Farewell to the iPhone - Hello to the e61i!

This is a closing review to the iphone, and an opening review to the e61i. Let's start out with the closing of the iphone.

I couldn't believe that I was even thinking about getting rid of the iphone. My baby, for the past month, has served me with music, internet, youtube, texting, twitter, games, and phone calls, in a way no other phone, or pocket sized device for that matter, has ever come close to doing. I saw, through regular usage, that there are several major drawbacks:

- Mediocre battery life; It's pathetic! I get 2 days out of it tops!
- Touch screen - Can be a pain, it smudges, not to mention the fact that if you're wearing gloves outdoors, or shaving, brushing your teeth, eating chicken wings (or anything else that may leave your hands messy) there is one of two problems. Either an obstruction that prevents the heat from your finger to touch the screen, should a call come in, or a glob of something on the screen (sauce, shaving cream, toothpaste, etc.) just to be smeared by your face touching the phone to talk. The touchscreen simply gets old and impractical.
- No push email - not exactly a necessity for me, but I will be getting it around July, and the iphone certainly can't support that on a BlackBerry network.
- No instant messaging
- No video or zoom on the camera (wtf?)
- IMPOSSIBLE to type on (it may correct you, but that's not the point. still a complete pain to do - how I wish it had a suretype keyboard as the Blackberry Pearl and 7105t had)
- No Bluetooth (it's at fault of the unlock - but again, not the point); just HOW am I supposed to transfer my files, now? Huh?
- Didn't let me use my own ringtones (the stupid included nondescript ones were not only annoying - but got more annoying after hearing them over 100 times!)
- No photo editing - You're telling me I can't even rotate my photos, so I don't have to keep rotating my phone while I'm scanning through photos? What the heck is this?

I know I sound like I just came off of a bitter divorce - but the lack of several features, and some being there, limiting my use, just made me decide that I needed a better phone. So, I went and sold it for $480 to someone who obviously would make better use out of it than I would, and made a deal for a Nokia e61i.

I like this thing much more than I do the iPhone. Let's take a look at the lacking features to see where the e61i takes over:

- Mediocre battery life; It's pathetic! I get 2 days out of it tops! Not anymore - 3-4 days, on day and night, probably a week, turning it off at night.
- Touch screen - Can be a pain, it smudges, not to mention the fact that if you're wearing gloves outdoors, or shaving, brushing your teeth, eating chicken wings (or anything else that may leave your hands messy) there is one of two problems. Either an obstruction that prevents the heat from your finger to touch the screen, should a call come in, or a glob of something on the screen (sauce, shaving cream, toothpaste, etc.) just to be smeared by your face touching the phone to talk. The touchscreen simply gets old and impractical. A hard interface makes things a lot easier to work with, which I saw from call 1.
- No push email - not exactly a necessity for me, but I will be getting it around July, and the iphone certainly can't support that on a BlackBerry network. Has BlackBerry network access, not to mention push email on the exchange server.
- No instant messaging - I installed Fring, I've already got Skype and MSN (Not to mention Twitter) going all at the same time. Enough said.
- No video or zoom on the camera (wtf?) Has both. Beat that, Apple.
- IMPOSSIBLE to type on (it may correct you, but that's not the point. still a complete pain to do - how I wish it had a suretype keyboard as the Blackberry Pearl and 7105t had) Ok, no suretype, but everything being "there" and in front of you, no switching menus for punctuation and numbers, and using those a lot, I found this convenient (plus, no shifting necessary for question marks. Go Nokia!)
- No Bluetooth (it's at fault of the unlock - but again, not the point); just HOW am I supposed to transfer my files, now? Huh? How am I supposed to transfer my files? By using an e61i, that's how.
- Didn't let me use my own ringtones (the stupid included nondescript ones were not only annoying - but got more annoying after hearing them over 100 times!) Select from Nokia's rich list of GOOD ringtones, or add your own from any MP3, AAC, or even MP4 file.
- No photo editing - You're telling me I can't even rotate my photos, so I don't have to keep rotating my phone while I'm scanning through photos? What the heck is this? A lot of bull if you ask me. Rotate, rename, even print, are all options within Symbian - and are all things the iPhone can't do.

The only thing I can think of that the e61i lacks in comparison to the iPhone is multimedia. The e61i has Realplayer to handle videos and music, but I find the interface to deal with music to be slightly difficult, not to mention the fact that there is no built-in 3.5mm jack. Sure, they had it on the iPhone, but the port was receded, so you could only use Apple's earbuds with a slender plug cover. I just ordered an adapter from Hong Kong a few minutes ago, so I can use my own earbuds (which I don't have yet - I'm going to order some good JVC ones - sound is an investment). Once I toss a 2gb Kingston Micro SD card in there, I will have this thing turned into an enterprise/multimedia phone in no time!

So far, what I like about the e61i, is specifically to do with its communications features. Most elite phones are criticized for not being enough of a phone, and focusing too much on features such as camera and mp3. However, through aftermarket programs, I have expanded this phone past its GSM functions, to MSN and Skype with Fring, as well as international calling at essentially under 10 cents a minute. Also within wifi, I hooked up my Hotmail inbox to it. I'm going to be getting my own domain, so that I can send and receive email through POP3 or IMAP.

Well, I'm liking this so far. But hey, I liked the Powerbook and the iPhone too, and ended up hastily selling them afterwards. All I can say is - I hope this one lasts!