Ingress: Grandma had to have a new smartphone

A wee confession here. It’s a bit overdue. Within two weeks after I started playing Ingress, it became apparent that although my phone, a Galaxy Proclaim, was capable of running the game, its screen was too small to display it properly. Everything was squished together to the point that command boxes on the screen overlapped — or just disappeared off the side or bottom of the screen.

I knew I wanted to keep playing and I knew the Proclaim wouldn’t be adequate. It was a little less than a year old, but I crossed my fingers and went back to Straight Talk and hurray! In my absence they’d added some new phones to their line, including the LG Optimus Showtime. What luck!

The Showtime has a 4.3″ screen, whereas the Proclaim had only a 3.5 screen. Made all the difference in the world, as you might imagine. And it runs Ice Cream Sandwich instead of Gingerbread (the Proclaim ran on Gingerbread, and the OS on Straight Talk phones cannot be upgraded). And it has both front and rear facing cameras, unlike the Proclaim. A definite step up and exactly what I need. A CDMA-V Android phone that runs on the Verizon network. And on sale, at that!

I followed the same procedure as last time, ordering the phone from Straight Talk, shopping with a ZIP code from a Verizon-only area code (44681, 73949, or 82210),  and then activating it here for Verizon service in Denver. Perfect. For those interested, ST now also sells iPhones. But remember, Ingress is Android only.