Tuesday, June 26, 2007

The First Important iPhone Reviews

The first meaningful reviews of the iPhone are out. First out is Walt Mossberg's Review after two weeks of using it. "Our verdict is that, despite some flaws and feature omissions, the iPhone is, on balance, a beautiful and breakthrough handheld computer. Its software, especially, sets a new bar for the smart-phone industry, and its clever finger-touch interface, which dispenses with a stylus and most buttons, works well, though it sometimes adds steps to common functions."

And here's cute video review by David Pogue:


Overall it's good, probably really good. The virtual keyboard seems to work well, the battery gives 7+ hours of talk time, it's gorgeous, maps are fantastic with real-time traffic, the wifi connectivity is great, voicemail, email and the web work well. The camera is good for a phone. The cheapest plan is $60/month for 450 minutes but that includes unlimited data and carryover minutes which is quite nice.

The less than stellar is that it's on AT&T EDGE network which is slow and you can't transfer a phone number from another phone company. Also the battery life is good but the battery isn't replaceable, so after a few years expect to send it to Apple to get a new battery installed. There's no IM just SMS. The web works well but no Flash or Java. No games. No one-touch or voice dialing, no video capture. The one that surprises me is you can't set a song as a ringtone.

2 comments:

grahams said...

"you can't transfer a phone number from another phone company."

Existing phone numbers transferable to AT&T through iTunes

Howard said...

That's cool assuming it works. I have to say I'm impressed with the idea of using iTunes for activation. We'll have to see how it actually works, but I assume it will be like the airport kiosks, it's easier to use the computer yourself than to have the employee do it for you while you wait.