Me and my phone

I bought my HTC Desire in April 2010, when the model first became available. I had never owned a Psion, a Palm or any other kind of PDA. I carried a Nokia phone, a Creative MP3 player for music and podcasts, and a Nikon point-and-shoot camera (see photo). This seemed excessive. Instead of being easier, my life had got more complicated. If I ran, I rattled.

Smart phone! Three devices in one.

The HTC Desire was the first smartphone that convinced me I could really jettison the camera, the phone and the MP3 player in favour of a single device. It has fully lived up to this promise. In fact, it has over-achieved. Nearly two years later, I remain delighted and from time to time am still astonished at what it can do. It has become an essential and integral part of my life.

This blog will document my continuing delight, as well as my occasional difficulties and frustrations, with life on Google's Android platform. I will pass on tips, but I also hope to learn. Comments are enabled, so let me know if your experience or your opinions differ from mine. If you ask questions, I will try to answer them. However, I am not a developer or a vendor. My views are independent and personal, and my only expertise is as an Android user.

I'll finish this first post with some basic information about my phone and myself, in order to give you the context for what follows.

Phone

• HTC Desire
• Android 2.2.2 (Froyo), upgraded from the original Eclair
• Not 'rooted' - in other words, not modified in any way
• 16 Gb SD card
• WiFi only - I have never used a data connection (too expensive here in Belgium)
• 44 installed apps of which 9 paid. I'll talk about my favourites soon. In the meantime, you can see the full list on AppBrain.

Owner

I am an Englishman living in Brussels, Belgium. As you probably know, this is a French-speaking city. Critically for any user of Google products, it is also located outside the US.

I am a professional in the domain of communication, with colleagues much cleverer than I am who build amazing web and mobile sites and applications for our clients. Brussels is full of good cinemas, restaurants, museums and theatres, which I often visit. I am also a keen amateur photographer. (You can check out my photos on Flickr, if you are interested.) Both my private and professional lives are rich and happy, and therefore busy. My phone helps me plan, organise, record and share all of this activity.

In future posts, I'll be telling you how.

Next post: No place like homescreen