Complete user review of the iPhone with pictures and video

It has been an unforgettable week-end for the first iPhone buyers and MacScoop will now put the focus on one of them who provided to MacScoop a complete review of Apple's very anticipated gizmo.

Jerome Leroy (Hellgi) is a film composer in Los Angeles, CA though he grew up in Paris, France. He is also a technology addict who owns the CreateFilmScores.net blog.

In an online interview with MacScoop he provided his first impression on unboxing and using it. He also joins some pictures of the iDay and unboxing.

The iDay experience:

I spent a little less than 8 hours in line at the Apple Store in Topanga (at the Westfield Mall). I arrived there around 11am and got my iPhone at 6:30pm. I believe there were about 80 people in front of me, some of them spent at least the night there (as demonstrated by their mattresses).

Apple teamed up with the Mall management and security so everything went extremely well. We were first lined up in a specific area in the parking lot, and around 2:30 pm we were moved by groups of eight next to the Apple Store itself. This prevented people from holding seats or from cutting everybody off. Right at 6pm, the big Apple logo on the Apple Store went on and everybody started cheering and clapping. Apple staff members were chanting "iPhone, iPhone!" and clapping like crazy. It was fun! Everything went really smoothly and I believe most if not all of the people in line got an iPhone in the end, so my guess is that the Apple Store had about 300-400 iPhone in stock since many buyers bought two at the same time.

First impressions after unboxing it:

As many people have said, it looks smaller in real life than on the web or on TV. It is about the size and width of an iPod 5G 30GB: it's a little taller but not as wide. In terms of raw design, it's another winner from Jonathan Ive and his team. As with other Apple products, it "feels" and "looks" good but it's not pretentious. It's just "right." The only down side would be the small black plastic part in the bottom back of the phone, but it was necessary for the antenna, as well as the headphone jack which doesn't allow to plug some types of headphones (except if you buy an adapter).

Regarding the weight, I'd say the iPhone is as heavy as the iPod 5G (which shows how much technology there is in it, since it doesn't hold a hard drive).

The screen:

The screen is, in one word, magnificent. It is very bright (and adjusts automatically according to your environment). I have been using the iPhone for two days now, and I always put it in my pocket without any protection (I don't like using cases or covers). So far, there are no scratches. The glass does get greasy after using it for a while, but the screen is so bright that you won't even notice it except if holding the iPhone at a flat angle.

Battery-life:

The iPhone does come 95% charged out of the box. After two days, I can only says that it will probably need to be charged at least every other day when you are using a mix of calls, music and web browsing. The problem is that it's so cool that you want to use it all the time... something I wasn't used to do with my previous cell phones :)

Personnaly, the battery-life is kind of a non-issue to me as I have always synced my iPod at night before going to bed to find them fully charged and ready to go in the morning.

Google Maps:

Google maps is like its counterpart on a desktop PC, except that it is truly great to be able to go anywhere with it. I find the traffic information very neat, and overall the app is fast and simple to use (especially thanks to the bookmarks and address book integration).

EDGE speed:

Overall, I do not agree with some reviewers who said that EDGE is a total failure. Granted, the bandwith depends on your connection strength: if you only have one or two bars, don't even bother - you're going to spend more time waiting than actually browsing. But when you have four or five bars, it is quite fast and - while nothing close to a broadband connection - do allow for some nice surfing. Most apps (Google Maps, Weather...) work great with EDGE as they do not require much bandwidth; most well-optimized web sites work decently too. This is no 3G but it is definitely *much* better than 56k modems.

How long to type this?
"My name is Jerome and I'm trying to type on the iPhone as fast as possible"

About 34 seconds with one thumb. See video:

The virtual keyboard is really not an issue for me. I've never had any trouble typing with it... I did fine from the first time I used it. I think it's much more practical than a tiny hardware keyboard, especially because I have thick fingers. The thing is that you shouldn't try to fix all your mistakes; just trust the dictionnary, keep typing, and the error-correction engine will find the word you intended to type.

What it lacks:

I think there are many things that the iPhone could (and probably will) do in the future; the good news is that most of them are software-related. Among them it'd be great to get more Apple apps / widgets (showtimes, converters, flight tracker, dictionnary, translation...); games, of course, would be nice; and also to be able to specify a language (when typing in another language than English) or to deactivate the automatic error-correction (would be useful when typing an SMS).

There are some other features missing (stereo bluetooth for example) but they're less of an issue to me.

That's it! There's some hope that some of the lacking features cited above will be added in the near future by Apple as most of them would just require a software update.

Now check-out Jerome's iDay and unboxing slideshows

iDay:

Pictures taken at the Topanga Mall, California Apple Store.

Previous Image 1/5 NextEntranceEntrance of the Topanga Mall CA Apple Store

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Unboxing:

Previous Image 1/14 NextBoxThe box

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