right - I like apple stuff and I want to get either an iphone or a ipod touch.
The logic in me tells me the iphone is underpowered and overpriced for our current market when compared with 2 of the main rivals (in my view), the se w960i and the samsung f700.
Both the f700 and the w960i have touchscreens, they both have media capabilities, they both have very good interfaces (samsung won an award for 'croix' interface). Both are 3g with the f700 being hspda. The w960i has wifi but no hspda, no biggy in my view as mobile browsing isnt really about heavy downloading but I think I would miss the lack of wifi on the f700. Not sure about the f700 but the w960i has opera as its browser and its comparable to safari in all but the purely touchscreen approach (ie double tap etc on iphone). And you will be able to get them all heavily subsidised by the provider.
IIRC 3g only activates as and when its needed on most phones now so batterylife isnt really an issue.
Sizes: well the w960i is 16mm deep (x 109 x 55), the f700 is 16.4mm deep (x 104 x 50) and the 11.6mm (x 115 x 61) so realistically they're all about the same size in volume, its just the shape thats a little different.
Then I think about my current phone, a SE p900, the second in a long line of highly regarded smartphones. Its done the whole portable internet thing for several years now (opera), had the touchscreen (admittedly not multi-touch) for several years too, but how much do I use the mms, the gprs internet (and I have a £25 a month allowance on this) and music features - hardly ever. Email access is a given on most decent phones these days and to be honest even thats rarely used. It does allow mp3 ringtones though
The one thing about the o2 packages that bugs me is the lack of voice minutes and the limited 'unlimited' data (got to love a fup and whatever happened to these false advertising laws). If I buy a phone its to ring people on first, its not to be used as mobile data device and to be honest I'm not prepared to spend 45 quid to get an acceptable amount of talk time, I would rather have less data and text messages.
But do you know something - the stupid side of me that likes all things new and shiny wants to buy an iphone, for no other reason than to say I have an iphone. So the idea for me is simple see how the hack goes when the us phone gets a firmware update and if it goes well buy an iphone and hack it to use on a better network
Whether this is how I feel after actually playing with one is another matter, as I may just be so underwhelmed by the os that I'm like I'll save myself some money and see what bargains I can get from vodafone when I say I'm tempted by an iphone
