Apple iPhone user reviews (8GB, AT&T)

Pros beautiful screen, fluid interface, ease of setup, syncing with my mac os!

Cons non-removable battery, no expansion slot, headphones are pretty weak

Summary Got the phone yesterday(6/29), and have been playing with it for a while, with a small break for sleeping. Very impressed with the screen, the wifi web browsing(have not tested the edge network as I have not been away from my wireless network), the iPod functionality and the interface. The keyboard is not difficult to use, as I was coming from a blackberry with QWERTY keypad already.

The setup process through iTunes was by far the easiest activation of a phone I have ever seen. The phone was active within one minute of me going through the process, and I was able to send and receive calls(I was upgrading as an ATT customer already, I'm sure this process is much slower for a new customer. )

Email management is a breeze, as is web surfing. I was able to pick up the zoom in and out functionality quickly and it is a joy to work with.

Calendar sync with iCal was excellent and it even warns you of changes and how they will affect the calendar setup.

Imported photos are gorgeous, although I will not use this feature much. Watched a portion of a movie and a tv show, both ripped from DVD, not purchased through iTunes, and both ran great with flawless video. Some Bose noise cancelling headphones will be GREAT with this product.

Phone call quality is good, not great, but hey, I'm a current ATT customer, so I'm used to that. I have been told that the person on the other end can hear me much better than with my Blackberry 8700, so that is nice.

All in all I am very impressed and pleased with my purchase. The iPod portion of this phone has no cons that I can see, the internet browsing is superb and the phone quality is very acceptable. I would recommend this purchase to anyone who 1)has the money to purchase one, 2) enjoys a clean, slick user interface with easy access to all features, 3) wants a kick butt device to do all of what your phone and media player used to do taking up two pockets instead of one.

Pros Browser, Large Screen, E-mail, Multi-touch

Cons Typing, No-3g, no removable Battery, 8gb Only

Summary The phone of course look lovely, the browser features are amazing as well as the mail client. Though the lack of iChat, as well as 3g was a disappointment. What i really dont like is the keyboard. It rarely gets the input right as well as fixing it, it does fix some but not as good as it should be. The biggest downside is surely the typing. Also 8gb is not enough, and edge is not good enough to browse with.

Pros gorgeous to look at

Cons lacks important features + hard to type accurately

Summary Let's get this out of the way. I'm a HUGE fun of Apple products. I use Macs for a living and at home. I bought AAPL stock years ago pre-iPod when it was dirt cheap, and now it's worth a bunch. So being an early adopter of most things Apple (except Apple TV), I just HAD to buy an iPhone - of course! And why not get the more expensive one? So I did.

I'm a T-Mobile/Blackberry 8700 customer, and fairly satisfied except for poor reception in my neighborhood. Inexcusable considering I live in the heart of the Los Angeles flatlands, but that's a different gripe. Rather than immediately port my existing mobile number to AT&T and pay a $175 T-Mobile early termination fee, I activated my new iPhone with a fresh number. That way I could evaluate the iPhone and eventually port my number over if I couldn't live without it.

Activation was easy, no issues at all with AT&T/iTunes. Like most everyone, I was initially awed by the interface. But Apple-mania aside, I got a grip and began to put the phone through its paces.

Before syncing contacts and bookmarks, I spent a lot of time prepping my Mac's address book to clean up the mess and insert photos of most of my contacts. Also, it was time to dump those old unused bookmarks from Safari and rename ones that had long titles. It took time, but it was worth it. Syncing to iPhone took maximum advantage of my housecleaning. I'm glad I did that!

Right away, I had an issue with the teeny keys on the touchscreen keypad. My fat fingertips just can't reliably target those little touchscreen keys. After almost 2 weeks of evaluation, I have yet to type an SMS or email without tons of typos that need to be fixed before sending. The iPhone's error corrector fixes many but not most of my typos, and making the repairs is not fast using the magnifying glass tool. I can bang out messages with far fewer errors on my Blackberry, and the keys on the BB are tiny too. For whatever reason, I can't accurately type on the iPhone even after heavy use. A landscape mode keypad seems logical and conforms to the layout of most phones with qwerty keyboards. The keys would be wider that way, and it would be much easier to hold the iPhone with 2 hands and speed type with both thumbs. Maybe Apple will come up with that feature in a software update?

