I even bought one, although I prefer real keys. Other phone features outweighed the desire for real keys. That may end up being the case here, and I note that I’ve used PDAs both with and without keys and ended up preferring those without — they’re smaller.

YMMV but I like the iphone in concept. I think the massively improved address book integration (versus every phone I’ve ever used, anyway) likely negates a strong need for buttons except if you send a lot of text messages. And even for that I’d like to try it before I decided it’s screwed up.

If I could replace my PDA with it entirely I would almost certainly buy one, and thought hard about whether or not I should (wait to) get one to replace my aging phone a few months ago. But Cingular … don’t really want Cingular. Don’t really want to pay that much for a phone. Can do almost everything I use my PDA for, but not quite (like I’d have to ditch my ebook library).

Pass this time. We’ll see how it looks in a couple of years. But I would be surprised if this phone doesn’t sell as many as Apple can produce for the first couple of years.

Buuuuuut. I’m still very interested in the iPhone. Not that I’d be getting one but once it’s out we’ll be seeing every cell maker coming up with something new and exciting. And that is something to get excited about. Screw the iPhone; I can’t wait til everyone has something to compete.

As a low-use “isn’t it cool!” device, it is the ultimate.

I’m not really a heavy cell user, and even I want a keypad buttons, small enough to fit in my front pocket, and a reasonably durable screen.

It’s a lot of money for a device with a questionable level of practicality.