Check after the jump for details.  The “day” is starting at noon only b/c I was out with my realtor earlier this morning and wanted to get the battery to a full charge before doing this.

These are the settings that will not be changing during this test:

• Wifi, Bluetooth & GPS/Location services all on
• No PNS apps running ( logged out of IM )
• Google Push sync for contacts & calendar
• Google mail check every 15 min

So, here we go:

• noon – 100% battery
• 12:35pm – checked contacts …still at 100%
• 2:17 – 1 text message, app usage: 96%
• 2:45 – 3G to web – downloaded new wallpaper for the lockscreen ( for whatever reason wifi wouldn’t connect )
• 2:45 – 2:50 – text messages received: 4  sent: 3.  Batter at 93%
• 3pm: router was jacked – restarted it and connected to wifi
• more texting 2:50 – 3:15pm – battery now 87%
• 3:51 – 86%
• 4:40 – 85%
• 5:45: 10 min phone call
• 6:50 5 min phone call, some email checking – battery 74%  ( this is the 7 hour mark and but 25% of the battery is depleated: the iPhone claims 1 hour and 26 minutes of usage with and 7 hours 11 min of standby time since the last full charge ).
• 7:30 – restarted phone 2x – to recover ECID.
• 8pm – 20 min call.  Battery at 66%.  ( 8 hour mark and the phone is at 66% now.  That’s a pretty big drop of 10% in the last hour, but I suppose 2 restarts and a 20 min phone call can put a drain on the battery )
• 8:45: 5 minute phone call, 10 minutes web browsing: battery 60%.
• 9:30 – 59%
• 9:47 – 11pm. Lots and lots of texting.  Battery at 48%.  Seems that 3G usage kills the battery more than anything else.
• 11:30pm – battery at 46%.

Seems like my typical usage could take me through a full 24 hours without a charge.  I’m going to let the iPhone run all the way down until it is crying for a charge and will update this again then.

Update 1:

It’s now 7am, and with my alarm, and having hit snooze once, and checked an email my battery is still at 30%.  So, it drained 16% in 7 hours of standby.  The usage meter calims the following:

Usage: 3 hours 40 minutes
Standby 18 hours, 47 minutes.

I guess the standy time and the usage time overlap somewhat, they have to, the phone hasn’t been off the charger for 22 hours yet ( only about 19 hours ).  To note I do have between 4 and 5 ( full ) bars at home, work and in between.  I’m not really in a place where my phone struggles for signal, and in my 6 hours and 50 minutes of recorded call time, not 1 dropped call.  So far I’m quite happy with my purchase.

Update 2:  It’s now 9:45 am and my phone just hit 19%.  I’m giving it to 10% before I plug it in.

Update 3: It’s now 11am and all standby since arriving to work at 8:35am.  The phone is at 17%.  7% to go before I plug it in.  I’m actually pretty impressed, it looks like it will last a full 24 hours with some pretty heavy usage in short spurts.  This does put my TMobile Wing battery to shame and it got much less usage in terms of data b/c edge was so painfully slow, and wifi setup on it was terribad ( yes, that’s a word…it’s like terribly bad, in a single word ).

Update 4: 12:45pm and the battery is at 15%.

Check after the jump for details.

Battery:

I had the phone charged to 100% around 9:30am.  With some light to moderate usage ( it recorded 2 hrs of usages and 10 hours of standby ) it shows a battery of 57% left.  That was mostly spent fiddling around with different apps, posting a few things on facebook, exploring a bit on the web and a considerable amount of text messaging. With 12 hours passed and still 1/2 the battery, I’m pretty happy so far.  I’m going to leave it over night to see how far down I can get it and use my Incase Power Slider tomorrow while I’m at Brooke’s for most the day.  Overall I’m pretty pleased with the battery life, and watching it take nearly a full day of moderate usage to drain.

