So, I haven’t done so well on the writing prompts front. I’ve been sick for the last 2 weeks (the longest I can remember being sick, ever) and lacked motivation but my new phone gives me lots of motivation.

On a side note, if you have any remedies for sore throats and blocked noses I’d love to hear them.

Anyway, you might recall I recently decided to buy a new phone because my HTC was driving me a bit crazy. I got a good response of answers about what phones everyone recommends but mostly it was just ‘get an iPhone’ and well, no. I wasn’t willing to spend $800 on an iPhone (I did consider spending that amount on an HTC One M8 though) because Apple. I only use Apple products when it’s free (like the iPad I won).

In the end I decided on a Nexus 5 which, being a Google phone, comes with KitKat installed. It’s also super light at 130gm which feels like nothing in comparison to my old phone. I have been playing with settings and apps and while KitKat is nice to look at, it’s missing some of the things I liked having like swipe and pin security, for example. With the Nexus 5 you can choose wither swipe or pin, if you set the pin delay it just doesn’t lock the phone until that time is up.. Fortunately I found a app that will do that for me.

I’m pretty pleased with how my home screen looks! Getting used to 3 buttons instead of 4 has been difficult, and these ones are on screen buttons too not physical. I have been missing the Settings button, but given this phone doesn’t crash, it has 4G and is super light and pretty, I haven’t missed it that much.

I am also looking for a new twitter app. I’d like it to be able to zip/mute tweets, have a proper conversation view (no blue lines thank you very much!) and, preferably, be free. Let me know what you use.

One other thing I decided on as part of getting a new phone was finally moving away from Vodafone and becoming a Telstra customer. I always said I’d never change to Telstra but their coverage and speed is just so much better than the competition that it seemed like a given I’d one day change. Funnily enough, the plan I have now has  more and costs less than what I was on with Vodafone. For those not in Australia, it’s very rare for Telstra to have competitive pricing, they rely on having a better service to get customers generally. 

If you are in Australia and looking to move to Telstra but find their plan pricing is too high go into a store or give them a call and ask for their cheaper Casual Plans. You’ll need a BYO phone for this but their casual (month to month, no contract) plans actually start at $25/month rather than the $55/month advertised on their website.

I decided to go in store to sort this out. It was really busy and I thought I’d be waiting forever but a floating employee asked me a few questions and found a sales person for me. As I already knew what I wanted and had the required information it was a really quick process and the sales person was very friendly and helpful.

When I looked into porting my number across online it said it would take anywhere from 24 to 72hrs to happen. I asked the person in store how long it’d take and he said it was pretty fast and more likely up to 24hrs but I’d get a message from Vodafone when they had received the request. I walked out of the store, noticed I already had the text and went to message Jarrod to say I was on my way to meet him for lunch.. I wasn’t fast enough though as it ported within about 2 mins of me checking my phone. I was pretty amazed at how fast it happened.. and also how fast my internet on my new phone/with Telstra is.. delicious 4G.

Long story short, I have a new phone!