Apr 09, 2008, 12:10am

So I bought an iPhone.

Yeah, I know, I've been critical of the phone in the past, but I recently dropped my cell phone, and I also shut off an old VOIP service we had (tip for Canadians, never use Primus Talk Broadband - the quality sucks), and well, it was time for a new phone.

So I found one online (they aren't available in Canada), and I bought it. It arrived a few days ago.

I have to say, I'm not quite sure what all the hype is about. I mean, let me talk about some of the "features"; I'll start with the good stuff.

- on the positive side, I was able to get it working with a new Yahoo! Messenger voice account. I can get voice calls straight to the iPhone on two new Y! Voice phone numbers I purchased and set up. I can even do outgoing calls on it via VOIP, which is super sweet. Don't ask me how I managed this though, I don't really know how it all works - black magic, I guess. I just read up about how to use the iPhone to do this online, and followed the instructions, and it seemed to work.

- voice quality is surprisingly good. I have friends who have iPhones, and they always sound like they're in a tunnel or something. Not sure why mine is better.

- range and battery life is really good. Much better than I thought either would be. I've talked on the iPhone for about 6 hours of talk time so far, and haven't had to recharge it yet.

- it's small and light. Sure, it's bigger than my old cell phone, but it's smaller than some other phones I've owned.

- I like how I can assign ringtones to different callers and groups. Pretty sweet.

- The colour screen is very bright and, well, colourful.

- the volume of the phone, especially in handsfree mode, is very good.

As for negatives, well I have a few.

- I haven't figured out yet how to get voicemail on this thing. Maybe because I'm in Canada, but I need access to my voicemail!

- The screen is very "muddy" and quite difficult to read. Much worse than I was led to believe by the various screen shots and publicity photos I've seen of the device.

- The built in contacts software completely sucks ass. Adding contacts is a complete cludge too.

- Weather option is built in as you may know, but I have yet to get it to work. Everytime I've tried so far, I get a "Network Error". I even tried putting in various N. Washington zip codes and still - network errors.

- The user interface is far too confusing. I don't have a clue what buttons I should be pushing here or there.

- I see a list of my contacts, but it's impossible to tell who is available or can accept calls.

- I can't seem to dial any of my imported contacts, at least via the Y! Voice system - I have to manually type in their phone numbers each time.

- I would have liked the ability to page the base station.

- There's no built in way to chat via IM. Considering the connectivity of this device, I expected that.

- I can't SMS from the iPhone.

- I wish it had the ability to page the base station.

Overall though, considering I paid $32 plus shipping for this thing, I can't complain much. And it's replacing my existing landline phone, thanks to its dual ability to use both VOIP and wired communications, so that's totally a positive. And getting a new phone number with unlimited incoming calls (no extra charges) for $24.95 a year is so cool, I got two - one based in Seattle, and one based in London, UK. And the calling out features are cool too - just a penny a minute to a lot of countries, and not much more to the rest of the world. It took about 30 minutes to set up, 14 hours to do the initial charge, and it works like a charm. A pretty good $32 investment, I'd say.

The only thing I wish is that this were a dual mode Skype phone instead of a Dual Mode Y! Messenger phone ;) I have a long standing Skype account and like their voicemail, and skype-out options much better. But at least it photographs well - Here's a photo of my new "iPhone".

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Mixelania

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