It’s been about 5 days now.

I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop — the unexpected but inevitable “uh oh” that comes with taking risks with tech.

When I bought refurbished computer monitors, that “uh oh” came in the form of a wildly flickering screen after a month of use.

When I jumped on the OG droid, the “uh oh” came because I had too many google accounts to keep coordinated on my phone.

Cutting edge computer? Obsolete in no time.

HD DVD? Hello blu-ray.

Windows has a new version called “Vista?” I’m all over it.

What I’m trying to say is I don’t have a lot of luck being an “early adopter.” In fact, I use cutting-edge technology so badly that I should probably just admit that I’m really a casual user and let the nerds take the lead in trying out all the cool new stuff.

But I want to be cutting edge.

I want to be hip.

So when I saw the invite to the Project Fi BETA I found my fingers itching to enter in my data. 20 bucks a month for unlimited talk and text? How could I say no?

But then I read the fine print.

It works by switching between carriers based on signal strength? It uses wifi signal whenever possible? Is the transition going to be smooth? Will I have dropped calls? And why do I lose my precious Google Voice number? I got that sucker back when it was call central or whatever it used to be called.

So I hesitated.

Then I got my latest $130 bill from Verizon and said, “Screw it, I’m out of here.”

The process

Signing up for Project Fi is stupidly easy. Yes, I did have to give up my Google Voice number, which sucks, but I think I understand why — they’re turning my phone number into a google voice phone number. Alternatively I could have kept my Google Voice number, but I wasn’t really using it much.

When you sign up you give your phone number, carrier information, and so on to Google, which handles the porting for you. The sign-up system reassures you that nothing will change until you actually activate your new phone.

Oh yeah, your new phone.

Project Fi only works on a Nexus 6.

I’ve been wanting a Nexus forever, so I ain’t even mad, but signing up still meant shelling out 500 bucks. I can’t afford that all at once. But Google is nice enough to let you roll the cost of the Nexus into your monthly bill if your credit is good enough. Which I did.

Then you wait for the phone to arrive.

Activation

The phone comes with the spiffy Project Fi SIM card already installed. You literally do nothing but turn it on and log in to your google account. It told me the number porting could take several hours, but within minutes I had recieved a call.

I didn’t intend to cancel with Verizon in case the Project Fi riverboat sunk, but it turned out that by porting my number over, my account was cancelled automatically.

So, positives: I didn’t have to make a single phone call to make the switch. It was as easy as it can possibly be. Negative(maybe): I lose a certain amount of control over my own account.

The phone

Because you can only use the service on the Nexus 6, the phone is literally the service at this point. You can’t say “review of project fi” and not review the phone.

It came like this… ok, kidding.

For me, the phone is the biggest change. This is a good sign, since, if the service doesn’t stand out as “different” then that means it’s working.

I was using a Samsung S4, the flagship at the time I purchased it 1.5 years ago. It had served me well and lasted far longer than the 4 HTC Thunderbolts I had gone through during the year before that. Switching from the S4 to the Nexus 6 was pretty dramatic in a few ways:

1. This is a BIG phone.

I mean I knew it was big, but I didn’t realize just how big. As a slightly larger-than-average sized guy, I’ve been able to control my smartphones with one hand, and even looked for larger screen sizes (that’s what led me to the thunderbolt back in the day). But the Nexus 6 is officially a two-hander. Additionally, I just don’t know where to put it. It’s comically large when put in my front shirt pocket (don’t judge), and almost too bulky for pants pockets. I just don’t know what to do with it.

2. No (or little) bloatware.

This has always been a pet-peeve of mine, and getting rid of Verizon meant getting rid of a dozen pieces of pesky software that wouldn’t leave my account alone. As a side note, however, I immediately noticed that, in its enthusiasm to ease me into Project Fi, Google restored all my S4 apps onto the Nexus 6 automatically — including Verizon’s bloatware. (luckily it was easy to get rid of this time.)

3. Which way up?

This may sound dumb, but it is literally impossible to tell which way is up on this phone when the screen is off. There’s a speaker both on the top and the bottom (or both sides if horizontal) and I’ve picked the darn thing up upside down more than a few times. Annoying.

4. Wow, that camera!

Okay, other than the impressive size of the thing, the only other thing that has made me say “wow” is the camera. I press the shutter button and the thing just takes a picture. No waiting, no re-focusing, just BAM. Picture taken. And they seem to be pretty quality. I took a few on the road from a shaky car and they turned out just fine. Focus time is quick. Size is large. Zoom is high quality. At 13 megapixels it matches my “camera” camera.

Taken from a moving car, still turned out good.

Up close with leather. Not quite super macro, but good enough for flowers.

Zoomed in to max. Definite blur going on here, but that’s digital zoom for you.

Front facing camera, though, is pretty blah, though. Selfy users beware.

5. Still not customizable enough in sounds.

One thing that always bothered me with the S4 was that I had only a couple sounds to choose from. All alerts, texts, etc. were all the same stupid sound. You know what? I want a unique sound for each type of alert and I want to be able to customize that. As far as I can tell, the Nexus 6 also treats me like an imbecile and wont let me customize sounds.

6. Call quality

The Nexus 6 is not as loud as the S4 was, and its max volume is just not high enough. On speakerphone it seems comparable, but the earpiece just isn’t good enough.

The service

I know, I know, this is what you want to know about. I can sum it up, as I indicated above, by saying that I have noticed no difference between Project Fi call service and what I was getting from Verizon.

I don’t know what “better connections to Wi-Fi” is supposed to mean.

I have used the phone at work and home, where it’s on wifi, on the road in Las Vegas, and along I-15 into Utah. I also tried it out in some very spotty areas that have been impossible even for Verizon to cover on the border between Utah and Arizona where the uranium mines roam.

I took the phone for a walk while on a call, leaving wi-fi range and switching to cell service and back.

Basically, it worked seamlessly. If I hadn’t known it was a Project Fi phone, I would have assumed I was still using Verizon.

In fact the only hiccup came as I was downloading apps. As I switched on my wifi for the first time the phone failed to download a couple apps that were in the process of downloading when wifi was suddenly activated, but then picked them up when the system checked for updates.

Summary?

Okay, look, it’s only been 5 days, but so far I’ve had no problems. Given that, even with the payment for the phone included, I’m paying 60 dollars less per month than I was, I’m happy so far.