The Cell Phone Quest – Part 3
Well, I had to get to it at some point. So here it goes…the iPhone! (Full disclosure – I do not own an iPhone nor have been give one free of charge by Apple or AT&T)
Hands down, the iPhone was and still is a game changer. As I have mentioned earlier, I have an iPod Touch (everything the iPhone is with out the phone or AT&T) and just love it. If Sprint carried the iPhone, it would be lights out! Done deal! Out of the park! But they don’t. So I still have to make a difficult choice.
What I like best about the iPhone is that it just flat out works! It’s designed well. It looks good. It run fast enough. The screen is large and easy to use. It has a million apps (ok, thousands)! With out taking the service into account, it wins!
However, and that is a big however, there are some issues. Look at the numbers. Total two year cost for the service is $2700! That is almost $1000 more than Sprint. It would require moving over to At&T. Sprint has terrible customer service at times, but I have heard nothing good from AT&T customers. It does lack a full QWERTY keyboard, something I have come to love on my Moto. Battery life is poor and the connector to your PC is proprietary (means you have to spend $20 at the Apple store to get one). It also lacks additional storage in the form of an SD slot. Not a big deal, just would be handy at times. The basic service plan comes with twice the minutes, but look at the data and text costs. Ouch.
So I continue to look. I have until Sep 11th to make a decision anyway. Think I’ll go and look at some other phones at the Sprint Store. They may show up on blog.
Note: The Lower the Score, the Better.
| Phone | Moto Q | Palm Pre | iPhone | |||
| Service Provider | Verizon | 2 | Sprint | 1 | At&T | 3 |
| Full Screen | No – 2.1 in 320 x 240 | 3 | Yes – 3.1 in 480 x 320 | 2 | Yes – 3.5 in 480 X 320 | 1 |
| Corporate Email | Yes | 1 | Yes | 1 | Yes | 1 |
| Touch Browser | No | 3 | Yes | 1 | Yes | 1 |
| Qwerty Keyboard | Yes | 1 | Yes | 1 | No | 3 |
| Storage | 64 MB | 3 | 8GB | 2 | 16 GB | 1 |
| SD Card Support | Yes | 1 | No | 2 | No | 2 |
| Wifi | No | 3 | Yes | 1 | Yes | 1 |
| Bluetooth | 1.2 with A2DP | 3 | 2/1 + EDR with A2DP | 1 | 2.1 + EDR | 1 |
| Camera | Yes – 1.3 megapixels | 3 | Yes – 3.2 megapixels | 1 | Yes – 3 Megapixels | 2 |
| Video | Yes | 1 | Yes | 1 | Yes | 1 |
| Music Player / Podcasts | Yes | 1 | Yes | 1 | Yes | 1 |
| Battery Life | Li-ion 18 – 24 hours | 1 | Li-ion 4 – 6 hours | 3 | Li-ion 5 to 10 hours | 2 |
| Removal Battery | Yes | 1 | Yes | 1 | No | 3 |
| Turn by Turn GPS | No | 3 | Yes | 1 | Yes | 1 |
| Applications | Yes | 3 | Yes | 2 | Yes | 1 |
| OS | Windows Mobile 5 | 3 | WebOS | 1 | iPhone OS | 1 |
| Tethering | Yes with additional data plan | 2 | Maybe | 2 | Yes – but not supported | 3 |
| Headphone Jack | 2.5mm | 3 | 3.5mm | 1 | 3.5mm | 1 |
| Network | CDMA – EVDO Rev0 | 2 | 3G EVDO RevA | 1 | GSM/EDGE | 1 |
| Charger Type | Mini USB | 1 | Mini USB | 1 | iPod Connector | 3 |
| Score | 44 | 28 | 34 | |||
| Cost for Phone | Free | $199.00 | $199.00 | |||
| Monthly Cost | $80.00 | $70.00 | $60.00 | |||
| Data | Unlimited | included | $30.00 | |||
| Text | $10.00 | included | $15.00 | |||
| 2 year Contract | $2,160.00 | $1,680.00 | $2,520.00 | |||
| Total | $2,160.00 | $1,879.00 | $2,719.00 | |||
| Number of Minutes | 450 | 450 | 900 | |||
| Employee Discount | 12% | 7% | 7% |
Remember, I search so you don’t have to!