Keyboard:

I’m still getting used to the auto-correcting of the keyboard.  It’s fairly difficult for me to not want to instantly go back to fix a mistake I notice.  I know I’m getting better at typing on it, but I don’t think I’ll ever have the accuracy of typing on a real keyboard and when I’m texting I am losing my signature *action_here* because the asterisk symbol is just difficult to get to.

Ringtones:

I have a hard time being willing to pay for ringtones, especially when I have already paid for songs or entire ablums.  I’ve found it quite easy to make ringtones to put on my iPhone and have a few custom ones already.  The hard part if finding the right ringtone for the right person.

Applications:

This is both the biggest strength and the greatest weakness of the iPhone.  Apple has done a wonderful job making it easy to make applications for the iPhone.  What they haven’t made easy is getting the application approved for sale in the store.  The approval process is cloaked in mystery and now, any application that pulls data from the internet ( think like a browser ) will be tagged 17+ and that it may contain indecent material.  I wonder if the Barnes and Noble app was tagged that way, or if companies have enough pull they can get Apple to look the other way ( like how Trent Reznor got his app approval re-evaluated when it was initially declined with some very harsh posts on twitter and his own website ).

If you ignore the approval process though, the App Store is an amazing source of fun.  It’s almost like YouTube, where you can start searching for something and suddenly find yourself having spent an hour or two just looking at nothing.  People will mock the Apple App Store for having a pletora of Fart Apps, but when you really dig into it, there are a lot of very worth while applications, not all of which cost money, many very solid apps are free.

Mail:

I never thought I would use email on a phone as much as I have in the last week.  I only have it checking mail every 15 minutes and I could probably drop that down to 30 minutes if I wanted to save the battery a bit more, but as I’m not hurting for battery I’m not all that worried.  The email client ( while not perfect ) is VERY usable, and I’m quite pleased with it’s implementation.
What’s Lacking:

I do wish the iPhone had some kind of LED that could blink, or flash or something when there was something that “required” your attention ( which could be modified by preferences ).  I’d like to know when I have an unread sms, or missed call, or voicemail, while I don’t need to know immediately about IMs or emails for example.  While the phone does vibrate or chirp when a message comes in, it only does so three times ( once for the inital alert and then twice more over the course of a few minutes ) and after that you aren’t alerted again.  If I’m in the shower, chances are I’m going to miss this, and I’d really like the ability to glance at my phone from across the room and know if I have something that requires my attention.

The phone could use a flash, but it’s far from a real need for me.  If I’m going to take that many pictures I’ll get my digital camera out.

Syncing to multiple computers.  Like most people, I have a computer at work and at home.  While I don’t need, nor even WANT to sync my music/videos at home and work, I DO have the want to sync my contacts, applications, calendars, ringtones, etc between the two.  I’d love to have a backup of my sync’d information at work in case my home machine dies ( or vice versa ).  I spend between 40 and 50 hours on a normal week at the office, which is about 1/3 to 1/4 of the total hours in a calendar week.  That’s a lot of time.  I’d really like the option to sync against 2 computers.

Profiles.  I’d like to be able to set different profiles for my phone.  When I have it plugged in, I don’t care if the screen is at it’s brightest vs my normal dimmer setting for saving battery consumption.  I do like the vibrate switch on the side, making it VERY easy to turn the phone silent, but I’d also like the option for NO vibration that easily too.

Settings easier to get access.  This is one thing that can be a pain.  When I need to toggle my bluetooth on/off it takes no less than 4 taps, and that’s being generous and assuming the phone is not asleep and/or locked.

A Today Screen.  On the lock screen I would love to have a brief over view of things on my device.  Appointments I have today and perhaps coming up in the next day or two, number of missed calls or voicemails, number of missed text messages, number of unread emails.  It would be quite nice to just turn on the screen, give it a quick look over and see if I really needed to swipe to unlock or could just turn the screen off and go back to whatever I was doing.

