4GB vs. 8GB

You see, I'm on a never-ending quest to have access to all of my content, on any device, at any time, anywhere.  The iPhone is a stop on the road to convergence perfection, and as such you have to think about it as much more than a phone.  I made the mistake of looking at it as an iPod, figuring that I take around 4GB of music with me in my car so a 4GB iPhone should suffice. 

My mistake was in discounting exactly how many pictures I'd throw on this thing; my initial iPhoto sync had around 700MB of pictures stored on the phone, and after seeing how well the iPhone works as a picturebook I wanted to add more.  The problem is that there's simply not enough room on the 4GB iPhone for all the music and pictures I'd like to store, thus making a strong argument for the 8GB iPhone. 

I would caution you against underestimating the importance of more storage on the phone; initially I scoffed at the idea of spending an extra $100 on the 8GB iPhone, this thing will probably be obsolete in another year anyways once the 3G version comes out, so why bother spending more?  The mistake comes in that you can't view the iPhone the way you do any other phone you've ever owned.  Coming from years of Blackberries, the decision between 4GB and 8GB is like asking a homeless guy whether he wanted an Enzo or Veyron, it's so out there that it was unfathomable.

If you have any music/photo library at all I would strongly encourage you not to make the same mistake I did and opt for the 8GB version instead.

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  • michael2k - Sunday, July 8, 2007 - link

    Except of course for the keyboard.

    If he unveiled the thing, it would have to be as a small laptop.
  • edwinder - Wednesday, July 4, 2007 - link

    Anand, I never got through your iPhone review...because everything I read is basically Blackberry this, Blackberry that. Just so that you know, not all your readers like/own/used Blackberries, and have found other replacements that suit us more besides a Blackberry (i.e E61). Yes, I know you love your BB's, but hope you can rename your article to reflect the review that you wrote. Nothing wrong with it... but reading your article gave me no basis of which to refer to, hence stopped reading it after a few pages.
  • aGoGo - Wednesday, July 4, 2007 - link

    Exactly,
    I used BB 8700, 8100, 8300 and 8800.. all of them suck, i have to admit that the RIM makes the best "stupid-proof" devices, that can enable you connect to your work email through BES, other than that, every single feature sucks.
    I'm using the Imate Jasjar (HTC Universal) and it can do every single thing the iPhone can do, without the cute looking UI, people wanna use things, not look at them, how many of you are still using Aero glass and DreamScene? Every single person disabled them after one week.
  • r33tr33t - Wednesday, July 4, 2007 - link

    You can catch bits of Anand's gigantic house as well as his face reflected back in the metallic part of some of the iPhone photos.
  • plinden - Tuesday, July 3, 2007 - link

    quote:

    This time on WiFi, the iPhone comes in about an hour under its estimated 7 hour internet battery life.


    Actually, http://www.apple.com/iphone/specs.html">here, Apple does claim "up to 6 hours" internet time, so what you're seeing is in line with Apple's claims.

    Yes, I do like my Apple products (3 Macs and two iPods) but I've always taken the battery life claims with a large pinch of salt.
  • Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, July 3, 2007 - link

    I know exactly what you're saying; battery life on the MacBook Pro is no where near Apple's 6-hour claims; I'd be lucky to get 2.5 hours of real work on mine.

    Thanks for the correction, I too was shocked to see it actually lasted 6 hours on WiFi. I'm doing some more tests now looking closer at its battery life, so you may see a follow-up article in the near future.

    Take care,
    Anand
  • strikeback03 - Tuesday, July 3, 2007 - link

    Looks nice, but too big for me. If they can build one around something more like a 2.25" screen that would be sweet.

    Also on the next to last page there is a picture missing of the screen you get to unlock the phone.
  • Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, July 3, 2007 - link

    Agreed. An iPhone mini could be very interesting but I'm not sure how the keyboard would work out. And I've added the missing image, thanks for the heads up :)

    Take care,
    Anand
  • Drumsticks - Wednesday, January 7, 2015 - link

    I had to go through this review for a paper I was writing for school, and I came across this comment. In 2015... how times have changed :)
  • aGoGo - Tuesday, July 3, 2007 - link

    Blackberry Curve and Blackjack?
    there are better phones to use, how about the HTC Universal? Nokia N95? SE P990i? HTC Athena?
    I really don't know how much this damn thing is gonna cost if it's unlocked? $1000?

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