[Device Reviews and Information] 2manyphones:
I have been debating giving my opionion here because I feel like I have gone to the dark side.. :o I have used a WM device for about 2 years and owned about every variant (not really but it seems like it). My latest being the Touch. I thought the Touch would be a phone that would make me not want the iPhone, but I was wrong. I finally gave in about a month ago when I realized that I spent most of my free time tweaking the Touch to work like an iPhone - or rather make it easy to use.

Here is my not-so-quick breakdown comparing my iPhone (unlocked and highly tweaked) to the Touch (with out of box ROM, but MUCH customization):

Phone itself: As listed above, the touchsceen is the clincher. The iPhone has a capacitance rather than resistance display. When I go back to the Touch from the iPhone, I feel like I am pressing the heck out of the display or I have to remember to try and use my fingernails (that I don't have). Screen size and resolution is not even close. The iPhone can even be seen in the daylight, as compared to the Touch that is almost worthless outside. Overall size, however, the Touch is smaller, lighter and if all I was going to do is make calls, I would prefer the Touch. The iPhone does have much better side volume keys and the switch to togle from ringer to silent is much better. I thought I would miss not having as many hard keys on the iPhone, but the only one I kind of miss is a dedicated camera button. It is a little tough to take pictures when the capture button is on the touchscreen. I would say the finish on the Touch is more durable and if you were hard user (i.e. outdoors) I would not have an iPhone. The metal back and chrome bezel around the screen scratch very easy. The only durability problem I have had with the Touch are some light scratches on the display from being in my pocket. I'm sure some kind of plastic polishing compound would fix it, though.

e-mail: Yes, the iPhone can do corporate exchange mail. This was the final frontier for me and the iPhone. With my company turning on IMAP with SSL, I am able to get e-mail from our company exchange server. No, it is not push, but every 15minutes is fine for me. It does reconcile nicely, with the exeption of not removing deleted mail from servier that is deleted on the device. I find it somewhat pathetic that the e-mail and attatchments I get on the iPhone look and opperate 10 times better than WM. Once you see HTML mail on the iPhone, it is hard to go back to WM. Yes, the Touch has many more features that some can't do without. I won't deny I miss a couple of them, like corporate address lookup and complete push syncing. I don't know that I have ever had to edit an attachment on my mobile, so only being able to view attachements doesn't bother me.

The keyboard: Over the weekend I did a little keyboard showdown because I was curious about how close the overall typing time would compare between some of my devices with hard keyboards and some with soft keyboards. The bottom line is that in my test, yes I could type faster on a hard keyboard. The HTC S621/Excalibar was the fastest at 1 minute 12 seconds for my test text. In comparison, however I was able to do 1:17 with the iPhone and 1:19 with the Touch (pocketCM keyboard and my iPhone color skin). Given that with the Wizard and Herald - both hard keyboards, I was at 1:14/1:15, I was very impressed with the speed and accuracy of the iPhone keyboard. It would be nice to have landscape keyboard support on the iPhone for all text entry, not just Safari.

3rd party apps: I am using some great apps on the iPhone that overcome some of the 1st generation problems that were publisized. I have IM, a todo/task program and full homescreen customization (custom icons, wallpaper, etc). With the "installer" app that can be loaded on the iPhone, you can even install and uninstall apps and custom graphics, ringtones, etc. from the device. To me, I used to find it fun customizing WM devices, but now it is almost frustrating compared to how easy I can see results on the iPhone.

Stock apps: Again, not to bash WM, but it's not even close. The calendar app syncs perfectly with my PC and Outlook. As do the my contacts. The weather widget is great and I also have a safari shortcut to accuweather that shows live radar and infrared views. Notes are much easier to see and edit than the "Notes" program on WM or OneNoteMobile or Notepad. GoogleMaps is close to the WM equivilant although not being able to use GPS (with my Trinity) or a Bluetooth puck, the WM version does have some advantages. I have not tried the 3rd party app for the iPhone called Navizon. Apparently it uses cell site information to triangulate your position. YouTube is amazing. iPod, duh, is amazing with coverflow. Safari is by far the best mobile internet browser - period - Yes I have used Pixel and Opera for WM devices. With the new HTC Album program, photos as now close to the iPhone, but... Threaded SMS is still better on the iPhone than any of the threaded SMS apps I have seen on WM. I think you get the picture... ;)

