My IPhone4 32 GB bought in the US for 600 USD - 10 months later - here is my review.
"I’m not changing from this brand." I said this when I wrote a review on a Sony Ericsson Phone and I have to say this again. but this time I have laid my hands on iPhone4 and compared it first hand to all the touch screens - Android phone on - Motorola, Samsung, Dell and of course some sized almost to those of tablets.
The first thing, its damn to fast and stable compared to the other platforms. Quick on apps performance. - same site loads faster since the apps are customized.
Best example -
I had done some comparisons of iPhone4 with Nokia C6. both had prepaid 2G sims from Vodafone.
If you load Youtube on browser on both iPhone4 and C6. both take almost the same time to buffer the entire video. But if you open that same video through the YouTube application of iPhone - its considerably faster.
Mail Management, calender syncs, contacts pictures were imported from my facebook friends list,
Been there! Done that!
Jailbreak is just a myth that"used only for breaking of contracts, unlocking, etc". I had to use jailbreak(from AT&T) but it served a lot many other stuff. Whatever drawbacks you might hear from people, everything is solved from Jailbreak stores like Cydia and Sinful-Iphone. The drawbacks might be like - no file browser, transfer files through Bluetooth, SSH for running scripts, installing our own apps, call history management and most important - Tethering Blocked. every one of them is handled by the SinFul Iphone and much more - if you like the Android look, lock screen or home screens... you can get each of those and the most important part, you can also download from the you tube(tweaked), - Most of these above features were problems for the users and were copied by Apple and they have launched the latest version - iOS5 which includes most of these.
At the time of purchasing, I heard about the network issues, but still went ahead with the phone and till date, I haven’t faced any such problem, even while traveling - the network signal was same as other phones.
On the cons side - The battery used to get discharged very quickly. But after couple of months I realized that this was due to heavy usage in the beginning - but now its normal as any phone. I still check mails, heavy facebook and videos, browse, GPS and network applications and still the charge lasts through the entire day.
Speakers - volume is not that loud when compared to other music phones - but headphones, docks, bluetooth, they gave me excellent clarity and volume.
Maintenance - Since I jailbroke and unlocked the phone myself, I splashed the money on expensive screen scratch guard. The factory provided cover is useless. The cheaper screen guards(50-150Rs) dont last. The expensive(800Rs) one has lasted for 6 months now and still going strong.
Overall, its an attention catcher (not any more after airtel, aircel launch), but still an excellent piece of engineering.