Haunted by the HTC Advantage
Choosing the Samsung Q1 Ultra over the HTC Advantage the other day may have been a bad idea.
The impulsive decision, spurred by impatience, had been sitting well with me until an email from Buy.com landed in my inbox with the subject line "Important notice of delay regarding your order." Evidently, the Q1 Ultra that was in stock and shipping in 1 to 2 days when I ordered it is now backordered until further notice.
In other words, the primary reason for "trading" the Advantage for the Q1 Ultra in the first place (immediate availability) is no longer valid.
Now what?
Here’s my problem, you see. I want both, I need neither, and I can only have one right now. Since both now seem to share a possibly similar delayed delivery date, I should just get the one I really want. And that, of course, is the Advantage. My only hesitation is that according to Buy.com, the Q1 Ultra could still ship as expected. Here’s an excerpt from the email:
Your order status can change quickly as we do our best to fulfill your order, and it’s possible that by the time you read this email the delay affecting your order might have been fixed. It’s also possible that the items you ordered could still be unavailable.
Since my shopping behavior is guided by instant gratification, what I really, really want is either the Advantage or the Q1 Ultra right now. Whichever one will be in my hands sooner is the one I want. Of course, with Buy.com’s vague timeline and Amazon’s "usually ships in 2 to 4 weeks" estimate, there’s obviously no way of knowing which one would get here first.
I’m just going to have to decide, once and for all, which one to buy and then simply wait it out like an adult (which, I confess, I am hardly qualified to do). The trouble I’m having is that I don’t know how to choose. Since both devices have very little in common, I can’t really base my decision on which one best suits my needs.
I’ve been saying (here and elsewhere) that the Advantage has always been on the receiving end of most of my gadget lust, so I know the choice seems obvious. And if I hadn’t spend the last few days thinking about all the advantages of getting the Q1 Ultra instead, the decision would’ve been an absolute no-brainer. I would’ve just clicked over to Buy.com the second after receiving the email, canceled my order, and returned to Amazon to reorder the Advantage. Dumb as that may be, I know that’s what I would’ve done in a heartbeat.
But now I don’t know what to do. What I think would help me is some sort of chart or point system. That way, rather than just assume that the Advantage is the better choice simply because I want it more, I could just say that the Advantage scores the point for gadget lust. Maybe I could just come up with a bunch of categories, decide which device "wins" in each, add up all the points in the end, and take home the winner.
I’d appreciate anyone’s thoughts on this silly dilemma of mine, but in particular I’d like to really hear from Bruno, a frequent commenter here who owns both the Q1 Ultra and the Advantage.