Processor: 600+mhz on the iPhone vs. 201 on the Touch or even 400 on the Trinity. Even with the Touch overclocked to 273 and closing out apps when done, the Touch is so slugish compared to the iPhone. Think about it from the task management standpoint. YOU NEVER NEED TO CLOSE APPS on the iPhone. You just hit the home button and go to the next. This doesn't sound big, but trust me it is very liberating to not worry about closing apps. Did I mention video streaming or video playback? Again not even close, even comaring it to the Trinity.

Battery: Honestly I don't know how Apple did it. This think has a bigger display, faster processor, (relatively) huge internal memory to access and somehow the battery life is much better on the iPhone than any of my (touchscreen) WM devices. With both the Trinity and Touch I have to charge them every night, regardless of being charged throughout the day. The iPhone charges in the cradle throughout the day and I never charge it at night and usually (depending on if I am watching video or things that utilize the display) not charge the iPhone all weekend. The spec of 8 hours talk time, may just be accurate. I have made 2 hour plus conference calls and had the battery barely move.

"Mystery" dialing / answering: I know there are lock programs and the like on WM, but I have yet to find a solution that I like to prevent the phone ringing in my pocket and me accidentally answering it when the screen / keys turn on. I thought the iPhone "slide to unlock / answer" was a gimic when I first stared using the phone, but now I am sold - you can't accidentially answer a call and you can't accidentally call someone by forgetting to turn off the display (power button) and pressing the send key (on my Touch or Trinity, as I have done too many times). My wife uses a (Wasabi Green) Touch and has accidently called me many times. She swears something in her purse bumps the power button and then the send key gets bumped to redail me.

Rebooting: This is a comon occurance in WM, but I think I have only had to reboot the iPhone once since I have had it. And when you do turn off and on the iPhone: 2-5 seconds and it's off and it is back on in about 15 seconds (if you think that sounds long, time your WM device some time....).

Visual indicators on the main screen: While I know there are WM today plugs that can do this, I really like having a wifi signal meter and a bluetooth connection icon on the status bar.

Things that I don't like about the iPhone:

1. No copy, paste, select. I have learned to do without, but anytime I have to delete a large amount of text or type in the same thing more than twice, it gets a little annoying.

2. No stereo Bluetooth. This doesn't make any sense. This Apple's best iPod interface on a device that has Bluetooth and they don't set up A2DP? I have been able to use a Jabra BT adapter and it does stream stereo audio to my Motorola S9 headphones, but you can't use it with the phone and it gives you the annoying "this is not an approved iPhone accessory. Do you want to turn the phone off?" every time I plug in the adapter. WM does have the advantage hear, but going back to some high end wired headphones plugged into the iPhone give me AMAZING audio quality (I own B&W home speakers, so this not something I say lightly).

3. The camera is very limited in it's funtions. It is great if you are taking pictures of things that don't move in good lighting. If that is not the case (as with my 7 month old daughter that doesn't stay still for a minute), use another camera. There is no zoom, no lighting adjustment, no video capture, etc. Don't get me wrong, I use the camera quite a bit, so I wouldn't call it usesless, but compared to the same 2mp on the Touch and Trinity, they offer functions that I do miss on the iPhone.

Can't complain to much, but: as I don't live in an AT&T market (yes there are some in the US...), not having the visual voicemail is a little painful after seeing how cool it is. The good news is the phone does opperate exactly like my other phones when I do have voicemail. The indicator works. I press the voicemail icon and the iPhone calls my voicemail number (set by the SIM) and puts in my password. The keypad is visible to delete, save etc.

In my opinion, the iPhone will push Microsoft and the handset manufacturers to do better. Microsoft can publically denounce the iPhone all they want, but the fist day I saw a mouse connected to a PC I knew that sometimes even the mightly Microsoft can realize that somethings just make sense for everyone. :p

So, if you thought you knew everything about the iPhone, hopefully if you actually read all this you may have learned something new....