My contract is up and I'm in the market for a new phone, and possible a new carrier. Naturally I'm considering the Apple iPhone 3G or 3GS, and most everyone I know who has one has had nothing but good things to say about them. Yet as the folks at CNET in the UK have discovered, a lot of people are so focused on its computing aspects, that they don't consider whether its a good telephone.
That's right, we said it -- and we're not taking it back. The iPhone may be the greatest handheld surfing device ever to rock the mobile Web, and a fabulous media player to boot. It may be the highest-rated mobile phone on CNET UK, rocking the pockets of half of our crack editorial team. It's certainly the touchscreen face that launched a thousand apps. But as an actual call-making phone, it's rubbish, and we aim to prove it.
Onto a litany of complains about dropped calls, no-rings and random call-outs. That's all quite disappointing, but I've had those problems with lots of phones I've had over the past few years. I suspect they have more to do with the network than the phone itself.
On the other hand, they may have a point about 'bad phone', but the iphone is hardly a laggard among the current crop of web-enabled phones. The blackberries, blackjacks and various other web-enabled phones are all necessarily bigger formats, and thus clumsier than their sleaker precedessors. Everybody has to wipe sweat off the screen after a call unless they are using a bluetooth headset--OK then, use the headset.
I've always looked askance at complaints about battery life--as long as I get through a busy day with a battery, I'm fine charging it at the bedside. I'm not sure what the advantage of not having to charge the batteries for a week really is--a great camping phone?
My personal issue with cell phones is the conference phone setting. About half of all my conversations involve putting the phone on speaker so I can talk while diddling my laptop. My Blackjack II is great at this, picking up my voice quite well from the middle of a table and providing enough juice to the speaker that I can comfortably hear what going on at the other side of the conversation.
The irony is, no matter what choice I make, in six months my phone won't be cool anymore.
