May 01, 1998, TechWeb News
Smart Appliances...Wise Purchases -- There's been an
explosion of new gadgets that combine PCs with TVs,
phones and pagers. We tell you which ones are must-haves.
By John Eckhouse
"If the price were right, the CIDCO iPhone would be sitting on my kitchen counter right now. This full-featured speakerphone has a 7.4-inch monochrome LCD touchscreen and a slide-out keyboard you can use to send and receive e-mail and surf the Web. Unlike a PC,it's always on, so you don't have to wait for it to boot up. A small red light in the upper right corner glows when you've received voicemail or e-mail; the top line of the LCD tells you how many of each type of message have arrived. I used it often for e-mail and for checking
local weather maps, TV listings and stock prices.
The iPhone does have a few shortcomings. It retrieves e-mail headers quickly, but the 14.4-Kbps modem is slow to display each message. And it took me an average of 13 seconds to delete each message I'd read, which is all you can do since there's no way to print messages (an optional printer is "coming soon"). Also, while it's great that the keyboard tucks away neatly when you're not using it, it's too small for touch-typing. (Sam, who has smaller hands, felt this was less of a problem.) I'd also prefer a color screen, and I wish the iPhone had two lines, so I could talk and surf the Web simultaneously. Still, I'd buy one if not for the price. At $499, it's way too expensive-plus you have to pay $19.95 per month for Internet access from Concentric Network, even if you already have an account with another ISP. (If you use Concentric to connect to the Net with your PC, you pay only $4.95 extra to add Internet access on the iPhone) Other screen phones have more serious flaws.The Philips IS-2630 Internet Access Phone from Philips Consumer Communications (800-722-6678, www.philipsconsumer.com) has a color display and a full-size keyboard, but costs a whopping $650. The Uniden E-Mail Telephone from Uniden America (888-777-2947, www.uniden.com) costs just $299 ($399 for the cordless model), but it has a tiny keyboard and display for e-mail, and it won't let you surf the Web (the company plans to add a "micro-browser" for access to special Internet information services). And you can't send e-mail or surf the Web with the $149 Casio PhoneMate IT-380 E-Mail Link from Casio PhoneMate (310-618-9910,
www.casiophonemate.com). Instead, this phone automatically checks your
e-mail at prescheduled intervals and displays a message's subject, sender, and date and time received."
Copyright (c) 1998 CMP Media
(This is just a portion of the article that deals with I-Phones)
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