The iPhone... The greatest phone???!!!

Now there's no denying that the iPhone is a great phone but were people lining up in their droves when the iPhone was released here in the UK a couple of weeks back on November 9?

At £269 and an 18 month contract it seemed people were not prepared to spill out for it. Why is this so? It's suppose to be the "greatest phone" but I beg to differ. It was being pushed as the smartphone to rival the Nokia N95 but the iPhone is far from being a smartphone. Yes the interface may be years ahead of others but it is definitely not a smartphone. It should've been advertised as being the phone with the best interface/operating system. Then maybe it wouldn't been so bad but they pitched it against the iPhone and both phones are in a totally different league to each other. I had found a few lists of cons over the net (www.allaboutsymbian.com/forum) a few days ago which you can see below:

• No MMS.
• No video recording.
• No 3G.
• No custom ringtones or SMS alert tones
• No instant messaging.
• Lacks tactile keys which makes texting horrible.
• No memory expansion.
• No games.
• No speed dialing.
• No installable software.
• Battery can only be replaced by sending the whole phone away.
• No voice dialing.
• The camera is only 2megapixel, has no autofocus and no flash.
• No cut/copy/paste.
• No A2DP (for bluetooth stereo/headphone output).
• No GPS.
• No document viewing, let alone editing.
• No flash support for the web browser.
• No file browser.
• Visual voicemail laggy and slow.
• Only takes iPod cable which is non-standard and prone to breakage.
• No TV output.
• Web browser is slow, even over WLAN.
• Can't type anything in landscape mode.
• Only one picture at a time in email

Now I don't own an iPhone, as I don't want one, never did right from the start, and after reading that list above it puts me off even more. See what I mean when I say it cannot be a smartphone - you can't even view documents on it! Now I know there are other phones that do not have some of these features but most smartphones do. And as for the 2megapixel camera that's not even autofocus or has a flash! That's going backwards.

This may only be first generation but they could've done better with the features to class as the greatest phone.

I'm not saying the iPhone isn't great cos it is as far as the interface goes. It is miles ahead than others but the features bring it down to much for it to be even considered for me. I love my N95 and I'm going to be sticking with it for awhile to come. The only phone that I would consider instead of the N95 is the N95 8GB version but that doesn't have an expansion slot so I guess that still leaves me with my trusty N95 where I could use an 8GB memory card. And with a recent firmware update that increases the internal RAM by about 30MB.

So all in all right now I think the iPhone isn't worth the £269 and 18 month contract. Not until they can make all the features alot better and really turn it into a REAL smartphone. Then and only then will I even consider getting it.

Long tiring train journey

(This was written on the train yesterday night, I didn't manage to upload while on the train.....)

Sitting on the train right now, going from Glasgow to London. Been on the train for about 4 hours now. We've just left Crewe and until then it had been quite a quiet journey. Lots of people seemed to have got on at Crewe. It got quite hectic in our coach with many people trying to find their reserved seat or trying to find a free unreserved seat. One guy even tried to say that we were occupying his seat contrary to what had been stated CLEARLY on the overhead that it had been reserved between Glasgow to London. I had to politely tell him that we had these seats reserved for us and we had been sitting here since Glasgow. I was going to show him our tickets but he seemed to get the point and went off. But I must say that the train system seems to be a bit of a botch lately. We been on a few trips between London and Glasgow the past month and twice we have had to stand due to there being no seats available. It was like being on the London Underground with many people having to stand. I don't understand why the issue more tickets than available on the train. These journeys are long and people should have to stand for 7 hours. We made a point this time to reserve our return journey seats to avoid having to stand, something I wish we had done for our previous trips as it caused us much back pain for a few days.

There was one journey where the whole system went down and they were unable to print out the reservation details so it meant that all reservations for the journey were cancelled and people could sit anywhere. This caused much havoc and arguments where people would be saying "you're in my seat" then the person seated would have to explain that they were not as nobody had reserved seats due to an error. It was like playing musical chairs. People shifting from one seat to another, trying to grab the unavailable seat. It was hectic. We were one of these people being shifted about. "Never again!" we said. Never again would take the train. But yet here we are. We took it as we still had an open return ticket so why waste it. But we made sure to reserved seats to avoid the frustrations. This is what i recommend to anyone wanting to travel by train. Maybe most people our there do and we were the silly ones who didn't but I had previous experiences where I could just get on the train and find a seat no problem. But times have changed and so we must change to fit these changes (does any of this even make sense right now???!!!!!)

Anyway, I've ranted on enough. It's now 8:05pm, we've just arrived in Stafford. We've another 3 hours to go. Might get some shut eye for a bit.....

My new keyboard

(I actually wrote this yesterday while on the train but didn't have a way to upload to my blog.....)

I've just got my new Nokia wireless keyboard and I'm just trying it out while I'm on the train. I've made a few typos along the way as I'm trying to touch type. I've small fingers so it's quite confortable for me to do so. If the keyboard was a bit smaller I'd probably have to finger type which I find quite difficult. So for a small hands person like myself it's quite an alright size.

Having an N95 this keyboard is a Godsend especially if you have to write or create/edit documents. Trying to use the keypad is a right pain even when you have multitap on. So being able to use a keyboard it a great bonus helping me to get through responding to emails while on the road.

It was one thing I missed when I went from my old phone - Sony Ericsson P990i, to my new phone - Nokia N95, having a full QWERTY keyboard. The P990i was huge to carry around but the keyboard was useful and the phone did what I needed it to do for a while. The keyboard was the only thing I really missed when I got my N95. Apart from that the N95 is the well needed upgrade for me. I'm loving all the features and I hope that Nokia does not abandon it now that the 8GB version is now out.....

Liking it so far....I have small fingers so touch typing is quite easy for me.