When my old phone went berserk one day, I had to begin the laborious task for hunting for a new phone that suited my needs. The list eventually got short listed to two phones: Nokia N71 and Apple iPhone 3G… and finally settled for an iPhone 3G due to the rush.
My Needs
A Phone! (with good battery life and easy keyboard)
Good Contact management
Multiple Calendar Management
Contextual or Categorical Task Management
Ability to run third-party applications with vibrant on-going development
A-GPS (Asynchronous Global Positioning System)
Music Player and podcast subscriptions
3G compatible
Ability to sync with Mac OSX.
Pros
Met all of my above mentioned needs except for task management, which was solved by installing the Remember The Milk (RTM) Application for the iphone for USD20/= per year.
A neat, very responsive touch-display and a very effective user-interface
Large Icons
Nice Clock, Calculator
Good on Wifi
Nice Browser Safari (supports multiple pages)
Nice Platform for third party apps
Good A-GPS hardware and software range
Cons
No Number Scanning: Fixed later with a version update
No Copy & Paste (how did Steve Jobs miss this??)
No MMS app in the box
No, SMS forward
No Apps Store access for Maldives Billing Address
No Video Calling
Bluetooth does not work with all blue tooth devices (no idea why Apple only served limited bluetooth)
No iTunes and Apps Store support for Maldives
The Nokia E71 initially seemed to be a likely candidate except for the small display, cramped up-keyboard and a not-so-familiar calendar interface. The iPhone 3G proved to be more familiar in this area of use. Secondly, I’ve had experiences with Nokia phones and syncing issues with my macs. It’s not Nokia that’s the problem, but some updating issues with the Mac OSX.
While I don’t particularly fancy the closed-door nature of Apple sometimes, I am dependent on the Mac OSX for now. Hence, the ability to sync well turned to be one of the highest priorities.
I believe that more open technologies and Web OS applications will be the future. Therefore, I am keenly keeping an eye on the gPhone.
This post is by no means a comparison between the Nokia E71 and the iPhone 3G. It is limited to my thoughts on the iPhone 3G.