Techno iBlip: The iPhone review

THE iPHONE IS HERE!!!!!!!!!

And YES, you can call people with it!!!

Ladies and Gentlemen, one of the most hyped and sought-after devices of the year arrived in stores yesterday, and I am sacrificing my less-than-useful time today in order to bring you all the important info, and give you my views. So please pay attention, here is the Techno Blip of the day!!

Lets start with the basics. According to the iPhone overview video on Apple.com, the device is three different applications all put into one revolutionary product. Since this is the iPhone, let's start with the calling feature. The Multi-touch interface that you heard about from my previous NEBTD Techno Blip plays a major part in the use of the entire device. You can scroll through favorites and looked a missed, made and received calls with ease. The way I see it, the phone part of the iPhone is essentially like any other modern phone, but with a nice touch screen, and even visual voicemail!! This means being able to see who left a voicemail, listen to them in any order you would like, and even call directly from the voicemail screen.

But let's look at what separates the iPhone from your average phone. My favorite feature is definitely the music player since it's apparent ease of use rivals that of the actually iPod, thought that does not say much ;) The touch screen allows listeners to sort through their songs by album cover, as seen in the iTunes computer application. Just a flick of the finger will scroll through your collection of album artwork. Now what if they just dropped the phone and web browser and made an iPod like that?? Seems much easier than that weird circle scroll thing. WOW!! A phone and music player that work equally well together!! And if you are a movie watcher, leave that 6o'' High Definition flat screen at home and check out downloadable movies on your phone! Just rotate the device 90 degrees, and even watch it in widescreen. (Hint: M'soft's Zune did that first!)

The Photo features allows you to scroll through your photos, zoom in and out, even set pics to caller ID and wallpaper. Another thing the iPod does not do!!! And you did not think they would forget to integrate a camera, did you?? But lets talk Internet for a second. If you are interested in taking the Internet and Email wherever you go, you would be best getting a laptop, or an iPhone. Since the iPhone is what we are talking about, I will take a look at the iPhone's Internet feature. According to Apple's massive advertising campaign, (I trust they know what they are talking about) the i"Phone" can give you the entire Internet from wherever you want. You can browse by typing in a URL, or search with Google. When you get to a page, zoom in (which you will probably need to do more than once on that 3.5 inch screen) and scroll around. The "Phone" also supports most popular email programs such as Hotmail and Gmail, but to my great displeasure, no Outlook Express. What would you expect? And, as the commercials say, you can watch ridiculous videos on YouTube.

The Bottom Line

The iPhone is great, the touchscreen feature makes it easy to use and it is nice to have movies in wide screen and good quality. But the only thing truly revolutionary about it is that all these things go together fairly well. But actually talking into it is not gonna be comfortable (yea it looks nice, but its rectangular, not phone-shaped!). Plus, I am not sure how much they want you to store with either 4 or 8 gigs of memory. Along with that, That it sports a stylin' $499-$599 price tag, and plans with at&t starting at $59.99 per month. PER MONTH!! And if you want more minutes, get ready to pay out the nose, because plans go up to $99.99 per month.

In Conclusion, the iPhone's great features but unfortunate shape, prices, and memory earn it the following rating.....

6 out of 10

For your friends

P.S. I am sorry this review is so long, but I had a lot of features to cover, okay??