While I have gone on about things I think that the iPhone is lacking, that by NO means is to give the impression that I do not really like the phone.  I’ve been VERY pleased with my coverage, my speed and the general quality of the phone.

That being said, I had a problem with my iPhone where the camera app would lock up the phone, some times. This wouldn’t happen ALL the time, nor would it happen all that often ( think 2 twice a day…maybe…since I bought it on 7/11/09 ). So, I walked into an Apple store last week to talk to a associate to see what they could think of. They tried a normal restart and told me to do a new phone restore ( losing all my data, but being able to resync apps, contacts, etc ), and that if that didn’t work to schedule an appointment at the Genius Bar, where customers get 1 on 1 help with their Apple products.

So, I went home and did a full restore, resyncing contacts and adding pictures back again, etc. A few hours later it happened again, and I made my appointment for Wednesday evening, one of the few times Brooke and I weren’t scheduled to be together this week. I ended ups staying home sick from work and Brooke came over to see how I was doing, we relaxed and talked and she was tired from work so she stayed at the house while I went to the Sherman Oaks Apple store.  I wish I could remember the name of the guy that helped me at the Genius Bar, but he was very straight forward with me, telling me that since it’s before 2 weeks I can just straight up exchange the phone for a new one, no questions asked.  I said go for it and he started to go through the motions when he said “uh oh”.  They were out of 32GB White iPhones.  Ugh.  He said that he could order one for me but it would take about 3 days to get there, and by that time I’d be out of the Valley and back in Agoura.  He said in that case to go to any store that had them in and just tell them I wanted to do an “in box exchange”.

Thursday, I was home from work again, still sick, and while I checked the iPhone Inventory tool, no stores near by had any White 32 GB 3GS iPhones.  I figured I would just wait until Friday and go to one of the Apple stores on my way between work and my sister’s house.  As I was at work on Friday, I kept checking the Invetory Tool.  Thousand Oaks, Simi Valley, Canoga Park, Northridge and Sherman Oaks were all out of stock of the White 32GB 3GS.  Wow, and here I thought I went with the less popular color.  Around 11am rolls around and low and behold Thousand Oaks has them in stock!  Yes!  I plan on stopping by there on my way to my sisters and swapping out my iPhone.  By 3:30pm the Thousand Oaks store was showing 0 in stock.  D’oh.  I should have take a lunch.  Around 4:30 I check the site again and find that Northridge has it in stock.  I don’t hold my breath but figure if they still have them in stock by the time I go to my sisters, take care of the dogs and am ready to leave, I’ll stop by and see what they can do for me.

After taking care of the raft killing beasts, I check the Inventory Tool one last time and it says they are still in stock, so I head over to the Northridge mall.  I find my way over to the Apple store to find the store PACKED with people.  There are easily over 100 people in the store, with 20 people in queue for the Genius Bar, and here I thought I might be the one and only person out looking for an iPhone on a Friday night.   Seems I was QUITE wrong.  I finally flag down a power blue t-shirt wearing associate and tell him my story.  He listens and tells me he needs to talk to a Genius.  He gets flagged down by 4 or 5 other customers just walking to the Genius Bar, and this guy is way too nice to tell someone he’s helping someone else so he listens to them and tries to point them in the right direction before continuing on his way.  In the mean time I see another gentleman standing in the iPhone line who buys 4 ( yes FOUR ) White 32GB iPhone 3GS’.  My mind starts to race.  What if he got the last ones? The associate comes back to me and tells me it will be fine to swap it out and asks which one I have.  I tell him the White 3GS.  He nods, no problem.  What size? I say 32GB.  He says “Now that might be  a problem.”  I see him walk over to the iPhone checkout and he grabs one of the 2 last white iPhones.  He double checks to make sure it’s a 32GB one and he comes back to me telling me I’m pretty lucky and had I showed up any longer I might have been out of luck.  Mel helped me throughout the rest of the exchange, making sure the new phone had my proper phone number, was able to make and receive calls and was activated through iTunes in the store.  If Mel ever reads this, and I know I thanked him in the store, I just want him to know how nice he made my Apple experience and while I hate having technology not work like ti should, he made the repair process as enjoyable as it could be.  While it did take a while and I didn’t leave the Apple store until about 8pm, I was quite satisfied and was ready to go home with my new iPhone and apply my new InvisibleShield screen protector.  I’ll have a review on that before too long.

