Do I want an iPhone

[Shooty*]

I've got that nasty shopping fever on me where I want something, and look it up on the internet lots and lots and lots, but don't want to spend the money.

Orange contract expires in early may.... do I splash out and get the ubiquitous Apple soul replacement?

Decisions, decisions...

[TooNice]

How much is the contract/handset? I believe that the best thing to do, is to go to a shop and play with one (along with other alternative) and see how you find it. Here you'll find both praise and dissing, but I think you can and perhaps should use your own judgement on this (though keep in mind that the next gen is probably going to be out 2-3 months after your contract).

[cptwhite_uk]

You looked at the Palm Pre Shooty?

I looked at a youtube review showing it in-use the interface was lovely and web browsing very nice, and it can multitask....

[Platinum]

iPhone is old, insecure and surpassed by many phones out there at the moment.
My personal recommendation atm is the HTC desire

[Spud1]

Be patient.

You may want an iPhone..thats for you to decide really, but if you do, wait until June/July when there is a very high chance that a new one will come out. Would be terrible to pick up a 3Gs now and then see the 4G appear a month later.

There are plenty of phones that are "better" than an iPhone in terms of more flexible, faster, feature wise etc (HTC HD2 and HTC Desire for example), but the iPhone is a different beast really..so depends what you are after in a phone.

I'd probably advise against a Palm Pre..one of the most over hyped phones of the past year tbh, mainly due to its poor hardware quality, very short battery life and cramped keyboard. I am sure there will be a much improved Pre-2 at some point in the future. WebOS is very much a love/hate thing too tbh..

[Stringent]

Yup I agree. Wait for the 4G in June/July if you want to go down that route.

If you need one now, have a look at the HTC Desire.

[Shooty*]

Wow. Thank you all.

The sad thing is that I actually use a phone, as a phone, rather little, but would be looking for something that combined my current phone AND PDA AND ipod set up

[scaryjim]

No, you don't You want an HTC Magic*

Unless you particularly want handwriting recognition that is; I've yet to find a decent Android application for it.

Otherwise; for calls, email, calendaring, e-reading, and pretty much everything else I use mine for, it's spot on. It's not even *too* bad for web browsing, although the 320x480 screen does hold it back slightly there...

* disclaimer: this poster may be extremely biased by their own choice of smartphone!

[Salazaar]

HTC Legend looks quite nice if your budget doesn't quite stretch to a Desire.

[Jiff Lemon]

As someone who uses their phone AS a phone, I'd say no. I personally can't get on with touch screens, and the current trend towards them drives me mad. I phone, I text. I can hammer out a text with T9 quicker than my friends can on an I-phone, and lets not forget the wonder that is ear sweat!
My I-pod does my MP3 duties, my phone does phone duties. The biggest benefit of keeping stuff separate is that if you flatten the battery on one, it doesn't impact the other.

[Zak33]

and I agree with Jiff.

I suggest you get an iPoD Touch instead.. and keep your phone AS a phone.

Sair wanted an iphone but now she uses her ipod touch a lot, and it drains power with games, video, music, surfing etc.. she is glad to have a PHONE as a PHONE...

but get an iPod touch.. even a small capacity one.. it's a revelation

[MaddAussie]

May I throw into the pot A BlackBerry, I have an 8520 and its a great device, alright it has no 3G but that doesnt bother me (if you need 3G get one of the 9 series curves IIRC) as a media player its not too shabby with a 8gig mini sd cardin in

[MadduckUK]

and I agree with Jiff.

I suggest you get an iPoD Touch instead.. and keep your phone AS a phone.

Sair wanted an iphone but now she uses her ipod touch a lot, and it drains power with games, video, music, surfing etc.. she is glad to have a PHONE as a PHONE...

but get an iPod touch.. even a small capacity one.. it's a revelation

argh this is so sensible, we havent yet got to the point where we can integrate everything well enough.

if you listen to an hour of music a day then fine, but you cant replace a 20 hour battery life mp3 player with a phone that may push two if you are lucky.

[MSIC]

As someone who does own an iPhone, these guys are quite right.
I get around the battery thing by making sure that I have a charger at work, as well as at home. Whenever I go to stay at friends' houses etc, i get a bit panicky if there is no ipod charger close to hand...

And you know.. i cant really blame Apple or the iphone itself. Taken in isolation the battery is good, but its literally that you end up using just so much.

[Shooty*]

I have reached A Decision.

And it is this: My official upgrade time is in one month's time. The 4g MIGHT be out by then. I shall use the month as a boiling off period, and reconsider in a month.

This is quite sensible for me.

[TooNice]

I find it highly unlikely that the 4G will be out then. They iPhone has so far all been released during summer. And given that the 3GS has been relatively well received, I don't think Apple will be in a hurry to get a new iPhone out earlier than usual.