IPhone: A Great Gadget, Poor Phone

My first glimpse of the iPhone, a little over a year ago, dazzled me. It was the early television commercial showing fingers effortlessly flipping through quickly loading Web pages, on an attractive hand-held devise. I wasn't sure what I was looking at, but it captured my interest.

It took me just a minute to Google the new gadget on my laptop. I'm sure most tech savvy folks were already aware of the soon to be released iPhone. What I learned was that the phone was not within my budget. There was no way I could justify the price tag, my husband already balked each time I upgraded my computer.

But then something funny happened, a few weeks later, I entered a drawing at an open house we were attending, and I won an iPhone. The iPhone had just been released, and folks were scrambling to get their hands on one. They were selling for a fortune on eBay.

My husband's first response, take it to eBay. But, I had already been seduced. I wanted the iPhone, and I knew this was my only chance to get one. I had to do some fast taking, rearranging our already existing Sprint cell phones, along with eliminating one of our home phone lines. While I did not have to pay for the iPhone, I did have to justify the additional AT&T monthly bill. As with most cell phone programs, I would have to enter into a two year contract.

In retrospect, I should have taken my husband's advise, and sold the iPhone on eBay when the demand was hot. Blame it on that early slick commercial that sucked me in. AT & T may report "more bars in more places", yet they obviously did not include Lake Havasu City, Arizona, in those places.

Right after we got the iPhone, we were leaving for a trip to Colorado. My husband's Sprint Cell phone has roaming charges, and the AT&T doesn't. I thought I could put in some brownie points for the iPhone. Don might be more accepting of the iPhone when he realized we could use it on the trip and not worry about roaming charges. I called AT&T and asked how their reception was in Colorado. By this time, we already figured out the Havasu phone reception was poor. The AT&T rep assured me they had great service where we were going in Colorado.

As it turned out, the only way I could pick up reception was by standing in the middle of the road. Don's Sprint phone worked perfectly well in the cabin. He seemed willing to pay the additional roaming charges if he didn't have to stand in the middle of the road.

I love the other features of the iPhone, just not the phone service. I see there are now all sorts of programs out there to help iPhone users find a way around using AT&T. Perhaps when my AT&T contract is up, I will rethink my cell phone service.