The reason I made the appointment is that occassionally my iPhone will totally lock up, specifically when using the camera app.  The shutter just never opens, and I’ve even left it there for 5 full minutes.  I did a phone restore to see how that would work out, but low and behold it happened again.  Here’s hoping that the person that helps me at the Genius Bar can really help me out.  I’ve already backed up all my data, just in case they do a phone swap.  I’ll post more here after my appointment at 7:45pm tonight.

Now, before I get into what happened after that, lets go into a little history of the iPhone.

The iPhone was initially released in June 29, 2007 and was initially priced at $499/$599 for the 4GB and 8GB versions.  This also came with a forced data plan and 2 year contract with NO subsidy assistance from AT&T.

On September 5th of the same year, Apple dropped prices.  The 4GB version was discontinued and the 8GB was dropped to $199 ( with 2 year contract, the rest being subsidized by AT&T ).  Those that had purchased the iPhone in the previous 2 weeks were protected by a price protection clause that AT&T and Apple both had and could be refunded the difference.  The other customers put up quite a fuss.  On September 6th Steve Jobs ( Apple CEO ) announced that any iPhone customers that were not eligible for some other form of compensation, would be eligible for a $100 Apple credit.

The iPhone 3G was released on July 11, 2008.  AT&T continued thier subsidy plan.  With the release of the 3G, AT&T decided to do something rather unique in the cellphone industry.  They allowed users that had purchased their original iPhone on or after May 27, 2008 to exchange it for an iPhone 3G.  Those that had purchased their iPhone BEFORE May 27th, were allowed to upgrade for the subsidized price and with a contract extension.  ( source )

This was a very rare move for a cellphone company.  Normally, until you are near or out of your contract period, if you want to want to upgrade your handset, you have to pay the unsubsidized price ( simiar to prices that the iPhone was when it was first released ).  AT&T never said that this would be common practice and anyone that’s been paying for higher end phones for the last few years, should understand this was likely a very rare occurrence.

As mentioned last week, Apple announced the iPhone 3GS. After it’s announcement, users excitedly went to the AT&T and Apple sites to see what it would cost them to upgrade their iPhone 3G from last year to the iPhone 3GS.  To the shock of many users they were NOT eligible for the new user price.  If they wished to upgrade they would be asked to pay $399 for the 16GB version and $499 for the 32GB version. Those wishing not to add an additional 2 year to their contract would be asked to pay $599/$699 ( source ).

Not surprisingly, iPhone users are upset, as many of them expected to be able to pay the $200 or $300 to upgrade like they did approximately 1 year ago. Since last weeks announcement forums have been flooded with disgruntled users and many different sites have written about the customer dissention.  There is even a twitten petition called twitition of uses “signing” asking AT&T to offer the subsidized price to them. Some analysts are calling this a “crisis”, as was mentioned at ComputerWorld.com.

Now, while I understand that a larger price tag, especially in this economy, is not something that anyone appreciates, but users have to realize that 1 year ago they signed a 2 year contract extention.  They also were able to the their iPhone price discounted because AT&T was paying part of that pricetag to Apple.  For AT&T to make up the price, they assume the customer will fulfill their 2 year contract or pay an early termination fee of $175 to get out of the contract.  While I sympathize with users wanting to upgrade to the lastest version, they really don’t have a leg to stand on.  They signed a two year contract and need to fulfill their end of the contract, since AT&T fulfilled their end by providing a less expesnive phone.

