iPhone review bonus: one liners
By Ryan Block 
posted Jul 3rd 2007 1:18PM
posted Jul 3rd 2007 1:18PM
Ok, fine, so in addition to the exhaustive iPhone review, we thought it'd be fun to yin its yang and let everyone at Engadget who bought (or at least spent some time with) an iPhone to have their say in a line or two.Ben: 9 / 10 - "I'd say as a mobile phone it ranks highly, but it's not a 'smartphone'."
Chris: 6 / 10 - "Great in-the-box wow factor, terrible out-of-the-box wow factor."
Conrad: 9 / 10 - "The only multi-function gadget available that manages to maintain the illusion of not being a device of compromises."
Dante: 9 / 10 - "Finally, a phone that can replace my K800i. But truth be told, I could actually do all these amazing things before."
Evan: 4.5 / 10 - "I got so frustrated by the tiny 'keys' and unusable browser that I just put it down after five minutes."
Josh (the guy that returned his): 5 / 10 - "Annoyed with the keyboard, toy-like interface, and limited ability to customize. Truth be told, if I can't install an NES emulator on it, I'm probably not interested."
Nilay: 8.5 / 10 - "Terrific except for the email app and GSM noise."
Paul: 9 / 10 - "It's pretty much all I want in a phone, and I'd give it a 10 if I could load a SNES emulator on it."
Peter: 6 / 10 - "Beautiful and easy to use, it gets a lot of things right and completely changes the game when it comes to mobile interfaces. Too bad it's really hard to get any work done with it."
Ryan: 7.5 / 10 - "The best converged phone / media device yet, but it's got problems. For instance, the email app. Until they get it together it's fun, but not very productive."
Average score: 7.4 Not bad! Seems like for the most part Engadget editors either loved it, or didn't like it at all. So what else is new?
P.S. -Leave yours in comments!
I'd go 9/10 - the rough edges are very minor. I do wish for a junk filter in the email app, an IM client, and of course real 3rd party apps, but compared to my Treo, this thing is godly.
10/10 just because
Is it the phone that isn't all that good or the poor network?
I had to get it but I'll be going back to my Treo for the keyboard.
Well hello Mr. Ballmer, how are you today?
I'll give you $150 for it.
A Jesus phone should be 11/10, at least.
So I guess that Josh doesn't have a television, toaster, microwave, oven, dishwasher, washing machine, or frigerator unless he lives in Japan. If this is not the case, don't worry buddy, soon everything will have be as convoluted and flawed as your iPhone and my bricked PSP. Keep up the good work guys and gals.
"Two men say they're Jesus, one of the must be wrong..."
-Dire Straits
I returned mine too. (Yay to the HTC mogul I just bought.) The email app is horrendous.
This device felt like a sweet video iPod with basic phone features and a slick-looking but poorly functioning browser.
Pedro: NA / 10 - "I really don't care about the iPhone"
Why comment then?
It's my one line quote of what I think about the iPhone.
My thoughts exactly, can't resist though...
Vote for Pedro!
I cant believe that the Engadget review is the only one ive seen that mentions a killer flaw with the iPhone - whilst using EDGE (for anything, Youtube, widgets, browsing etc) you CANNOT make or receive calls! The iPhones whole reason for existing ceases to be.
I understand this is more AT&T's fault but thats why they should have gone 3G!
We mentioned it multiple times!
I know! I said i cant believe Engadget is the ONLY review ive seen...
Hang on. I know EDGE can't support voice and data at the same time; but, on my Nokia 6682 (EDGE, no 3G), it at least was able to drop the data connection when a call came in. Does the iPhone do that?
Engadget review says it goes straight to voicemail
What???????
Are you kidding?
So when you're FINALLY done downloading those pics of Jessica Alba, you'll have to check your voice mail?
My m600i on 3g does that too. Drop's data without asking me and a manual resume/ refresh after im done with the call.
iPhone looks a lot like it was pushed through the door. I expect a lot of firmware updates.
Just tested this... If you are "downloading" content it goes straight to voicemail, if you are looking at email/web page that is already loaded, the phone rings.
You can make calls while browsing/Google maps/etc with WiFi though.
Downloading content as in loading a page? Wow, that certainly sucks.
For EDGE and voice call to work together, the phone and the network need a feature called DTM. Very few (mostly new Nokia) phones have the capability, and very few networks implement it.
But at least AT&T could configure the network such that the EDGE session is 'suspended' during a voice call, and automatically resumes once the call is done. Yes this is possible in all EDGE networks and all (non iPhone) phones that I have used.
