I always hear that Apple makes better products. Well, I have the iPhone and I’m not very impressed. It has a lot of bugs!

The Safari on my phone keeps crashing.

I was on a call once, and all of a sudden, the call went on speakerphone and the screen went blank. I had to reboot the phone for it to function again.

When I get out of subway stations, it takes minutes for my iPhone to get a signal. My previous phones took less than a minute.

At times, I get no service for no reason and I had to reboot the phone to get a signal again.

I received a text from Apple that the wall adapter that came with the iPhone 3G is defective. Apple will replace the defective adapter for free, but not until October 10 onwards. Click here for more info.

After ignoring my brother and John’s protests about the iPhone, I ordered it.  After using it for a few days, I was able to assess some of the phone’s pros and cons based on my needs and decide whether it’s worth to keep it or not.

If you are a business phone user, I won’t recommend the iPhone at all.  If you just want a “cool” and entertaining phone, and can deal without some basic features, go ahead and get it.

NEGATIVES

• Battery is not user replaceable.  Being a smartphone, the iPhone uses a lot of battery.  It may not even last a whole day if you’re a heavy user.  It helps if you can have a spare battery, but this wouldn’t work with the iPhone.  There are battery back-ups that you can buy to attach to the iPhone, but that makes it too bulky.
• Texts are grouped in conversations (chat-like layout). I think this makes it easy to read texts, but the iPhone doesn’t have the option to delete individual messages. You can only delete the whole conversation.  The 3.1 software allows individual messages to be deleted.
• Even with the 3G network, data speed is still slow.  In addition, the 3G network in my area is crappy.
• No voice dial, video recording, voice recording, MMS messaging, bluetooth data transfer.  I don’t know if there are apps available for these features.  I know there are some available for voice recording.  The 3.1 software allows voice recording, MMS messaging and bluetooth data transfer.  However, I never got to test the bluetooth transfer coz I can never get to find any other bluetooth devices from my phone or the other way around.
• GPS is okay, but slow and delayed in tracking where you are when you’re driving.  It’s not good for navigation.  It can follow where you are, but it can’t relate your position to the directions.  By the way, you can’t get directions if you can’t connect to the internet.
• There are no sound profiles.  You also can’t change the tone for email and calendar alerts.
• Low ring volume compared to other phones.  I have my phone set to the highest volume, and it’s still hard to hear it when the phone’s in my bag and I’m outside.  Vibrate doesn’t help as it is too subtle.
• Other volumes (i.e. music, video, call) affect the volume of the ringtone which is very annoying.  You will have to go back to settings to change the volume of the ringtone every time you listen to music, watch a video, talk to someone or anything where you had to change the volume.  With the new 2.1 firmware, the issue with other volumes affecting the ringer volume looks to have been resolved.
• Must use iTunes to transfer data.
• Browser cannot play Flash.
• No ‘real’ speed dial.  The shortest way to speed dial takes 2 clicks, usually 3.
• No copy and paste function.  The 3.1 software now allows copy and paste.
• Visual voicemail speaker is too soft.
• The camera set up is not user-friendly.  It’s hard to take self-portraits.  You will have to guess where to press the shutter since the shutter button is on the screen.  There’s no mirror on the back either so you’re not sure whether you’re in the frame or not.  GeekSugar posted a tip on how to use the iPhone camera easily.
• Creating a custom ringtone including mp3 files is more complicated than in other phones.
• Dictionary cannot be disabled.  Since my language is not included in the iPhone, it just keeps suggesting English words which is annoying.  I have to press “X” a lof of times.  At least it’s supposed to remember the words I typed.  The option to disable the iPhone dictionary is now available with the 3.1 software.
• When a call comes in while the phone is locked then the alarm goes off while the phone is ringing, there is no way to turn the alarm off.  The only controls you see on the screen are for the call (i.e. accept call).
• The alarm sounds off when phone is in silent mode instead of just vibrating.  Unlike most phones, there is no option for the alarm to go off when the phone is off or when the phone ran out of battery.

POSITIVES

• Beautiful and easy interface, and smooth touchscreen response.
• Plenty of downloadable 3rd party applications.
• Bigger screen and nice graphics than the other touchscreen phones.
• Webpage displays are pretty similar to that on a computer.
• Rechargeable via a computer.
• Visual voicemail.
• It’s cheaper than a lot of smartphones.
• Reception at my job is better than with my previous phones.
• You can find local businesses with extensive info (i.e. number, website, address) by using the map.

What I need/want:
I’ve assigned percentages to each feature based on my priority needs/wants.  After using the iPhone, I’ve come up with how much of those percentages the iPhone fulfills.  In total, the iPhone fulfills 77% 76% of my needs/wants, so I’m keeping it.

I got my iPhone and played with it for a few days.  I promise I will be posting what I think about the iPhone (sorta of a review) soon.