Users that upgraded to the iPhone 3G should wait until next year.  Next year there will undoubtedly be yet another iPhone released ( possibly with an OLED screen? ) and your contracts will be over and you’ll be eligible for the new customer pricing.  I know our society now feels like they are entitled to everything they want when they want and how they want it, but at some point we have to grow up and comply with the responsibilities that signed up for.

Today Apple hosted the World Wide Developer Conference in San Francisco, CA.  As with every year, before the actual Keynote Speech ( usually hosted by Steve Jobs, but hosted by Phil Schiller due to Jobs’ health issues ).

Last year Apple announced the iPhone 3G, iPhone App Store ( both of which have been quite a phenomenal success ), and iPhone OS 2.0.

This year Apple announced: a new line of Mac Books ( starting at 13″, 15″ and 17″ models starting at $1199 for the 13″ ), OS X Snow Leopard ( upgrade price to be just $29 compared to the $120 of past upgrades ), the iPhone OS 3.0 ( to support push notifications, cut/copy/paste throughout the phone, and MMS texting* ) as well as the iPhone 3GS.  The iPhone 3GS will support everything the 3G has but: 2x faster ( unknown processor as of date ), 3.0 megapixel camera with Auto Focus and video recording & editing and voice control. ( iPhone 3G & iPhone 3GS comparison chart ).  The iPhone 3GS also ups the amount of storage space, offering 16 and 32GB versions ( their 3G 16GB and 8GB are dropping in price by 50% and the 8GB will stay on the market while the 16GB will be available while supplies last ).

Here is the iPhone 3GS Guided Tour:

Here are links to the medium, and large versions of the tour.

With the iPhone OS 3 coming out on June 17th, and the iPhone 3GS coming out just 2 days later, Apple is bound to have a busy few weeks where people are ( again ) lining up to get their latest phone.

The iPhone 3GS will cost $199/$299 for the 16/32GB versions respectively.  The current 3G iPhone is being sold at $99/$149 for the 8GB/16GB versions.

TomTom also announced support for the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS.  Here’s a video of what they plan to offer:

I think the ability to mount and charge the iPhone, offering the hands free experience that is required by law here in CA on top of being able to use the 3.5mm jack to pipe the sound through my car speakers means I just may have to get this.  There’s no price point yet though, and that’s always a concern.

*AT&T will NOT support MMS messaging with the release of OS 3.0, but it will be available sometime in the “summer”.  Tethering support is planned but no official statement to cost has been announced by AT&T.  BoyGeniousReports.com has supposed “insider” info as to the reasoning for the delay in the MMS support and what to expect with a tethering plan.

I currently have the T-Mobile Wing, and while it’s a decent phone, it’s left me wanting more. I need/want a phone that reacts faster. I love the real keyboard that’s pretty amazing, I like the fairly large screen, but there are many things I wish it did….better.

Here’s my current plan:

- 1500 anytime minutes
- unlimited n/w
- unlimited internet
- unlimited MMS/SMS

Last month I used:
- 1136 minutes used ( 127 off peak and 377 weekend ) 1554 total minutes just talking with Brooke.
- 197 Text messages received
- 156 Text messages sent

Apparently I am a fucking chatty Cathy on my cell phone, I had no idea I talked with Brooke that much.

Plans

This is where SOME of the concern is about what I’ll be paying per month, but none of them will DRASTICALLY change what I am currently shelling out to TMobile ($100/month ) for unlimited texting and internet w/1500 anytime minutes. So, this is more of a perk if I can save some cash or get more bang for my buck.

TMobile

Tmobile has a $49.99/month unlimited calling plan which I quality for, and could pick up the Android at the same time. I’d need to add texting and internet which would keep my bill at about $100 / month which is exactly what I pay now. I’m not necessarily looking to SAVE money, but I’m looking to add utility while not spending MORE money.

