Review: Rival Phones No Match for IPhone

THIS GUY MUST WORK FOR APPLE!

(Oh, wait -- that's just me.)

Uh. Good review.

My big complaints about the iPhone. The brushed metal on the back tends to ding pretty easily. The more you obsess about NOT dinging it -- the more you ding it.

It seems to revert to the same shuffle fairly often, and I have to go hit "shuffle" again to get it to select a different set of options.

My battery indicator gets stuck and misrepresents the battery life -- which is actually really damn good. This may be fixed, now that the v. 1.02 software is out. Haven't really had to recharge since then.

And, AT&T's network isn't the best -- I don't get service in a lot of places. (On the other hand, I DO get service in places that surprise me. Elevators, etc.)

Otherwise, I'm still quite happy.

He's our buddy, Brian -- all of us were sent here at the same time to preach the gospel, don't you remember?

— The pictures from the 2-megapixel camera are fuzzy, and the lens smudges easily to make them even fuzzier.

Maybe I am just not very picky, but my pictures have been excellent -- very sharp with good colors. I'm not sure what's up with his camera.

Good review definitely, though. This author "gets" the essential difference between the iPhone and every other phone on the market -- the feature list ain't what makes it special.

He's our buddy, Brian -- all of us were sent here at the same time to preach the gospel, don't you remember?

— The pictures from the 2-megapixel camera are fuzzy, and the lens smudges easily to make them even fuzzier.

Maybe I am just not very picky, but my pictures have been excellent -- very sharp with good colors. I'm not sure what's up with his camera.

Good review definitely, though. This author "gets" the essential difference between the iPhone and every other phone on the market -- the feature list ain't what makes it special.

You have to use Apple's iTunes application, which doesn't run well on PCs. In fact, my PC screen turned itself off, then back on a few seconds later, when the iPhone was connected. It's a phenomenon I have never before seen.

I'll admit it's been a while since I've run iTunes on a PC, but I'm pretty sure it still runs quite well, and that the screen glitch is extremely rare; I've never heard of anybody else having that problem. Maybe it's a problem with the Windows device manager? New hardware found! Can I bug you some more?! How about two more System Tray notifications?!

The pictures from the 2-megapixel camera are fuzzy, and the lens smudges easily to make them even fuzzier.

Hold the camera still and shoot only in good light. Pretty much all digital cameras are bad in low light, and all camera phones are terrible in low light. That's just the way it is.

Standby time is supposedly up to 10 days, but I found I had to recharge the phone at least every three days of light use, which isn't very good.

"Light use" is not the same as "standby." Also, three days for a smart phone (check out that screen!) is very good.

AT&T's EDGE data network can be painfully slow, taking minutes to load a Web page or load e-mail.

Poor EDGE, it's had a hard time lately. Let me say that, while it's certainly not snappy, I've found EDGE to be surprisingly fast enough. Sure, MySpace is a pain to load, but that's just poor (and I'm being hugely euphemistic here) design. Facebook, by contrast, is thoroughly usable over EDGE (even more so now that they have a specialized iPhone version).

Still waiting on an announcement as to when the iPhone will come to New Zealand. I'm sick of waiting!

iPhone is not supporting user's mp3 to set as ring tone. This is a bad one for a mobile phone, since the users really fanatic of making the handheld device personalize.

But, iPhone is a phenomenal phone that I ever heard. I am really waiting for to have one, when it's available in Asia.

I have to wait for half a year to have one, according to APPLE.

Cool phone, iPhone.

Interesting review! Brian, I have dropped my iPhone a couple of times now (OK once deliberately - to prove a point) and no marring of the back or front! Go figure!

Still, it simply does what I want it to do do simply well - all of the commentary about menu navigation is very true. I have instant access to everything I need within just a click or two. With only a couple of minors issues I'd to see resolved (nope not those darn customized ringtones - nice but necessary for me, cut and paste for sure, and Flash/Java support in Safari), I'm very pleased with the iPhone is use. Going back to a standard cellphone/smart phone would be really annoying.

iPhone is not supporting user's mp3 to set as ring tone. This is a bad one for a mobile phone, since the users really fanatic of making the handheld device personalize.

I expect this to change in a future software update (in one of the iPhone tutorial videos you could even see a ring tones tab in iTunes). My guess is they are still hammering out the details with AT&T, which doesn't really want to give up on $2.49 for 30 seconds of a song.

One other thing though, I'm almost glad it can't be customized yet. Sure people like to change their ring tones, but have you heard what they choose? Unlike most consumers, Apple has taste, and if my choice is between an Apple-created ring, and hearing the chorus from Gwen Stefani's (no offense) latest single being pumped out of tinny speakers at a high volume, well I know what I'd choose.