" disabling everything that plugs into a wall socket. Most people wouldn't even be able to flush their toilet because urban water supplies largely rely on electric pumps"

Every single water filtration plant has very large diesel generators that can run the place for months without electrical power. And no, a solar flare can not burn out giant motors and generators, all that can be ran easily without the SCADA system. In fact we used to run drills operating the place by hand, as most of the guys that did it from 1940 until 1990 did it mostly by hand.

How should I do research on the size relative to my hand, weight, screen look and feel, etc. without a store in which to do research?

Correct, in part.

I'm whining about the possibility that Google might be coercing manufacturers into adding this warranty condition.

Which puts you in the same category legally as Jammie Thomas.

Not for everybody. For one thing, not until leaving high school, due to minors' inability to form contracts. For another, the people who grow the food that you eat tend to have fewer choices. Should farmers just up and stop growing food? Besides, it might cost tens of thousands of dollars to move, especially if your house is paid off. If moving were so easy, then replies to other comments expressing a similar notion might have been more sympathetic than they were: 1 2 3 4 5 And even if you do move, your new carrier might get bought by one with unacceptable policies.

You can find several such areas among Google's results for "only verizon" signal or "only verizon" area or "only verizon" "where i live" or "only verizon works".

The same is true of anything else that behaves like a polygraph. A question with a memorized answer elicits a different reaction from an unexpected question. So if you start getting a bunch of memorized-answer reactions among the populace, you're going to have to rotate in different questions.

Where can I hold one of those phones in a showroom in northeast Indiana before I buy it, to gauge the look of its screen, the feel of its input, and its build quality? I don't think a lot of online sellers will like it if I buy a dozen phones, try them all, and then return the eleven that I decide not to keep.

If the headphone jack goes out a week later, I don't want the manufacturer to be able to use my installation of CyanogenMod against me.

I haven't done any sort of controlled sample, but I do know that the free version of Pixeline and the Jungle Treasure handles a lot better with a Bluetooth keyboard than with the virtual gamepad. It's almost as if it were made for phones with slider keyboards.

Games that use the mouse to point and click, such as any RTS, would translate more directly to touch input. I was referring to the control method that things like shmups and first-person shooters might use. For example, Metroid Prime Hunters and other first-person shooters for the Nintendo DS use the touch screen like a trackpad.

Provided that the games you want to play are available for it.

These people can't run a "portable version" that the IT department hasn't approved.

So my question is: what is holding everyone else back from freeing themselves from contacts and glasses?

I don't need contacts or glasses, you insensitive cl...oh, wait.