ATT

AT&T for the iPhone offers the following plans ( all have unlimited web/email & mobile to mobile )
- $70 – 450 anytime/5000 Nights & Weekends
- $90 – 900 anytime/ unlimited Nights & Weekends
-$110 – 1350 anytime/ unlimited Nights & Weekends
- $130 – unlimited minutes

( rates taken from: http://www.wireless.att.com/cell-phone-service/specials/en/iReady_checklist.pdf )

None of these plans offer texting, and for unlimited texting I’d have to add an additional $20. There is rumor of some cheaper iPhone packages coming from AT&T, but that’s still a rumor.  I could drop to $90 + tax, probably taking me close to or exactly to what I pay now.

Sprint

Sprint has the following offer:

- $99.99 – unlimited data/text/and calling

Phones

There has been a flood of information with the Palm Pre being released this Saturday, June 6th.  There have been real handsets in possession of reviewers for a little less than a week now too.

Andriod

The TMobile G1 has been out a while and really banged on.  It’s a solid phone, but isn’t revolutionary by any means. The UI won’t wow anyone, the features don’t make any of the other smart phones sweat.  So, what’s so great about it?  2 words.  Open Source.  A platform with the kind of software support that Google can muster will eventually bring a lot to the table.  What are the downfalls of the current OS?  It’s not so much downfalls as in features it just doesn’t quite implement fully. Google set up the platform and is letting developers fill the gaps.  Well, if the userbase isn’t large enough, developers won’t flock to it like they did the iPhone.  It comes down to market share, and even app developers want to know they have an audience to develop for.

Once the Andriod phones start hitting other carriers, I’m sure we’ll see more apps and more people picking up the handset, for now I’ll leave it at the relatively small market share TMobile carries compared to the likes of Verizon and AT&T. ( Verizon has 86.6 million U.S. subscribers^, AT&T has 78.2 million subscribers, and T-Mobile has 32.8 million subscribers ).

iPhone

The iPhone firmware 3.0 ( and possibly new hardware ) will be available sometime this summer (I’m thining June/July to combat the Pre hype ). This is supposed to add much better support for Apples version of multi-tasking with the iPhone, copy & paste ( about time ), sending photos & sounds in MMS ( 3G phone only ), and texting/email in landscape layout ( also about time ).

Pre

Announced to be releasing on June 6th, many BestBuy stores are getting demo units in the coming days.  There’s one in Woodland Hills, CA that will have a demo unit, so I’ll try to have to check in there this weekend and see how I like the feel of it in my hand.  Some users have said it feels very “plastic”, and while the screen is crisp and clear, it feels like it’s not very “solid”.  The QWERTY keyboard got some bad comments in the lack of space between the top row of keys and the bottom of the slideup screen, posing problems hitting the correct keys at times.  I know a number of phones have a very similar slidup screen to expose a keyboard, I’m not sure if it’s just a comparison with what a user is used to, if they have really fat fingers, or if it is a legitimate problem.  A user at precentral.net got a Pre a little early and has been leaving impressions there and answering questions.  Not sure if his is retail release or not though, if not this could be why some things aren’t working as documented.

PreCentral.net also has one of the most indepth ( if slightly biased ) towards the Pre.  Give it a read and watch the videos.  Apparently the gestures are not too intuitive ( not saying that any other device has that done pat either though ), and there is slowdowns and crashes.  Well, it’s software, that’s to be expected, especially with a first generation product.  There will be issues, and they will be addressed, but we don’t really know how long that is all going to take.  It may be until the phone hits multiple carriers ( rumored to be around the start of 2010 ) before we see v2 of WebOS.

Olivia Munn wasn’t overly fond of the Pre with comments she left on twitter: Read them here and here.

Battery life:

I’ve read reviews that run the gamut here, everything from my iPhone sucks and dies in 3 hours to my G1 sucks and dies in 3 hours to my G1 was amazing, it lasted ALL night and made me breakfast in the morning <3. It takes a little while of sorting through the fanboy noise to really find some consistent information.

