Mike
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join:2000-09-17
Pittsburgh, PA
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1 edit | reply to MarkyD
Re: Strongly considering iPhones...
I've been playing with an iPhone (and a macbook air) Apple gave me for two weeks.
Here's my impression.
Things I don't like:
GPS - useless. Standing in the middle of downtown Pittsburgh, it gave me a 4 mile radius of where I was. Same thing when I was at home. I'm waiting for Turn-by-Turn. HOWEVER... as I wrote this and got an email... Turn by Turn is coming. It's a firmware problem.
Screen - Smudges way too easy. Not too bright.
Camera - Same garbage 2mp in the previous. It looks really good on the iPhone itself, however, looks like junk on anything else. No flash.
No SMS without $5 more a month.
Battery life - awful. 3g standby is about 11 hours. Meaning if I travel, I'd have to charge it 3 times per day. Come back when it's 3 days.
No Stereo Bluetooth. It's an iPod, sort of.
I can't sync it between two computers without it whining.
Things I like:
UI is neat. I find it useful and effective.
Call quality - not too bad at all. A lot of echo if not in perfect signal range. It's a phone. You talk into it.
For some reason, I really like the mail interface.
It has some fairly neat apps.
--
Would I buy one with the 20% monthly discount? No. Though if you have to choose between some crappy Windows Mobile phone, I'd get an iPhone instead and hope with firmware changes that most of it can be fixed. |
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Lorne
Premium
join:2002-02-10
Fort Worth, TX
2 edits | I'll argue with you Mike:
said by Mike  : GPS - useless. It took mine (on 2.0) about 15 seconds to put a dot on my next door neighbors house. I wouldn't call it useless. Even if it gets close to where your are it makes finding your location on a map much eaiser
said by Mike : Screen - Smudges way too easy. Not too bright. By defualt the phones are set at about 60% brightness and auto-adjust is on. I think the brightness is superior to other phones. Try turning auto brightness off and turning it up all the way. Smudges - I can't argue with you on that at all, but humans do produce oil and you'll be hard pressed to find a cell touch screen that does better.
said by Mike : Camera - Same garbage 2mp in the previous. It looks really good on the iPhone itself, however, looks like junk on anything else. No flash.
It's good enough to get things on the fly - for example something you're about to buy so your wife at home can see what's going on. And, how many cell phones have flashes?C'mon Mike!  But you did forget about the lack of a video camera.
said by Mike :Battery life - awful.
Best battery life of a smartphone. How can you complain when nothing is better? It's lasts longer than an AT&T Tilt and that phone has a massive heavy battery. Also, when used as a normal phone it will last a week. It's only 3G web browsing that really sucks down the phone. WiFi at home only uses a 1/3 of the power
said by Mike :No Stereo Bluetooth. It's an iPod, sort of.
I don't think many people care about that... but valid point.
Otherwise... email getting rid of texts as a better option? Are you guys on crack? I love the iPhones text message setup and it's much easier to do than sending an email. Also, the way the text history works on an iPhone is awesome.
Edit: The battery life AnadTech link - »www.anandtech.com/gadgets/showdo···x?i=3353
and the battry life test comparison (what differences!) -
»gizmodo.com/5025309/round-up-nin···-results
This graph has a couple of Blackberry's beating the iPhone on 3G tests - »www.pcworld.com/zoom?id=148348&p···oomIdx=1 |
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bbarrera
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join:2000-10-23
Sacramento, CA
clubs:
·SureWest Internet
| reply to Mike
said by Mike :GPS - useless. Standing in the middle of downtown Pittsburgh, it gave me a 4 mile radius of where I was. Same thing when I was at home. I'm waiting for Turn-by-Turn. HOWEVER... as I wrote this and got an email... Turn by Turn is coming. It's a firmware problem. Screen - Smudges way too easy. Not too bright. Go to Apple store and checkout "Power Support Anti-Glare Film Set for iPhone" which totally solves smudging problem and also protects the screen from scratches.