Yes, no calls while waiting for the page (or email) to load. It hasn't seemed to affect me yet as I don't get a lot of calls.
That is something to think about. Though for me it wouldn't be a deal breaker (if I was in the market for a new phone). It would be nice to be able to set a preference for the default behavior... A) drop to voicemail or B) answer call.
I think the one point many people are missing w/ the iPhone is that Apple _really_ can take it in any direction they want to with a simple software update.
That's funny: I just tried it out. I started downloading a page from Google Reader and simultaneously called myself from another phone. After about 4 rings, my iPhone switched to the call (while the page was still loading). When I finished the call, it returned to Safari and completed the page download. This is on the Edge network.
lol I like the guy who complains about the "toy-like" interface but in the same sentence expresses his strong desire for an NES emulator.
Ha ha! I didn't even notice that.
8/10
- not for "trve" business peeps
- awful activation process (still dead in the water after 90 hours: AT&T people can't get their act together, wrong information appears in my account 4th time in a row - WTF???)
+ not revolutionary, but everything I want and need from mobile device so far
An owner of a various SE P’s, a BB 8800, and now the iThing, I am a bit disappointed. I want to love it; the interface is fantastic, regardless of the fact that it requires a few extra steps here and there. It is fast in that respect!
But, I can’t use it as a modem, transfer files. Safari blows with Gmail, which I use. Sure I could enable POP. The camera is as bad as my SE 910. Edge is torture in Chicago, even though I have used Verizon CDMA, and ATT Edge for years, and have reasonable expectations. Did I say that I cannot transfer files, like a the iPod thumb drive I had, which died? What? It’s $500!
ATT is going to kill this product. Apple should know better, but most people are enamored at the moment. I feel a bit taken, which is not a good thing for a lifelong Apple user, since the Apple II. WTF.
Great for consumers, but when will people be able to add useful applications? When will I be able to use it as a thumb drive without actually buying another product? When can I download an email attachment and transfer it to my MacBook, or heaven forbid that ATT allows me to connect to the EDGE network through the thing?
This is not the idea of mobile computing, and if anything somebody should wake up and realize that the real high ground has not been taken.
5 / 10
Its pretty but it is not a smart phone.
7.8/10 But can it play Doom?
Except for the voicemail option, I could do everything the iphone does on any PDA phone.
8.5/10 A half-point each off for the following: no built in games, no MMS and no custom ringtones.
Aside from that, it suits all of my needs perfectly. Once those above three things are added, and I'm positive that they will, My rating goes to 10.
"no custom ringtones" -- this is the one that I still find mind-boggling. It's an iPod. It can play music. You can put whatever music you want on it. But it *can't* play that music as a ringtone? What were they *thinking*? Even in 2004, I was able to install any MIDI file as a ringtone on my old Nokia featurephone. I just had to put it on a Web server somewhere and download it.
They were thinking about the mega bucks they're going to make once they start charging to download ringtones
its because if you had that DRM'd music as a ringtone when your phone rang it might play out loud and let those around you listen for free... ILLEGAL!!@OMG pay for re-broadcasting you pirate!!
MMS should be allowed to fade into the sunset. It's a product from the old school telephone marketing department. These are the same guys that want to bill SMS by the message (split into small chunks), charge data by the bit, charge you for a 30 second MIDI ringtone, and think VOIP is sin against nature.
Energy is better spent trying to get the e-mailing of pictures to be as easy as possible, AIM/Jabber/Yahoo/Google/whatever based chat (so long as it's data and not SMS in disguise), and being able to install your own MP3 ringtones. All of those allow you to leverage things you've already paid for.
Devil's advocate:
Nobody but you thinks your custom ringtone is cool.
The rest of us wish you'd put your phone on silent.
if you wanted an emulator for it, you could just write one to work on it, then load it on, even if you'd have some issues feeling the buttons, after a while it wouldn't be bad at all.
Except that you *can't* install your own software. It's a sealed box.
just give it time and homebrew will be either allowed or hacked to it.
A product shouldn't have to be hacked to be useful.
6.5/10 - Unacceptable flaws given the price
Exactly. It's not a bad phone. I would totally buy it if it was 200-300 dollars. But it does NOT have 600 worth of features.
$600 will only buy you an emergency-services-calling-machine
You need another $1400 for an iPhone
Agreed. I just bought a Moto Q on Sprint- and I would have changed providers and the whole shebang if I could have gotten this phone for 300 on-contract. Hell, I would have even ponied up 400; and I HATE Cingular's service.
But 600 is just outrageous.
Chris
I love it deeply. 17 thumbs up!