PPCGeeks - Read me in TIME Magazine defending the WM-based phone over iPhone!

well,.i actually had an iphone,..i returned it yesterday and got my money back(thankfully, ATT has this thing where u can bring it back within 2 weeks of buying it, as long as its in brand new condition,...). About a week and a half ago my ATT 8525 messed up. It stopped turning on(which i believe could've been because the netfront browser or opera mobile-not opera mini- browsers as my phone was freezing occasionally after installing them) so I called ATT and they're sending me a new one tomorrow. But i bought an iphone the day it messed up. So i used it for a week and a half, and i can say after that week an a half, i missed my 8525. Lol. I cant wait to get my 8525 brand new tomorrow. The iphone just isn't that great. I mean, yea, at first, first day i got it, i was like "yea, this is way better than my windows mobile phone". But the first things that were disappointing was lack of video recording(which i use for recording myself covering rock songs on my guitar occasionally, u can look my screen name here on youtube if u want), and a back light for the camera. Meaning that any pictures i was taking had to be in light, which really sucked because on my moms 56th birthday, i was the only one with a camera(which was built in the phone), but it had no back light and we were inside red lobster and it was dark outside. It was kinda gay, to top it off, there's no camera button, u have to actually press the screen in which u risk dropping the phone(since its not an easily grip-able phone) and breaking the screen. Then the other thing was paying for ring tones, theres no way in hell ima pay for ring tones for CD's i bought. U have to pay 2$ for ring tones. 1$ to buy the song on itunes, and 1$ to create the ring tone. Thats horrible considering it has 8gb built in. It didn't bother me too much, since i don't use many ring tones, but i was used to hearing songs for people and figuring who it was and whether i should pick it up or not, lol. The internet is what was really annoying me. Yea, certain things were better(such as checking my bank account on the phone). But thats about the only thing that was better, ONLY MOBILE sites loaded fast. Mobile yahoo, google, banking, etc. Whenever i loaded a regular site, lets take IGN.com for example, it must've took 3-4 minutes versus less than 1 minute on my 8525 using opera mini. Obviously its because the edge network(its not 3g), i didn't think edge was so bad until experiencing a week and a half with the iphone. Edge also disconnects sometimes, much more unreliable. On a positive note, the iphone has a great ipod thing going. I loved turning the phone sideways(with its sensing) to scroll between artists and get better views on websites. Also video quality was top notch, its like a psp with its big screen. Youtube was pretty nice too, i liked that u could click anywhere into the clip and it loads up(something i believe they are still working to achieve on windows mobile). It was nice cuz sometimes when watching 10 minute clips, people would call me halfway, and i could easily be right back where i left off. The touch screen was really great for typing long messages as well. The touch screen keyboards on windows mobile are ok, some like touchpal are the easiest ones to work with for me but the iphone wins there. i also loved the touch screen for zooming in on things. It felt better when zooming in to read, and zooming out. Another thing on the upside for iphone, is when on wifi networks, its definitely a better web browser. The problem is that wifi is not available everywhere u go(yet i suppose), so unless ur a starbucks freak, u have to deal with edge most of the times. Another thing that was pretty annoying about the iphone is the physical volume. For me its sort of a big thing because when I'm at work, i like to play my music and i cant wear headphones. I was able to hide my headphones, but it was getting annoying that every day at work, i had to hide my headphones(under my shirt, and down my back), just to enjoy decent sound. I loved that the 8525 was so loud, i never missed calls hardly. I like playing video games like guitar hero loud with my surround sound, and on the 8525, i could at least hear the ring tones, especially with bluetooth. Or sometimes i like putting people on speaker phone, if im busy doing hw and i don't feel like using bluetooth, it was too low on iphone. On the iphone , i was constantly missing calls. Which brings me to my next thing, NO A2DP. What the hell is wrong with them not including A2DP on a phone, that is "supposedly" the ultimate ipod/music phone. I loved it for working out, wires get annoying constantly getting caught on things(my headset got caught on a womans purse in a crowded elevator at my college, lol, i missed A2DP when that happened). It was gay because i brought back my a2dp headset(this was when i first got the iphone so i wasn't thinking I'd want my 8525 back so fast) and had to exchange it for a regular bluetooth. Ima have to buy another A2DP on ebay for when i get the 8525 tmw. So all in all, the iphone is an ok phone. It mainly shines in youtube video and its ipod feature. Those are the ONLY places where it shines. Business/note taking is much better on a windows mobile phone.The interface is passable, i prefer my htc home. I seen no differences in google maps either. Except that u can do the "cool" zooming on the iphone, but thats a passable feature in google maps. Its also worth noting the call quality is worse on the iphone. I dunno if it was just the network for a couple days, but it was pretty bad sometimes when speaking to people, id have to ask them to repeat what they said a couple times throughout. Some times i couldn't hear them at all. The battery seemed pretty much the same on the iphone as my 8525. Maybe the iphones battery was slightly better(watching videos doesn't eat up the iphones battery as much as the 8525). But the 8525 has the option for an extended battery so that would definitely be a lot better for those constantly doing things on their phones. So if like me, u want to try the iphone out, and think that it might be better than a windows mobile phone, try it out. Buy it and a really good case(to keep it in good condition) for 450$ at the ATT store, and believe me, within a week or less, u will miss everything from ur old phone. The good thing is u get almost all ur money back. They charge a %10 stocking fee. So i got like $420 back. Its like i rented the iphone for $30, lol. U get 2 weeks to return it tho. But for those, like me, who just need to confirm its "supposed greatness", try it, but im sure u will miss ur windows mobile fast. Not to mention i can make a wifi access point on windows mobile for playing my Nintendo wii or ps3. No need for a seperate router. I was almost about to buy a router the other day but decided i was gonna bring the iphone back instead and not sell the brand new 8525 arriving tmw, on ebay.

One thing i forgot to mention is that you can hack the iphone. They have jailbreak things that do allow you to get ring tones, and other things. You can even play ps1 games(at like 8fps but oh well). There is some hacking that can be done on the phone. Thing is that Apple doesnt take kindly to this and they wont support you at all if your phone screws up so I didnt bother hacking the phone since i was thinking about bringing it back. I believe they could brick your phone with their itunes updates, but the updates are by choice, but it sucks because it has good updates(similiar to sony's psp). Personally i think it will take a while before the iphone will be as good as current windows mobile phones, but by the time it gets better than current windows mobile phones, windows mobile 7 phones will be rolling out. I think they are starting to finally allow 3rd party apps as well, i believe this month, so who knows. As it stands, the iphone is just a pretty phone with some interesting features at first glance. I would get the ipod touch instead of the iphone and keep my windows mobile based phone and just buy a 8gb micro sdhc(which i believe is supported now on WM6). I have to order one of those.