I've got the original iPhone and can honestly say that I use "GPS" frequently it has worked extremely well except on one occasion. That said I wouldn't expect GPS to work well in any downtown due to tall buildings. We have issues with XM Radio reception in our Acura MDX while driving in around the San Francisco downtown in addition to issues driving in small/large canyons around California.
I constantly use the web browser for business and nothing compares. Mail works very well except when switching between inboxes of multiple accounts -- requires drilling up two levels and then drilling down two levels. The games and other apps are great. |
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djrobx
join:2000-05-31
Valencia, CA
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1 edit | reply to Mike
quote:
GPS - useless. Standing in the middle of downtown Pittsburgh, it gave me a 4 mile radius of where I was. Same thing when I was at home
It sounds like your GPS is not working. It gives you a "radius" when it's using cell tower/wifi triangulation (as will an older iPhone). You'll get a blue dot right at your location that follows you as you move when the GPS signal is picked up.
Does it do everything? No. Other phones can walk over the iPhone when looking at a feature punch list. But it's just such a refreshingly intuitive, fun to use phone that those things just don't matter.
As for it being worth the price - nobody but you can justify the cost. I don't like the fact that the internet went up to $30, but admittedly, it's a "toy" I use the crap out of and enjoy the crap out of daily. |
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Matt
Gone playing Dragon Age Origins
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join:2003-07-20
Jamestown, NC
·North State Commun..
| reply to Lorne
said by Lorne :It's good enough to get things on the fly - for example something you're about to buy so your wife at home can see what's going on. And, how many cell phones have flashes?C'mon Mike! But you did forget about the lack of a video camera. My Moto Q9c does.
said by Lorne :Best battery life of a smartphone. How can you complain when nothing is better? This is blatantly false. My Q9c will last 3-4 days of activesync email (constant EVDO Exchange push), SMS and voice. From your own links just about every Blackberry on the market is better. |
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ptrowski
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Putnam, CT
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| said by Matt :said by Lorne :It's good enough to get things on the fly - for example something you're about to buy so your wife at home can see what's going on. And, how many cell phones have flashes?C'mon Mike! But you did forget about the lack of a video camera. My Moto Q9c does. said by Lorne :Best battery life of a smartphone. How can you complain when nothing is better? This is blatantly false. My Q9c will last 3-4 days of activesync email (constant EVDO Exchange push), SMS and voice. From your own links just about every Blackberry on the market is better. I will agree with this one. My Blackberry Curve could go for 3 days or so syncing. I charged my iPhone last night overnight and I am just above the 50% mark. Push is on, but set to Manual. 37 minutes of phone usage today, nominal data usage, just emails coming in.
So I would say personally the battery life seems worse that my Blackberry. |
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bbarrera
Premium,MVM
join:2000-10-23
Sacramento, CA
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·SureWest Internet
| said by ptrowski :I will agree with this one. My Blackberry Curve could go for 3 days or so syncing. I charged my iPhone last night overnight and I am just above the 50% mark. Push is on, but set to Manual. 37 minutes of phone usage today, nominal data usage, just emails coming in. So I would say personally the battery life seems worse that my Blackberry. quote:
"The battery life on Apple's new 3G iPhone isn't great, but it beats that of other AT&T 3G smart phones we've seen. However in our tests, the iPhone 3G's performance fell short of that achieved by BlackBerry models that support EvDO, the 3G technology used by Sprint and Verizon Wireless.
...
...
Two of them, the BlackBerry Pearl 8130 and the BlackBerry 8830, edged out the iPhone by 4 minutes, with average talk times of 5 hours, 42 minutes each. But the BlackBerry Curve 8330 lasted 6 hours, 8 minutes--a solid half-hour longer than the iPhone. All three handsets also earned Fair ratings for performance."
Not a big difference but the 3 BlackBerry CDMA models (Verizon/Spring) did edge out iPhone on PC World's battery tests.
»www.pcworld.com/article/148348/3···ls.html# |
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bkjohnson
Premium
join:2002-05-22
Birmingham, AL | However, you can get a second battery and standalone charger for the Blackberries. Good for trips, etc. |
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