Monday, December 03, 2007

iPhone in Portugal: yes, I tested one!

That's right, this a real iPhone and I tested it in a Media Markt store in Portugal. Sorry for the out-of-focus picture...my hands were still shaking from the excitement.

I have to say that, even though I've seen a lot of iPhone reviews, images and videos, I still ran into a few surprises:

  • It was thinner than I actually though it would be.
  • The resolution of the screen is absolutely fabulous. At the beginning, I even thought the menu that was displayed on the phone was a sticker. It wasn't until I touched the screen, that I could verify that this was an actually working iPhone.
  • The transitions between applications and menus are amazingly fast
  • Handling pictures with the multi-touch screen interface is even better than I expected
There were however some things I could not test:
  • There were no music files on the iPhone, so I couldn't test the "iPod" feature
  • The device wasn't connected to any WiFi network or GSM network, so I couldn't test the Internet access or the "phone" feature
And there were some things I didn't like (that's right, the iPhone is far from perfect):
  • Writing in the multi-touch keyboard is not simple. Your fingers get in the way of each other and you end up writing more than you wanted
  • The calendar is nothing special and it doesn't add almost anything to the calendar I have on iPod.
  • The iPhone gets a bit (actually, a lot...) smudgy after playing with it for just a while and you feel the need to clean it almost every time you use it. But I guess that's the problem with every multi-touch interfaces.
I couldn't fully tested because at this time a lot of angry eyes behind me were burning my shoulders enough for me to know that it was time to let someone else test it. It was even difficult to take a picture without a hand handling it. And in spite of the "downs" that I pointed here, it was a pleasure to finally test this device. But I'm not sure if it's worth to buy one once it gets available in the Portuguese market. It will depend on the price. Let's wait and see...

2 comments: