I've still got my S20+ 5G and it has treated me well, but I wanted something newer, with a better camera, etc. The Samsung camera image processing stuff is often very heavy handed, but I found an Open Camera app that I was mostly happy with.

I like the idea of Pixels and looked pretty closely at the Pixel 8 Pro, but stories of poor cell reception gobbling up the battery gave me flashbacks to previous phones (and J getting upset with me when she couldn't reach me on a phone call). That's no good.

I don't care about AI stuff, yet, but it might be handy someday.

I was looking around at deals, and see that I could get a Pixel 8 Pro with 512 GB for $830 at Google Fi. Not bad. But what's this?? $650 off on a S24 Ultra with 512 GB??! That can't be right.

But it is.

$650 + tax and shipping. And it works with my ultra-cheap Fi plan (almost always $30 a month all-up - I pay $10 a GB for cell data, but almost never use that much). I have to stay on Fi for 120 days, but I don't plan on going anywhere.

I just can't resist that.

It should be here early next month.

There are similar Fi deals for new accounts, but check the details.

Other companies probably have similar deals - you shouldn't need to pay anywhere near list price for the 24 Ultra.

Hope this helps a little.

Cheers,
Scott.

I've been spending the afternoon figuring out how to back it up and transfer stuff from the old one to the new one.

Pretty painless so far.

I did have a scare on opening the box and discovering that it already had a new SIM installed. I had a chat with someone from Fi (almost no waiting) who assured me that I could use my old SIM and didn't have to change anything with my plan to still have the $650 price cut.

So far, it's a new phone. Everything is nice and shiny. It still fits in my shirt pocket, even with a Spigen Tough Armor case. It takes pictures, it texts, it runs my apps.

I've taken a few pictures inside, but haven't done any pixel peeping yet. I haven't taken out the S-Pen yet.

So far, so good.

Cheers,
Scott.