If you are one of the 750,000 people that bought an Apple's iPhone this past summer you are probably pretty upset about last week’s big price drop. Such is the burden of the early adapter. For those of you that balked at spending $600 on a cell phone, the new price might have you foaming at the mouth. Try and contain yourself. By Christmas, I expect the iPhone price to drop considerably.
Regardless of price, is the iPhone something you should run out and get? My impressions of the iPhone have been only fair. The iPhone combines 3 major features into 1; MP3 player, cell phone with camera, and web browser.
As an MP3 player, the iPhone is great. It does everything you could want and lets you ditch 1 device. My only complaint would be using me cell phone’s battery life to listen to music.
As a web browser, the iPhone is excellent. The large, bright touch screen makes using the web on the road a breeze. I wouldn’t want to ditch my laptop if I’m going on a business trip, but walking around the mall or the park, the iPhone keeps you online in a way no other cell phone I’ve seen can.
As a cell phone, I was not disappointed. I didn’t expect it to work well, so I wasn’t disappointed when it didn’t. The lack of buttons makes dialing annoying. The lack of voice dialing is crippling. I tried to make a call while driving and I think I ended up calling someone in the former
The phone’s unphone-like shape makes it uncomfortable to use without a headset. I won’t comment on AT&T’ Wireless' service quality, since that varies so much by location and I expect the iPhone to be available for other carriers eventually.
If you are looking for a status symbol, the iPhone is less expensive and more useful then a Louis Vuittan handbag, but unless web browsing while walking is your panacea for life’s ills, I would stick with a regular cell phone, an iPod, and wait until you get home to do any serious web surfing.
Andrew Taub
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