iPhone has a beautiful HVGA screen and is practically a fashion accessory when it comes to design but it is not nearly as capable as PPC phones.
Here's my previous summary of the iPhone's shortcomings from a business user's perspective:
Pros (just so you don't think I'm too biased):
- Design is fantastic and way cool
- User interface is cool and simple and fun
- Screen resolution (320x480, 1/2 or HVGA) is very good, especially given the death of VGA on PocketPCs and the QVGA CDMA smartphones (nice VGA screens coming on i-Mate Ultimate line of GSM phones)
Cons:
- Poor ATT network coverage for calls (maybe not true, definitely not as bad as it used to be in my area).
- ATT?s slower data network (EDGE not HSPDA, also poor coverage?)
- Doesn?t sync out of the box with corporate Exchange email servers but supposedly will eventually (3rd party corporate solution available)
- Doesn?t edit Word documents or Excel and can't view PowerPoint files or even save email attachments
- Only an onscreen keyboard, very slow to use, won't yet work with BT keyboard
- Poor BT compatibility (no tethering, A2DP, OBEX)
- No user replaceable battery so cannot use extra batteries or high capacity battery for longer life charges
- For me this is a much bigger downside to the sealed battery (I had 4 batteries for my Axim) than all the fuss about needing to have it eventually replaced by Apple
- Browser interface is very cool but on some websites it may require lots of sideways scrolling and page resizing (vs QVGA single column view, which is very legible & simple to use)
- No memory card (4 or 8 GBs is probably enough for most people for music, pics & videos, but some of us like to carry around huge data files and PowerPoint presentations for work)
- Lack of 3rd party app potential
- Can't double as a modem for laptop
- No find feature
- No cut & paste
- No voice dialing
- Only syncs with one computer
- No Flash or Java
I don't want to exaggerate the number of these weaknesses, clearly this was not designed for business users. I have to say that in my 2-week trial of the iPhone I found the network to be much improved in my area but EDGE is not cutting edge, it's just too slow.
With a few other improvements to the iPhone, I would learn to live with some of the other weaknesses and just resolve to using my laptop more.