Jen’s due for a phone upgrade. This is a very exciting time.

Right now, she has the Blackberry Curve 2. It’s served her well, but she’s ready to move up. A manual trackball seems like a kludge by comparison, especially when it collects lint and won’t scroll.

We’ve been browsing AT&T’s smartphone selection, and we’ve been impressed with the new Android phones they just rolled out. I spent a while with the HTC Inspire, and I’m pretty much sold. Sucker is big, but the screen is so shiny! And parents can’t resist a good 8-megapixel camera.

Then there’s the Motorola Atrix. It’s a phone you can use as a laptop. I’m pretty sure the processor in that phone is faster than the one in my computer. The big difference for Jen, though? It has a camera on the front, which would let us video chat. That’s what sold her on the iPod.

Which brings us to an odd thought. Jen’s already got a music player that records HD video, has a web browser, runs a bazillion apps, and, oh yeah, plays music.

Somewhere, deep down, my inner curmudgeon is saying, “Back in my day, MP3 players could only hold 10 songs, and had buttons! And we liked it just fine! We didn’t have any of these appy things or wiffy or Grumpy Birds! And cellular phones were for making calls! Bah.”

But more to the point, Jen and I are wondering how many gadgets we really need. Don’t get me wrong: I love me some gadgets. I’m thirsty for gadgets. Really, that’s why I’m trying to reel myself in.

We’re trying to find the line between having nice things and sheer technological gluttony.

Jen ended up getting the Inspire today. So far, very good. We’ll see what happens once all the music gets loaded onto it.