My iPhone

I bought my iPhone about a year ago. We were starting to support them at work and no one had one. It made technical support a real challenge. My boss was strictly a Blackberry guy, so I finally gave in and got one myself. Overall, I am very happy with the iPhone. It is certainly a fun device, albeit, in my advice, more a toy than a business tool. But, I digress. You could argue this either way.

Not wanting to spend a lot of money since this was not fully endorsed by my boss at the time, I opted for a refurbished iPhone from AT&T. The price was right at the time - only $99. Although I quickly learned that old saying does apply: you get what you pay for.

When my phone first arrived I had no problems. It was a blast! Soon after we went on vacation up north and I brought the phone with me. I noticed almost immediately when we arrived in Boston that my phone had no service. I thought that was a little odd, but maybe the phone needed to adjust to a new network or something (cue the old days when you had to manually connect to a new network). No luck. I didn't worry about it since we were busy with our friends. A few days later we went to the Cape to see my parents. I still had no signal. I knew something was wrong. I called AT&T, but they gave me the runaround, saying that my parents lived in an area with limited service (they don't). I explained how this had also happened in Boston, but my complaints fell on deaf ears. Irritated, I gave up.

It wasn't until we had returned to Fort Lauderdale that, on a whim, I turned off the 3G service. Immediately my phone sprang to life with a full signal. Ah ha! My phone would not work on the 3G network. At that point I really didn't care because I just needed a phone that would work. Fast data speeds be damned!

Now, a year later, the pain of having a slow phone is mounting. Recently I upgraded to the new IOS 4 to get the new features touted by Apple. Bad move. My phone has slowed to a crawl. It is hardly usable. Even the more-recent 4.01 update hasn't worked. My phone is dying a slow death. The sad part is that I still have around a year on my contract. I am going to deal with it for as long as I can. I am really banking on Verizon getting an iPhone deal. I would switch in a minute. I have never loved AT&T service and this experience has cemented my love for Verizon.