Not all it's cracked up to be
Written: May 25 '08
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Easy to learn and use, awesome touch screen
Cons: No 3G, way too proprietory to customize, no MMS!
The Bottom Line: If I had the luxury of waiting, I would wait until Apple steps up to the plate and fixes the issues mentioned here. Especially the lack of 3G/high speed.
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| DrJavaago's Full Review: Apple iPhone (8 GB) Smartphone |
I want to say first that I purchased the iPhone because my Razr had some major issues and after a long fight, AT&T finally refunded me a good portion of my money on it. Looking at my choices, I found it actually cheaper to get the iPhone with a new 2 year contract than to get the newer Razr I was looking at. So no, I wasn't an immediate iPhone fan. I had heard there were bugs with it, and there are.
I will say I like it okay. There are things I really do like about it, but the negatives to me are big negatives. It depends on what you want to do with it or how you want to use it. I am not a big iPod kind of person, so the iTunes portion is less important to me than being able to take pictures and surf the net.
So here we go, my list of things I don't like about it:
1) No MMS. You can only send and receive SMS messages. In order to view MMS, you have to go to viewmymessage.com and TRY to remember the long user name and password it gives you (because you cannot copy and paste), or you have to write it down. I did spy an application work around online however, but I have not attempted it yet. From the reviews it appears to be hit and miss on functionality at this point. Obviously this is a tweak that Apple is not endorsing.
2) No 3G high speed access. My Razr had 3G. My iPhone does not. This is absolutely idiotic considering this phone was made to surf the web. My only reasoning on this is that AT&T requested this design "flaw" intentionally so they wouldn't have a lot of bandwidth used up by heavy surfers.
3) Safari browser shuts down on it's own with no warning at times. I have Googled this and found that it is a known problem. Some people say if you keep the number of browsers open to a minimum it will stop doing this. It doesn't. It has happened with just one open on me. Some say rebooting it will solve the problem. It doesn't. It still happens.
4) Along the lines with the browser, the iPhone will sometimes freeze up (ala Windows), and it does not matter if you have recently rebooted it or not. Sometimes I have to hold the button down for a full minute in order to get it to reset. This OS freezes up way more than my Windows XP on my laptop (in fact, I can't remember the last time this happened on my computer) and it is something that never happened with any of my other cell phones/smart phones.
5) Downloading applications is not what Apple had in mind for users. I see a lot of hacks and software that people have developed for it, but nothing from Apple. They are so extremely proprietory that they want you at their mercy at all times, apparently. The iPhone website has "web apps" you can use, but if you don't have access to a wireless hotspot, you are slugging away on the Edge network which sucks wind.
6) Photo/video: Most of the photos actually come out quite nice, but there is no way to tweak the camera for color, lighting or zooming in. Video? Laughable. No video capabilities here.
7) Don't let them fool ya. Safari is NOT a fully functioning browser on the iPhone. It is more fully functioning than regular cell phones, but you cannot many sites that have flash or java, and you cannot listen to music on web pages or watch video that is not set up to be watched via You Tube, and not all You Tube videos are accessible by iPhone.
8) No ability to create your own ring tone. This one really gets me. You get to pay for the song, and then IF the song is designated as one you are allowed to create a ringtone from, iTunes will allow you to pay another 99 cents to create a 30 second ring tone from the song you just bought. If the song is not on the approved list, you cannot create a ringtone from it. Forget using your own voice or your own creation to make a ring tone. It simply isn't going to happen. Again, I saw a hack/work around on a website recently, but I have reluctance installing software unless I *know* it will not muff up my phone.
9) The iPhone is slick to the touch. You really need a cover if you plan on having any sort of grip with it. For some reason the covers I have enable my cheek to brush the screen, and sometimes I end up being on mute or hanging up on someone without realizing it.
10) You can not sync your contacts from your old phone to your iPhone via blue tooth. This one really frosted my cookies because they would not let me insert my old sim card (I understand now how to do it, but initially thought it was too buried/built in to access it). The only thing it will let you sync bluetooth to is a headset. No other phones. I haven't tried other devices, but I suspect it is the same....thanks Apple.
Now, the things I like about it:
1) The touch screen is indeed awesome and intuitive. The design is very easy to learn and use.
2) I love the tilt feature with the browser and the pictures where it will automatically go to landscape if you turn it to the side.
3) Intuitive text is nice, but they do need to make the X to cancel out suggested text a bit bigger so fat fingers can accomplish this goal. It's hit and miss as to whether it decides you are trying to kill the suggestion or use it.
4) It is all in one, so I do love the fact that I have a cell phone/web browser in one device.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 399
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Epinions.com ID:
DrJavaago
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Member: Dina
Location: Oregon
Reviews written: 20
Trusted by: 1 member
About Me:
I am a police dispatcher and consider myself a geek in training.
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