With 18 month old twins, and a 4 year old, our trips to the grocery store are filled with laughter, tears, tantrums, and arguments, and that’s just my wife and I.

So, suffice it to say, we need to be organized, and attack that store with a strategic approach.

Luckily, my wife is a bit of a gadget geek too, so we both use the Our Groceries application for our phones. You can set up multiple shopping lists, and even create recipes that will add all the ingredients to your list with one click. You can also categorize each item based on the location/aisle in the grocery store.

The greatest feature however is the ability to synchronize multiple devices. So, as I start at the dairy aisle, and my wife starts at the produce, we can see as the other person checks things off the list in real time!

It’s a very simple application to use, and helps us save time and money at the store, even though we do look a little geeky while we shop.

Easily search for: Movies, Restaurants, Events, Businesses, or People. And each of those categories breaks down into more specific searches. For example, click on Restaurants, then you can either see all restaurants nearby, or search by a specific cuisine if you’re in the mood for something in particular. The best part is that if the restaurant uses “OpenTable”, you can place a reservation directly from the app. Otherwise, you are given a one click option to call the business, view their website, see the location on a map, get directions, and more.

It’s an amazing way to discover new things whether you’re in your own neighbourhood, or visiting a new place. It’s also made in Canada, which is pretty cool.

Poynt is available for: iPhone, Android, Blackberry, and WP7. Visit your phone’s application store/market/place to download.

Find out more at www.poynt.com

The Goods:
- Android operating system is amazing, and is only getting better
- Has wifi
- GPS is great, and ties in to Google Maps and other applications very well
- If you are a Google user (Gmail, Google Calendar), it integrates flawlessly with these. (you will need a Google account to use the phone). It’s free, and I use Gmail for almost all my e-mail. The phone will automatically sync your Contacts, e-mail, and Calendar with your online ones. It’s pretty damned seamless
- Android Marketplace has some great applications (like the iPhone, only not quite as good yet)
- The Dream has a full physical keyboard, touchscreen, and scroll-ball – which makes it a triple threat.
- Very solid web browser, and will match the iPhone’s once Android gets multi-touch.
- It is open and customizable
- Memory – you can add a microSD memory card to it for more space. They are very cheap.
- It is a solid option as a smartphone that is not an iPhone or a Blackberry.
- Not a bad camera (3.1 megapixel), which has autofocus, so you can use it to scan barcodes to see where you can buy something cheaper. Also records video. Does not have a flash though, so you, and your target must remain still.
- You can run multiple applications at once, unlike some other phone…
- You can actually customize the interface, with simple things like a custom background! Take that iPhone!
The Bads:
- No headphone jack. It comes with earphones with a built in microphone that plug into the charging port. Really crappy that it doesn’t have a generic headphone jack.
- Bad battery life. Like the iPhone, if you use it, you’ll get a day out of it (unless you turn off wifi and GPS, then it lasts longer).
- Internal memory is so small (256MB) that it may not be able to handle the next Android update. They are working to get around that, but as of now, it looks like it will be limited in updates. This is very, very disappointing, and I hope Rogers will honour its early adopters with an upgrade.
- It’s a little thick and bulky, kinda like me. But I was willing to deal with this for the keyboard.
- It is the first of the Android phones, and the hardware is unable to really take advantage of what Android can really do. I have also had to reset the phone a few times…

Here is what it came down to for me: I use this thing a lot for work, so I e-mail, text, schedule things, and use the web a lot on it, so I wanted the keyboard. And, being a geek, I LOVE the phone. I would say to anyone looking to buy a solid smartphone to check out the HCT Magic, which is the touchscreen only Android phone. I think it’s the same price, and is faster, better battery life, and has enough internal memory to handle future upgrades. Also, it’s a little smaller and sleeker. You do lose the physical keyboard for a virtual one though. So, if you’re like me, and HATE typing on something like the iPhone, then the Dream is a good choice.

As for the available Applications, right now, they are not quite as good, and polished as the iPhone’s, but they going to have to get better. Recently, Facebook had to concede and make an application for Android. With over 20 new phones coming out, they can no longer disregard Google’s Android as a fad. Now, that being said, they devoted 1 person to help with the creation of the Facebook application, while I have a feeling they team for the iPhone app was substantially larger. I have not doubt that Android is going to be a big contender to the iPhone and Blackberry.

When it comes down to it, I can’t live without this phone for work (or geeky fun), and it does the job really well. You can watch YouTube, surf the web, e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, Instant Messaging…

As far as smart phones go, it’s the only choice I would have made. I really don’t like Blackberries, although their battery life is amazing, I just hate the interface, usability, and their browser is atrocious. They are a great business work-horse, yet not so much a consumer/geek phone.

If you are looking for a safe, tested phone, the iPhone is most likely the way to go, even though it’s a wee bit pretentious. It’s pretty solid, and just works. But it’s expensive, and you are getting trapped into Apple. Apple is the new Microsoft/Evil Monopolistic Corporation in my eyes, not to be overly dramatic…

To me, as a geek, there was no choice other than an Android phone.