All 3 phones are rated right around ~5hrs of talk time:

- G1 specs

- iPhone Specs

- Pre Specs ( this is unofficial, but the best I could find ).  Here are official specs: Palm Pre

I’ve found a copy of the Palm Pre user guide(http://www.scribd.com/doc/15851822/SG-Pre-UserGuide) and it seems all the phones recommend the same thing for extending the battery life, turn off features, turn down the brightness and use it less.

With the exception of the turn down the brightness suggestion, the rest of the options kind of suck. You are buying a phone because of all the options it provides, not to have to turn them off to make the phone acceptable. One thing that Pre and G1 have over the iPhone in this respect is the replaceable battery. Replacing the battery on an iPhone voids the warranty and is akin to a small surgery. Doing so with the Pre and G1 is like changing batteries in 99% of all cellphones: slide off the back, pop out the battery, put the new one in and replace the back plate. Why Apple went the way of the iPod and gave it a non-replaceable battery is beyond me. No, people don’t like having to carry around a spare, but they do like having options.

The G1 has a few 3rd party battery that is rated at 2400 mAh, which lasts approximately 3 – 4 days of moderate use on 1 full charge. Down side of this is that it nearly doubles the thickness of the phone, requires a new backplate ( supplied ) and costs around $60.

The iPhone also has battery extender options:

http://www.phonesuit.com/products/MiLi_Power_Pack-14-10.html

http://fastmac.com/iv.php

http://www.mophie.com/collections/batteries

Personally, I think the iPhone 3rd party solutions are slicker and prettier than the G1 solution is ( Pre will probably fall into the same category ). In the end it looks like this is a push. All of them have “longer batteries” if at a $50-$100 cost, and will all give you that additional benefit. The G1 gets a lot thicker, the iPhone gets a lot heavier. Deal breakers for any of them? No.

Apps:

Right now the iPhone has the nod on this one. Why? Simple. It’s the numbers. Even if there are several thousand fart apps in the iPhone app store, there are an incredible number of apps that end up solving problems for people. My co-worker was able to download an ssh client to remote into a server, restart some services and get things back up and running. While I’m sure both the Pre and G1 will have expansive application bases at some point, they just aren’t to the same level as the iPhone at this point in time.

External Storage:

- Plain and simple the iPhone and Pre lack here. The Pre is stuck at 8GB of storage ( about 7.4GB useable ) and the iPhone ranges between 8GB and 16GB depending on how much cash you shell out.

What’s right for me:

In the end what it all comes down to is to the carrier and then the phone.  T-Mobile has been solid for me, but with my spending more time in the Thousand Oaks area and unable to receive MMS while at work ( my phone lights up that I have a message but the content doesn’t download until I leave the office that evening ), T-Mobile just hasn’t grown like I need them to.  In fact, I think their coverage has actually degraded over the last few years when they decoupled the roaming onto many AT&T towers ( locally ).

My younger brother has Sprint and has been with them quite a while.  His coverage at home is sometimes spotty, but at work he has no problems with email, web, text or calling ( we do work in different areas ).

My younger sister ( who does not live with me ) has AT&T, and whenever we’ve hung out she’s had coverage when I’ve played with her iPhone ( usually more “bars” than me, not that “bars” is an accurate measurement though ).

Right now I hate to say it, but the devil ( Apple & AT&T ) are swaying me their way.

At this point I’m considering the $70 package with $20 for the text messaging. All my mobile to mobile will be used with Brooke and if I get close to going over with general minutes I’ll just push up to the $90 package and be home free. I’ll likely also add the Mili battery pack to add a few additional days of usage time, especially for those long hungover weekends when I’m not near the office or a charger.

The Pre looks very promising, but after checking out sprint coverage in my areas of usual travel, Sprint just doesn’t have the body of coverage that AT&T and T-mobile do, and even TMo lacks compared to AT&T out here. Around the turn of 2010 several other carriers ( may ) get the Palm Pre and at that time I can reconsider my phone options if I so desire.