iPhone

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A Hardware Review
by Sally Williams and Alan Horwitz
Review Date: August 2007

Product: iPhone

Company: Apple
URL: www.apple.com/iphone

Price: $499 for the 4GB model
$599 for the 8GB model

Reviewer's Rating: 4.5 out of 5 Apples

One of the authors of this review knew that she wanted an iPhone when Steve Jobs did his demonstration of the phone during the Macworld Conference & Expo. How many people can really say they like their cell phones and prize them like other technical gadgets? The iPhone is so impressive despite some flaws, partly due to the fact that it is the first generation iPhone. The wait on June 29 was a mere two hours and forty-five minutes for the purchase of the iPhone and activation was a breeze. We think that most of the people who had trouble with activating their iPhones had trouble because they were switching carriers. It would have been nice not to have to sign a two year contract with a phone company that doesn't have the best track record. Listening to music on the iPhone works as great as on a 5th generation iPod. In addition, you can scroll through your music via pictures of the albums if your iPhone is held horizontally, which is more than an iPod can do.

Since the iPhone serves so many different functions besides making and receiving phone calls, such as getting your e-mail, surfing the Web, listening to music, and getting directions using Google maps, you might be tempted to leave your iMac (or in the case of one of the reviewers, your Dell laptop) at home when going on vacation. Even if you don't need to type up documents or crunch some numbers, you still might want to bring that laptop to the shore along with you. The reason is that surfing the Web on the iPhone using Safari is agonizingly slow when viewing web pages with a lot of graphics, at least when using AT & T's Edge Network, which is the only network available if you do not have access to a Wi-Fi connection. One might say that using the Edge Network reminds one of the old days of dial-up Internet service. However, dial-up is actually faster.

When we turned on the Wi-Fi option, using the network from a Linksys wireless router with strong encryption, surfing the net was usually a bit faster. However, at times Safari started giving error messages about not being able to access the server. Playing with some of the settings seemed to correct that. It should also be noted that you can zoom in on a web page very easily by moving your fingers together or double tapping. It would be nice to be able to change the settings for Safari to not load graphics, but that did not appear to be an option. It is possible that in the future the iPhone will use AT & T's faster corporate network, even if that does drain the battery more quickly.

However, retrieving email, say from a .mac server, is much faster than surfing the web. One has to be careful with touching an e-mail that contains a phone number because you might accidentally call that number while touching the screen. Using the touch screen is very nice, though at times the screen can be unresponsive. The keyboard is not hard at all to learn how to use, and typing out a phone number on the big numerical keypad is a pure joy when compared to most cell phones we've used in the past.

While you might not want to leave your laptop at home when going on vacation, you can certainly leave your iPod at home. Except for not being able to store as many songs, using the iPhone as a music player is exceptional and at least as good as using the iPod. One can store approximately 1000 songs on the 4 GB iPhone.

OK, so what about making and receiving phone calls? When speaking with someone on the iPhone, the call quality is usually very good; however, there seem to be more dropped calls and generally a lower connection quality than with, say, Verizon Wireless. Of course, that would be due to using AT & T's network, not the iPhone itself. Some of the features one might be used to having with other cell phones (even fairly cheap ones) are not included with the iPhone, such as voice-activated dialing or voice recording. Customizable ring tones can be selected for each person in one's contact list. Keep in mind that there is no memory card slot for expanding storage size, so if you want to store a lot of music and/or photos, you should definitely go with the 8 GB iPhone.

Overall, the iPhone is recommended for all as long as one is aware of the perceived cons of the device. Some may find that the touch screen requires too much patience while others may love it. Personally, we found the keyboard easy to get used to with some practice, though we do not use the iPhone for business as some might. It is easy to hit the wrong key so a heavy user may get frustrated. On the other hand, there is spell check and one gets faster with practice. A crystal film set consisting of two pieces of rubber plastic was purchased along with the iPhone. One piece covers the screen to protect your iPhone from scratches. We highly recommend this. An iSee case was also purchased, as well as a holder for the iPhone to protect it and carry it, which is similar in concept to the iPod holder. However, the plastic cover cracked and the holder has unfastened a few times causing the iPhone to drop. We must confess that the iPhone has been dropped twice on a tile floor and is still working without a scratch.

Despite the criticisms of the iPhone listed above and despite the fact that one of the reviewers thinks that the iPhone is a little too expensive and a bit over-hyped, the phone is a splendid piece of technology. The beautiful experience of using the iPhone is more than just the sum of all of its individual functions. Just don't let the beauty distract you from examining the actual features of the phone to see if it is appropriate for you. If you want to wait, improvements and new applications will be coming in the next generation.

Moe Comeau
Reviewers: Sally Williams and Alan Horwitz

Sally has worked in the health care field for many years with a special interest in alternative health therapies. She is a Registered Nurse in addition to being a Certified School Nurse in Pennsylvania. Sally spends most of her free time finishing her Masters in Public Health (MPH) degree at West Chester University. She is the proud owner of an iMac PowerPC G5 with 512 MB of memory and an iBook G4 with 256 MB of memory.

Alan Horwitz has a PhD in mathematics and does research in various areas of mathematics as well as teaching courses such as calculus on the college level. He also builds his own computers and helps friends and relatives with PC problems, though some of his best friends are Mac users.

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