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Never in his seven-year review we have mobile phones have a phone that has been so controversial and popular. We even personally abused by reviewers who disagree with our opinions. This review is an attempt to find a balance between conflicting opinions (something we always strive for in the Mobile Phones UK, but that has been hard to achieve with the iPhone).
The problem is that the iPhone is in some ways so good, and very bad in other ways. Let's start with a generous and good.The iPhone offers a full range of wireless functionality with support for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity. The Wi-Fi compatibility is especially welcome, and a feature that's absent on far too many smart phones. When you're browsing the Web, the iPhone automatically searches for the nearest Internet hot spot. Bluetooth 2.0 is also on board, which delivers faster transmission and a longer range than Bluetooth 1.2. You can use Bluetooth for voice calls, but you don't get an A2dP stereo Bluetooth profile--another item that's not necessary but would be nice to have.
Though Apple CEO Steve Jobs has explained the iPhone's lack of 3G support by saying the chipsets take up too much room and drain too much battery, we'd like the option anyway. Yes, the Wi-Fi network is great when you can get it, but AT&T's EDGE network just doesn't cut it for all other surfing. EDGE Web browsing is so slow, it almost ruins the pretty Web interface. More on this in the Performance section.
iPhone is the first of a new generation of mobile phones: it's a touchscreen smartphone running Apple OS X. Instead of using buttons, joystick, etc., the iPhone has icons that appear on the touch-sensitive screen big. Big screen, and user interface only the liver. Apple claims that the iPhone is five years ahead of competition, and play with the user interface you can start to believe the hype. Touch the Phone icon on the screen and address book appears, tap the name and the iPhone to make calls. Touch the icon Photos and glide your photo album to display. Response from the user interface and create wealth effect using a telephone absolute joy. Smartphone has a reputation for being slow, bug-riding and hard to use, but the iPhone is the absolute opposite. Using the iPhone is just an amazing experience, and after you already own an iPhone is difficult to imagine will ever return to a regular phone. Look at the iPhone demo videos on the site to see for themselves.
iPhone is an iPod too of course. It plays music and with built-in 8 GByte flash memory, you can throw away your iPod. iPhone will play music and videos (on the stunningly large screen) and can download songs from iTunes on the move. 8 GBytes enough to store 3,000 songs.
Other major features include the Safari web browser (which provides one of the best implementations of the mobile web that we've found), Google Maps (which is incredible on the iPhone) and support a built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.
That is where the dismissal was good and bad starts. First price. iPhone is exclusive to O2 and will cost £ 269 to buy at £ 35 per month 18 month contract. It's locked to O2 and will continue to be locked even when the contract expired 18 months. It is far more expensive than other phones on the market mainstream.
Some of the technology under the hood is more like "five years from the date" of "five years ahead of the competition." For example, only 2 megapixel camera, autofocus and flash is not lacking. It's just a toy camera compared with the Nokia N95, Samsung G600 or Sony Ericsson K850i. All three phones currently in the 5th best-selling in the UK and all have 5 megapixel camera with flash and autofocus. Apple seriously misjudged the public desire for a quality camera on their phone.
Connectivity of the iPhone is also less serious (hey, it's Apple, we should not be surprised by this) The most obvious omission is the lack of 3G!. This is the only smartphone currently do not have 3G. For phones that puts so much emphasis on the music download and web browsing capabilities, the fact that you can only download at 2G speeds are the main limitations. It's like a Ferrari with a speed electronically limited to 30 mph! If you're on the O2 network-enabled EDGE or wi-fi hotspots, then you can access higher data speeds, but still do not like 3G. Unfortunately, because web browsing capabilities that the iPhone is the best we've ever seen on mobile. It seems that the iPhone is designed primarily for the U.S. market where most are not available where the choice of 3G handsets and the smaller ones. Bluetooth support is also seriously limited, without filesharing and no support for Bluetooth stereo headsets.
IPod's battery life is another matter. This iPod has a large LCD screen that eats resources and with so many gadgets to play with, the battery will run out fast enough. But even heavy users should get a full day's use of the cost, so it's not the end of the world. Other problems include the removal of MMS, and the fact that you can only set MP3 songs for ringtones if they download from iTunes.
So, what to conclude about the iPhone? This is definitely not a phone for everyone. It's very expensive, so we have to compare it with the best of the competition. What has the iPhone got that others do not? The answer is the user interface: large touchscreen display, the user interface truly is a modern miracle. It is also a good media player, but then so do its competitors. If you have money and you love the look, then the iPhone can phone you, but for the rest of our budget, you will be advised to forget the charm of the iPhone and buy a cheaper alternative that is not much more. Alternatives include LG KU990 Viewty, Nokia N95, Nokia N81, and Sony Ericsson W960i.
