Originally Posted by
preduk
First of all, the iPhone doesn't use any "special sim" card all SIM cards work but if you want Visual Voicemail to work you need an iPhone tariff.
I was told (on this very site) that if I bought an O2 iPhone 3G and put my existing O2 SIM in, it wouldn't work. That seemed at the time to be pretty general advice. I didn't try, since I need Excel, Word, and a specialist WM6.1 app anyway. I might have rolled over if Excel had been available - that's the one I use many times a day.
I don't use, and don't need Visual Voicemail.
I'm often away from home for several days, without easy access to power to recharge the phone. With the Diamond, I just swap in the next of my two spare batteries. With the iPhone, I can't. The battery is soldered in and can't be replaced. In that, it has the same major drawback as the iPod - when the battery dies, as they do, it's a major faff. I know they want me to throw it in the bin and buy a new one, but my granddaughters have a different opinion about grandpa's previous devices.
Features that won't work: received wisdom is that I can't connect my laptop to an iPhone and use it as a modem on GPRS etc. I certainly can (and do) with the Diamond. That may be incorrect, and it may be that I can use an iPhone as a modem all along. If so, the misinformation is widely spread.
I was also told, when I was thinking about an iPhone, that TomTom isn't (or wasn't) available for it. The Diamond has TomTom, which works very well indeed - I use it a lot.
I think the iPhone is an impressive device, and what it does do, it seems to do very well. It's just a pity that Apple chose not to provide a spreadsheet (which is essential for me) and chose to prevent it being used as a modem for a laptop.
I used to carry an iPaq for those apps, and a Motorola Razr for phone and web access. I was delighted to go down to one device in my pocket.