As I was waiting for my iPhone and now playing with it, I’m also looking at other phones.  iPhone definitely does not have everything compared to other phones such as MMS, video recording, Bluetooth data transfer.  So I was preparing to see what I can buy just in case I need to return the iPhone.  Other competing touchscreen phones I found were LG Vu and Samsung Instinct.  Unfortunately, Samung Instinct does not use the GSM network that I need.  But I decided to check it out anyway.

Below is a video of a comparison between iPhone, LG Vu and Samsung Instinct by Noah from PhoneDog.com:

[video]http://www.youtube.com/v/02Tbh_umdSg&hl=en&fs=1[/video]

Below are direct links to Cnet reviews:

iPhone (AT&T)
LG Vu (AT&T)
Samsung Instinct (Sprint)

Not so good. I just got the iPhone yesterday and shortly after, I realized I got a lemon. According to an iPhone representative at AT&T, my phone has a proximity issue. Everytime I am on a call, the screen goes blank (it’s supposed to). But when I take it away from my ear to press a number, the screen never comes back. The only way I could get the screen back is to press the sleep/wake button which of course cuts my call.

By the way, here’s a big NEGATIVE for AT&T:
When I went to iTunes, somebody else’s account was already set up. The phone I got wasn’t brand new! I am not paying full-price for a returned item. It’s not even refurbished coz it wasn’t working right.

Here are some Cons I noticed while playing with the iPhone for less than 24 hours (I will be posting a longer review with pros when I get a replacement):

3G
The 3G signal on my phone is crappy in my area. Believe it or not, the EDGE was better.

Battery
There’s no removable battery, so you cannot really replace it yourself. If you’re a heavy phone user, you’ll find the battery insufficient (even at full charge). A spare battery would have been nice, but that’s not possible.

SMS Texting
Texts are grouped in conversations (chat-like layout). I think this makes it easy to read texts, but the iPhone doesn’t have the option to delete a particular message. You can only delete the whole conversation.

Keyboard
The keyboard has no landscape option when texting.

Email
When editing my Yahoo! email (delete, move, etc), I have no way of knowing which emails are unread, or I’m just not seeing it.

Software
Like Windows, it hangs up too. It hanged up when I was trying to save a photo for a contact. It also hanged up when I was in YouTube.

Here are some basic features the iPhone doesn’t have, but I don’t really mind:

• There’s no mirror on the back so it’s hard to know whether you’re in the frame or not when taking a self-portrait.
• There’s no video recording.
• There’s no MMS messaging.

I didn’t like the iPhone nor did I plan to buy it since it was first introduced, until now.  With the cost going down to $199-$299, I got curious.  A lot of people discouraged me from getting it.  User reviews were not very good either.  Some of the basic features such as MMS, video recording and bluetooth data transfer are not supported.  But my curiosity got the better of me and I ordered one!  I am hoping to try it before I can either say “It’s not for me.” or “It’s great!”

It is on back-order so AT&T will have to contact me when my phone arrives at the store.  They said it takes 7-10 days.  That’s definitely a lot better than waiting in line for hours just to be one of the first to get it.  By the way, you can also buy it from an Apple store.  I have a business account and the process is a lot more complicated when buying from an Apple store, so I didn’t bother.

I will probably post a review after playing with the iPhone for a couple of days.  Since I’m not very tech-savvy when it comes to mobile phones, the review would probably be short and not very technical.

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The Palm Island Resort in Grenadines banned the use of mobile, laptops or PDA within half a mile of Casarina beach.

There is nothing worse than lying back in your double hammock, sipping on your strawberry daiquiri and hearing the Motorola jingle in the background.”

~ Rob Barrett, owner Palm Island Resort

Oh yes there are worse things.  But I’m not gonna get into that.  Some people may find this restriction over the top.  But I don’t.

• First of all, the restriction doesn’t apply to the whole resort.

• Second, it’s a vacation for goodness sake.  If you want to stay “connected,” lock yourself in your room.  You have a room, don’t you?

• Third, there are other resorts.  If you don’t like the restriction, book with someone else.  Simple as that.

Don’t get me wrong, I take my phone and laptop with me everytime I go on vacation.  John and I are even taking two laptops with us to our Mexican vacation next week.  But we don’t spend most of our time with the gadgets.  We book all our days with activities and at day’s end, we get connected.

(via Geek Sugar)

I would rather buy from a dealer here in NY, but the family plan is under John’s account so we had to order it online.  I was looking at Wirefly.com (besides, I am an affiliate), until I got this order summary in the beginning of the checkout process:

No way am I going to pay a family plan processing fee!  So I decided to visit LetsTalk.com where we got our previous phones.  And this was the order summary:

Here are other comparisons based on our order, other services not listed here are pretty similar in both stores:

John and I had the Samsung T809 from T-Mobile.  Now that our contract is ending this month, we’re looking to switch to Cingular (we want to stay with GSM) and get new phones!  He dropped his phone in the water.  It is still working, but now it sucks up too much battery juice.  Please help us choose…

KRZR K1

 RAZR V3i                                    V3xx IZAR

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P.S.  Price is not a factor, they’re all free!