I just returned from a couple of weeks in Greece: Crete and Athens.<\/p>\n
The trip was great and I’ll post some photos soon but I wanted to briefly mention what went well (and what didn’t) with the electronics on the trip.<\/p>\n
The Good?<\/p>\n
I left my laptop behind. \u00a0How awesome not to carry that weight. \u00a0A smartphone works totally fine for keeping in touch. The only need I’d have for a laptop is backing up and processing photos. \u00a0Backing up I can do with a dedicated backup unit (that’s the size of a small portable hard drive). Processing photos can wait until I get home. For this trip, Meghan brought her laptop so I backed my photos up to that. \u00a0I think in the future she won’t be bringing along the laptop either.<\/p>\n
Another good? \u00a0USB charging. \u00a0It’s so nice being able to use USB cables to charge. \u00a0It’s nice to be able to carry around a couple of small USB cables and charge so many things. \u00a0What’s not good? \u00a0Having dedicated chargers for the different camera batteries, headphones, iPhone, etc.,<\/p>\n
Another? \u00a0Public Wifi. \u00a0Not only the usual cafes, etc., but Athens provides a few locations throughout town with publicly provided Wifi. \u00a0Nice!<\/p>\n
The Bad?<\/p>\n
My iPhone is unlocked so I brought that along and purchased a Vodafone SIM card. \u00a0While I was able to make a call or two, I couldn’t for the life of me get anything else to work. \u00a0The Greek text messages that Vodafone sent didn’t help! \u00a0On previous trips I either purchased a SIM card in a language I could understand or I had an international AT&T plan. Purchasing a local SIM is the way to go, but dealing with the language barrier will be tough. \u00a0In retrospect, I could have looked into buying a SIM on the layover in Germany – at least I could have better understood the language..<\/p>\n
Another bad, my iPhone is painfully slow. \u00a0I have the 3G (not the 3Gs<\/span>) and with the latest OS installed it’s just awful to use. \u00a0Especially compared to my newer phone.<\/p>\n One more bad? \u00a0Many of the places we stayed didn’t have WiFi (or only had it in the lobby area). \u00a0This was a minor nuisance. We could plug the laptop into the ethernet connection but my smartphone was out of luck. \u00a0I was surprised by the lack of embrace for Wifi.<\/p>\n The Ugly?<\/p>\n I decided to download a free app on the iPhone (while in a public square, connected to free public wifi). \u00a0What an awful experience. \u00a0For a free app (in a controlled app store) I had to enter my password only to learn that my credit card info needed to be up-to-date (I didn’t have a salutation and my expiration date was old). \u00a0Despite the fact that I have credit available in my iTunes account and DESPITE the fact that I was trying to access a FREE app I had to update my credit card information before I could proceed.<\/p>\n Fail.<\/p>\n People can complain about the Android app store all they want but I find the experience to be SO MUCH BETTER than the iPhone app store.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I just returned from a couple of weeks in Greece: Crete and Athens. The trip was great and I’ll post some photos soon but I wanted to briefly mention what went well (and what didn’t) with the electronics on the trip. The Good? I left my laptop behind. \u00a0How awesome not to carry that weight. … <\/p>\n