I'm so far liking my new phone. After dealing with my poorly supported and underpowered iPhone 3G for six months after they stopped producing updates for it (and two years after they stopped caring about it), having something that is snappy and feature-rich is a nice change. The switch to the Android interface wasn't a hard one: it has it's deficiencies, but for the most part the extra buttons and configurability lend well to my insect technological mind.

This is also my first phone that has video capabilities. Well, technically my second, but the first one could only do postage-stamp videos which were pretty painful to watch. This one can record 720p at 24 frames / sec, which is a considerable leap forward. I also have a couple gigabytes of storage, which means I can potentially record a few hours worth of footage if I wanted.

The thing is: I don't know if I should. The videos I've been taking so far have been 10-second shaky-cam clips of family get-togethers, drunken board gaming, and a mountain top. There is no real discernible subject, narrative, or indication on the occasion that I'm filming. Mostly just people looking out of the corner of their eye as I point a phone at them.

I like that I can capture brief moments in time with movement, gesture, and sound. I have people talking about the recent reincarnations of Calvin and Hobbes, or people gathering to eat an Xbox-shaped birthday cake. But I'm not sure if I'm really capturing an occasion like I would be with a photo. A photo depicts who is there, who was standing still long enough to have their picture taken. Taking a video is something else entirely, like I'm filming a very specific event: what people are saying, what they are doing. It's not enough that I'm recording, I have to be recording something.

That expectation almost makes me want to not take videos. There's also that people hate having video taken of them so much more than having pictures taken.

But we'll see. Anybody else found a good use for their phone video cameras?