Three days ago I was dining with friends at a restaurant. One lady picked a large device from her purse and bragged that this nice looking thingy is a spare battery from her Android phone. This put a smile on my face, as I can’t visualize a women who walks with an extra battery for her iPhone. Google’s devices are nice, but the Apple one are just a little better. And this is what matters – to be JUST A LITTLE BIT BETTER.

I also have a Google device. One. It’s the Nexus 7 tablet. I bought it this Summer and used for about 50 hours total since then. I like it, but don’t love it. I can do everything with my iPhone that I can do with my Nexus 7, but iPhone is just a little bit better. No, I’m not one of these Apple fanboys who don’t want to see a device unless it has Apple logo on them. I bought Android device, right? I gave it a chance. I keep it on the kitchen table to read the news over breakfast.

Two months ago my Nexus wouldn’t start. The screen remained pitch black. After short googling I found an advice: press and hold the power button for 30 seconds, and it’ll start. As they said, sometimes Android devices “go to deep sleep”. Anyway, it worked, yay!

Today, I needed a screenshot from the Android device for the book chapter I’m working on now. The Nexus tablet was plugged into the power outlet for the last 24 hours. It wouldn’t start. My 30-sec trick didn’t help either. Then I hold it for 45 sec. Plugged in and plugged out. Nothing. Nada.

Called Google support. Need to admit – they picked up the phone pretty fast, the guy was polite and helpful. I told him that I already pressed the button. He suggested to press all three buttons that exist on the device: the power and two volume buttons. This put some static white dashes on the screen. After several similar attempts we were able to bring a menu for hard reset. The Google guy warned me that I’ll lose all the data that might have been saved on Nexus. I agreed. It didn’t help. The devices couldn’t be revived. This time it was not in deep sleep, but rather in coma.

Google will send me a new device and the UPS shipping labels for my defected one – should arrive in a week. What do I feel? Peace of mind. I’m not angry with Google. They tried to help. But there is not much they could do other then pressing these stupid buttons. I’d be a little bit more happier if the’d send me a replacement quicker. But hey, then they’d be as good as Apple, which they’re not. Remember, all it takes is just to be a little bit better than others. That’s all. But I like Google. I respect Google developers, and I like the way this case was handled by Google support.

BTW, one of my New Year’s resolutions is to start going to the bathroom without holding any electronic device in my hands. Do you think I can do it? I doubt it. Can you?