larger microSD card (64GB).  I ran upon the limit of my 32GB microSD card several times the last 12 months.  I might also look into another battery, because I'm using a Pebble smartwatch now and I have to keep BT on for it to work with my phone...my phone is sucking down battery power bigtime.  I 'm lucky if I can get 10 hours of usage out of it.  If I don't touch the phone, battery life is fine, though.

There was also an Android update waiting for me when I got my hands on the phone (v4.4.3).

Other than getting all my apps installed on the new phone, I've not played with it yet.  I still need to get the Next launcher running again (will have to customize a new theme).

I'll post up any new findings I discover/experience.