Pre Plus vs. Pixi Plus: Thoughts on Obsolete Smartphones

I feel so betrayed. I've battled through 6 faulty Pre's in attempt to get a stable working phone. I scoffed when the Pixi came out - a phone for noobs. So when my 7th Pre bogged down with issues - no longer under warranty, I picked up a Pixi on Craigslist for $10.


Guess what? This $10 phone for noobs is a decent little phone. As soon as it was activated, I loaded up Preware, UberKernel, and Govnah'. Within an hour (hacking on webOS is never fast) I was humming along nicely patched and overclocked to 787MHz.


A month ago I was using a 4.3in screen on the Droid X. Now I'm using the 2.1in screen of the Pixi and loving it. How is this? First, this phone fits in my pocket - without sticking out of the top. I can use the phone with one hand without having to adjust and balance it. I couldn't even do that on the Pre Plus. With the rise in popularity of tablets, smaller phones might just become more popular as well.  Now that I'm carrying a Galaxy Tab around, I have no need for a 4+in screen on a phone.  I've tweeted before that once you have a 4in screen, you can't go back.  I'm not sure that's true anymore. Perhaps once you have a 4in screen in a phone, you'll also find it refreshing to carry around a more pocketable device.


So why am I writing a post about 2 obsolete phones? For those of us who are webOS faithful, living through this desert means replacing aging hardware with used devices. While the Pre was plagued with hardware problems, the Pixi with it's more simple design,  escaped this. So while waiting for the Pre 3, replace your next Pre with a Pixi and check out webOS without the hardware problems.