A few weeks ago I realised that it was time to renew my mobile phone contract. I say I realised, because O2 didn’t bother to let me know my time was up. But why would they, they had a sweet deal. I give them money evey month and they give me very little in return. So, off to the online upgrade centre I went.

First of all, it was obvious that not only had O2 upgraded the upgrade site since I had last used it, but they had in my own opinion, made it functionally worse. No longer was it easy for me to see all the upgrade options, no. Now I was forced to look at available phones by manufacturer with no view all option. Still, the choice was obvious: Nokia. I’ve used Nokia’s since I first started using mobile phones back in 2000. With the exception of one year when I got a Samsung – that was a mistake. Imagine my surprise when looking on the available upgrade options that there were no Nokia phones better then the one I was already using, a phone I’d had for 18 months. To make matters worse, none of the phones appeared to be any better from any manufacturer from the phone I was already using, an N95 8GB. None that is, except for Apple.

Now, O2 currently has en exclusive deal with Apple meaning only O2 can sell iPhones in the UK, at least until November that is. My iPhone options were limited – the only model in stock was a White 32GB 3GS. To make things worse, the phone was expensive. I’ve never paid money for a phone before, instead allowing the contract to provide me with a free phone. Selecting the most expensive contract still did not make the iPhone free. I was stuck.

The next day I went on again, determined to get a new phone. After looking at my options again, I went for the iPhone. It cost me £274 to upgrade to it. Ouch. However, I take solace in the fact that I now have a cheaper contract (£30 a month instead of £35) and I should get £150 for the old N95 8GB meaning overall, after the 18 month contract the iPhone will actually have cost me £34. Which isn’t actually too bad. Now I know what you’re thinking – such a cheap contract can’t give me many free minutes or texts and you’d be right – it barely gives me anything at all aside from the convenience of not having to top up. What it does do however, is give me access to the internet and importantly my email where ever I am (as long as O2′s moderate network coverage covers me that is)! As a web developer, I find this an invaluable addition to my life.

So, several days later the iPhone arrives. The first thing you notice is the box. It’s small. Very small. Much smaller than any other mobile phone box I’ve seen in the past. But don’t be fooled by this size – the box is made to a ridiculously high quality. Opening the box reveals more exciting goodies – and a very well arranged content. From the top there’s the iPhone, then a little pinch pull which reveals the lower compartment and contains the quick start guide. The lower compartment contains an iPhone connector USB cable, USB socketed power plug (beautifully designed) and the less exciting iPod headphones. The box doesn’t contain a manual – just a quick start guide. Although, the phones use is almost self explanatory.

Turning on the phone reveals its high value. Beautiful design, magnificent finger response on the touch screen – it really is a marvel of human ingenuity and progress. The oleophobic coating of the 3GS is an interesting addition. It certainly makes removing finger prints quite easy and if you have dry enough skin like I do, you don’t actually leave any finger prints at all (this makes you less willing to let other people have a play, as they’ll more often than not return it covered in their finger grease). One thing I did notice is that this coating has not been applied to the main press button – which is a shame.

Changing the settings of the phone is quite simple – just press the settings option and everything you need is right in front of you. The default selection of installed software is more than you’ve ever had on a phone before – maps with GPS being my favourite. And of course safari – browsing the web with a real web browser finally! It’s quite hard to fault the phone at all; the user interface is inspired, it’s very fast – at least compared to my old phone, apps. Apps. The app store – who’d have thought how good it was! Remember all those years ago at the back of magazines there were adverts for mobile phone game downloads, wallpapers, ringtones etc? Well, I never bought any. Ever. One week with the appstore and I’d already spent £20 – and most of that on 59p and free apps. Genius.

There’s an app for everything. Really. Have a look at all the apps I have installed at the moment – yes, they’ve even managed to put SimCity on the thing. And not the original PC version, no. It’s pretty much the latest SimCity 4. Amazing stuff. Gowalla is another game, based on world locations. Simply visiting a spot and checking in. All powered through the Global Positioning System. It’s all quite exciting! We can’t forget Peggle of course, that fantastic flash based web game – converted for iPhone (as the iPhone can’t use flash).

So there we go. The iPhone is amazing. Get one if you haven’t already.

But, I can’t let it end there. No sir. When I walked into work with the thing, people were set a gasp. But why? There are plenty of people with iPhones. Of course, they all Mac lovers and fanboys. So what’s so special with me? Well, I don’t really get on with OSX – it’s not my cup of tea. I much prefer Windows. Which, apparently means I shouldn’t like the iPhone in some peoples eyes. But you can’t deny the sheer quality and usability of the iPhone – they’ve taken years upon years of Nokia development and somehow just made it even better. So I don’t have to like Macs – the phone doesn’t suffer from the things I don’t like on macs – small window buttons, menus all over the place and a dodgy ‘finder’.

Are there any problems with it? Well yes. The biggest one being the battery. Now, it’s a powerful phone. Very powerful. I have more stuff going on than I ever did on the Nokia, and in a cleaner, crisper, faster more powerful way. So it’s obvious the battery will drain faster isn’t it. Yes, of course, so why complain? Well because of the slight oversight of the battery. The battery in the iPhone is of the same capacity as my old N95 – a phone with half as much processing power, less memory and less reason to use it constantly. Two or three times the capacity would have been much better even if it did add an extra 1mm to the thickness of the phone.

The camera could be seen as a problem, being only 3 megapixels. But then, I have a real camera for that so for me it’s not an issue. iTunes, as functional as it is, is a butt ugly grey square on my otherwise shiny, glossy Windows 7 desktop. It would have been nice if the iTunes developers had used the actual operating system windowing elements rather than forcing them to all look so ugly. Shame on you. And 9 minutes for snooze with no way to alter it? Boo!

That’s pretty much my round up – you can see from the pictures I have partially solved the battery problem though. An additional slot on battery pack called the MiLi which increases the overall battery capacity to 300%.

The full image set I took for this article can be seen on flickr.