Lots of my real friends and cyber friends have been asking my how I feel about my new iphone and whether its worth taking the plunge.  I never previously owned and iphone and never really had any desire to but haven’t been particularly blown away by the current crop of phones so thought I’d try something different. I have previously been a Sony man, most recently the w880i so was concerned about the size difference so would have to wait and see.  Here is a very quick review of my initial findings
Ladies and gentlemen I give you……… Iphone
So I got it home and opened the rather nice little box. First impression was that the phone seemed quite large , which was to be expected as I was current using probably the smallest phone on the market. So I take the sim and attempt to put it in only to realise that I have no idea where to put it! The phone doesn’t come with a proper instruction manual which I found rather shocking so I had to look on the internet to find out where it goes. Reassuringly there were loads of threads from people in the same boat.  Unfortunately then I had to wait 2 days for it to be activated, but luckily I could still play around with the internet etc. 2 days later and the fun begins
 
Navigation
The first thing I loved about the iphone is the touch screen menu, its very clearly laid out and very sensitive to touch.  Most of the functions which I need are available with one touch and the icons themselves are big and colourful. Good start
 
Texting and calls
Texting using fingers on the qwerty keyboard was pretty tricky at first but I found that I soon get used to it. One irritating thing is that is automatically changes my swear words so initially my mates thought I was on some kind of sedative. I am getting used to it pretty quickly though and hammering the texts out fast. The most annoying thing is that sometimes the keyboard becomes really slow and unresponsive so Im tapping away and it takes ages to catch up. Seems to be during a text conversation (which the iphone stores). If you clear conversation, come out of sms and go back in it seems to be fixed but this is less than practical. Also no MMS which is a real pain in the ass but I can’t really complain as I knew this when I bought it. No problems making or receiving calls to speak of
 
Internet
The internet is so frustrating but for the wrong reasons! I was blown away by how good it looked and how user friendly it is. I was absolutely loving it until I discovered that it doesn’t have a flash plug in. I can’t understand why they put so much effort into the safari browser they couldn’t incorporate flash. I’m hearing grumblings that a plugin will become available but nothing concrete as yet. Still the browser is awesome and I can now look at all those sites which are blocked in work. The internet is okay over 3G and works really well when connected to wifi
 
Battery.
I don’t see what all the moaning is about here! From all the reports I was expecting to have to charge it every couple of hours but this really isn’t the case. With normal usage it lasts 2 full days which is the same as my w880i which only had about 10% of the features. There is a button on top to switch the screen off which must be used as the screen tends to stay on for about 10 seconds after you do anything, which can’t be good for the battery.
 
Connectivity,
I was very impressed by how well the iphone picks up wifi signals, easily as good as my laptop. I wasn’t overly impressed by the speed of 3G but maybe that’s because I’m comparing it to wifi. Something which I found really annoying was that you can’t download of youtube or itunes over 3G. Youtube I could maybe understand as you need to buffer etc and not sure if 3G would be fast enough but I cannot see any reason why you wouldn’t be able to download over 3G. I was on a long train journey the other day for example and would have loved some new music. I think Apple have missed a trick there! “The iphone doesn’t have Bluetooth” “Yes it does” is the argument Ive been hearing for some time so wanted to put this ghost to rest. The iphone does have Bluetooth but its very limited. You cannot connect to another phone (well I haven’t managed yet) so cannot receive and send files. I wonder if this is something to do with apple stomping out mp3 sharing? However you can connect to devices like headsets and in car systems over Bluetooth. Boring!!
 
Features
The iphone comes into its on on here. To name a few
Youtube –  Is superb
Itunes – Is great (but not available over 3g)
GPS – This is really useful and although its only a birds eye view seems to be very accurate in pinpointing you, whereas Im led to believe the 2G version wasn’t
Ipod – The ipod features are the phone are just what you’d come to expect, no disappointment here
 
So in conclusion, would I buy one again? Would I recommend one? I can say with a certain amount of reluctance, Yes.
If you like the fancy features and are not too worried about the simple things then this could be the phone for you. The phone certainly has lots of glitches. Mine has crashed twice and had to be reset in just over  a week which can’t be good.  
Unless you will utilise the features then I wouldn’t bother as the contracts are not cheap. Mine’s £45. There are cheaper but you will pay for the phone. The plans do include unlimited data which is a good thing.
 
I think I have a bit of a love /hate relationship. I love it because the features are awesome, its a revolutionary communications device but I hate it (or moreso Apple) because with a few little changes it could be bordering on perfection!


Hope this review has helped! If you want to know more let me know.


Edit - Turns out youtube is available over 3G. My phone was picking up GPRS network!!

Nive little write up their IB, alittle thing I dont know if they put in was the vibration each time you hit a key on the touch screen, this (to me) is a real nusence as it leaves any lack of feedback like a numb sensation on the hands.
 
I would say come the next update ALOT will be changed, including ironing out eh amount crashing bugs in it, which I have seen alot of reports of, which, is bloody strange for an Apple product.

Took alook IB, good news, they have looked at patents for Flash AND Windows media usage!!!!

Havent read the whole thing tho!

http://www.iphonebuzz.com/apple-patent-application-20080174570-hint-at-support-for-flash-and-windows-media-content-253497.php

Thanks for that. I didn't realise there was so much bloody red tape! I guess we can only wait and see.
 
You considering one Wes?

Not at the moment, I like them but the tariffs are abit steep for me, saying that I took out a 12month contract on my current phone so that will fly in and see what they have to offer by then.

Saying that my first iMac arrived at home today wo I think Apple have just got theirs moneys worth out of me for the time being lol.

Nice one. Dont know anything about macs but I once had a go on one and was able to sort out loads of my mates problems as they are quite logical!
 
The contracts are very steep. I am just very impatient. My contract will be £52 when I add the unlimited texts bolt on! They dont offer loads of texts which was annoying as I text loads but make very few calls. I get 1200 minutes a month and use about 150!

I would say give that about 2 more months and as sales continue they will revamp the tarriffs, they did it last time, that or they where just trying to shift the older ones.