A MAJOR annoyance for this baby boomer is the lack of scalable fonts. Blackberry has this feature, and that's one of the main reasons I selected Blackberry over other smartphones a few months ago. I can enlarge the Blackberry's fonts to a bigger size, and I don't need to wear reading glasses to read the phone's screen. (Lasik is great, but presbyopia sucks and is a problem most of us over 40 have to deal with). C'mon Steve Jobs, we're the same age. Take pity on us middle agers and give us the option of scalable fonts!

When an email comes in, Blackberry has the email in the phone's memory at the same time the user is notified. It seems not to be the case with iPhone. When the iPhone indicates an email is on the server, it's just that and the message isn't actually downloaded to the iPhone from the email server until the user attempts to read the message. That's a waste of time, especially in an email that contains an attachment. My iPhone can't do anything else while such a message is downloading - very annoying! Why not download the message in the background, and have it available right away? Waiting for rich emails to download is a major time waster.

The little flashing LED message indicator on the Blackberry is a godsend, and iPhone needs something similar. A quick glance at a Blackberry tells you if you have a new message, but iPhone requires the user to unlock the phone, then remember how many messages you may have had previously to determine if a new one has recently arrived. This wastes battery life just to light up the iPhone screen to see if there's a new message. An exterior LED message indicator lamp would be more efficient and save precious battery charge.

Most people who would pop the big bucks for an iPhone are likely accustomed to broadband internet speeds, and it goes without saying that a phone as capable as iPhone should not have been introduced as a pokey 2.5G EDGE phone. It makes both Apple and AT&T look bad. Sure, WiFi is cool, but more often than not, there is no free WiFi coverage when I need it with my iPhone. Sure I have WiFi at home, but I'd rather surf the net on my Mac at home than hassling with the tiny iPhone screen. Web browsing on the phone is cool when I'm not near a computer, but the slow EDGE speed is not acceptable for this phone.

So ... after almost 2 weeks of evaluation, I have decided to return my iPhone and eat Apple's 10% restocking fee and $36 AT&T activation fee and network usage fees. I'm just not satisfied with iPhone v1 and not happy to pay $825 for the privilege of being an early adopter (including the phone, sales tax and T-Mobile early termination fees). Many of the above issues may be resolved with software updates to the v1 iPhone, but I'll wait for a future model with hardware that takes advantage of a faster network. I'm virtually certain I will have an iPhone someday. But I'll be happier knowing I didn't waste money on the v1 collector's item.

As one of Apple's biggest fans, this was a tough decision.

Pros Design, Design, Design.

Cons Storage, Network, Future enhancements around corner.

Summary This is an amazing product. It's visionary in what it's attempting and for that, the folks in Cupertino deserve a standing ovation. But I won't be lining up for one this time around.

Oh it has the lust factor. It's a drool-worthy design, and, as stated by Apple CEO Steve Jobs, "It's the best iPod we've ever built."

What got me excited about the product was the convergence factor. The theory being if I can stop carrying around an iPod, cell phone, and BlackBerry, how wonderful would is that?

Unfortunately, the phone is crippled with a meager 8 Gigs of drive space. With a filled-to-the-brim at 80 Gig iPod in my arsenal, this unit won't do the job.

The network is slow. Future versions will be able to access AT&T's remarkable 3G network, instead of it's slower sibling Edge network, which can take up to 2 minutes to load a web page. Also, future versions will most likely include GPS technology, so when I look up that Sushi restaurant, I won't have to tell Google where I'm located, it will just know.

Lastly, and this is my least concern, I'm afraid this phone's keyboard will have more in common with the first generation Newton, who's handwriting recognition was laughable. To be fair, I haven't tried the keyboard yet, so I will give this criticism an astericks for now.

So I rate this product a 6, because it's a decent phone, a good, if crippled iPod, and a poor web device. It's a good product, not a great one.

I can't wait for the next version, because I'm certain Apple already has heard these criticisms, and will address them around Christmas time. It's nice to see a company designing products that raise the bar on what a product can achieve, and I commend Apple for the effort.

I just won't be buying one this time around.