Well it’s in – I love it! Just the way it fits in your hand, and up against your ear when talking just exudes perfect fit and comfort – and quality. As a basic phone, it’s quite good. Sound quality is there, reception blows away what I was getting with Sprint. This phone gets signal in my basement, which just amazes me.

The philosophy of design on thing is so cutting edge ahead of the game it’s incredible. Attention to the little things is so well thought out – for example, when you dial a number, it starts calling of course, and you see the screen. Put the phone up to your ear, and the accelerometer knows it, so it turns off the screen, move the phone off your ear to look at the screen mid-conversation, and the accelerometer knows it and turns the screen back on. Saves power (and heat) and works beautifully. The whole design is full of little things like that – very well thought out phone. If you’re an engineer, check out the built-in calculator. Just a basic calculator, until you turn the phone sidewise, and with the wider view automatically turns into a scientific calculator. Just neat.

The part iPod works well, music sound is excellent. Apparently the first generation iPhone had issues here – this one is flawless. The interface is great as well.

I love the way it sync’s up to iTunes. On the computer it’s mostly Beakers music, but very easy to dump only what I want into my iPhone, and leave the rest. The way it sync’s up w/ my contacts and schedule in Outlook is very handy.

A lot of people gripe about the camera – I think it works great. Certainly the best cell phone camera I’ve ever had.

The built in GPS coupled with Google maps is crazy. I was watching my blip overlayed on the satellite image on the highway system driving into work today. Totally awesome. I’d like to be able to use it as more a basic GPS (w/ coordinates, altitude, speed, time to destination, waypoints, etc), but don’t know how to do that. I might have to download an app for that, not sure.

I haven’t even played with downloading apps for it yet – the built in stuff is just so cool most of what you need is already covered.

An interesting thing is the cost. At $300 capital, that’s a steal. They get the rest out of you w/ the 2 year contract. But if you compare it with Sprint, it’s not a whole lot more. Basically, with the iPhone you are forced to pay $30/mo more for the data plan, but otherwise I think the costs are the same as any other AT&T phone. The fact we get a corporate discount due to who I work for doesn’t hurt, so the monthly cost for switching up to the iPhone isn’t that bad – it’s worth it to me at least. The part I find most irksome is that they don’t include texting w/ the data plan. Come on AT&T, that’s just overt greed and annoying.

There are a couple downers. The battery life isn’t so hot. I drained it less than one 8hr day in the office just playing around w/ it and checking my e-mails as time allowed. Apparently on an iPhone cable works with it – even though Beakers iTouch is basically the same device with the same looking cable that fits, the phone won’t charge up with the iTouch cable. The EDGE network is pretty slow – I’m not so impressed with my $30/mo value for the data package I was forced to buy. Mostly that’s because there’s no 3G network in my area – and probably won’t be for a while. Still, it is pretty cool to be able to surf and e-mail from anywhere.

Conclusion – loving it. When your current contract expires, replace it w/ an iPhone.