This is another update regarding mobility devices. You maybe remember that I’ve got an iPhone 4 the very first day, June 24th 2010, and that I’ve send it back, because I was also shocked by the draining bars and was a bit scared to pay monthly 45 Euro (incl. 5€ off already), just for an iPhone.

See the complete set of iPhone 4 photos from July 24th on my flickr set.

We decided to move to BASE, a provider that is at least known in Germany and Belgium. BASE offers cheaper flatrates (Internet 250MB for 10€/month, 50min talking into every netword for 5€/month). We carried our mobile numbers to this provider from our previous one, Simyo (also part of e-plus). Well, that was fine and pretty cheap, but we were still having our old and meanwhile pretty slow iPhone 2G. Maybe you remember the Samsung Galaxy S I’ve reviewed a few days ago, it’s a cool device but does not fit into our very Apple centric world (speaking of MobileMe).

We then tried to get 2 iPhone 4 16GB from UK. When Borderlinx lost too much of them and also the brother of a friend of me never received his (and they don’t send them secured + you’ve to wait currently 2-3 weeks extra), we canceled this. The other way to get one also doesn’t work in the end.

Having this issue for a couple of weeks, or was it months?, I really got rid of it and ordered 2 “Complete 60” data plans + 2x iPhone 4 from T-Mobile (that’s 29€ for one + 25€ for the 2nd one if you are a T-Home Entertain User, what I am).

2 hours later, I went to a local store to ask for a hands-free set for my “Company” Suzuki Swift, I saw that they are also T-Mobile Partners. Not thinking this nice guy would reply “Yeah we’ve them on stock”, I asked them if they have 2x iPhone 4 16GB. They had! WOW! An hour later, when the activation was done, I picked up 2 shiny new iPhone 4 (and drove the way to Essen to hand out @sorajaklein hers ). I now have to wait for the order mail from T-Mobile to cancel the 2 ordered from T-Mobile, but that’s nothing to worry about.

The good thing about BASE is, that you can set it to 0€/month without having to pay ANYTHING. Just put the SIM card into a box and maybe keep it for an emergency or so. The only bad thing on the other hand is, that they now have our great phone numbers and will not hand them out to T-Mobile, because the contract is fresh and runs 24 months. But that’s ok. They guy from Sound & Phone here in Moers gave us 2 great new numbers and luckily until today, I’m not a person who talks that much on the cellphone. I’ve just send out my vCard via eMail to 26 friends to update them and that’s it

So there we have it, the iPhone 4, one of those I’d send back a couple of weeks ago. For my surprise, they were pre-loaded with iOS 4.0.1, means these lousy bar-algorhythm was already fixed and yes it works. By testing here at home, I just dropped the complete network one time in a known bad spot in our house where also Simyo always lost the signal with the iPhone 2G.

There’s one thing you should keep in mind: Here in Germany (and I guess also other countries in Europe) have a FAR BETTER network than AT&T in the US. We’ve more than 20 antennas from T-Mobile in our more little town of Moers, I guess it was around 30? Not sure. This means that it’s pretty hard to get NO signal. Additional, T-Mobile (followed by O2 Germany) has the best network in this country. When I do the death grip, yes it put the bars down from 5 to 4 or maybe 3 bars inside the house, but it does no longer loose the network. So much about the “Antennagate”. In my mind it’s no longer a problem for T-Mobile users in Germany. Additionally, there will arrive 2 free bumpers from Apple in a few.. uhm… weeks September 7th if it’s true what the status says.

See the complete set of iPhone 4 photos from July 24th on my flickr set.

Leaving this issues behind, it could focus on the real good stuff of the iPhone 4. There’s this amazing display, the Retina one, compared to the Samsung SuperAMOLED it’s much much more detailed. Of course! The iPhones have a much higher resolution which makes the texts and icons unbelievable crisp. It’s speedy – it’s a lot of fun to run the same apps I’ve run on my iPhone 2G, but everything is much much snappier. For example ChocChocPop now loads in a few seconds while it took up to 30-40 seconds to load on the iPhone 2G.

Another thing I love about iOS4 is the unified inbox for eMails. I’m now using 2 accounts (1x MobileMe + 1x Google Apps) and I recently receive eMails on both of them – it was not impossible, but a bit annoying to keep track on both accounts with iPhone OS 3. Of course I have to mention multitasking. That HAD to come with the iOS4 – it’s simple, it’s cool and it seems not to eat that much battery power. It’s cool for Echofon Pro, for Skype and even to install apps while doing something else.

After 1 day with the iPhone 4 and the right (smallest) contract with T-Mobile (and no bad conscience), I really enjoy it. Sure, the first day you mostly play with it, but to give a real resumé, you need to spend a few weeks with your cellphone. If you ask me, if I would do this again, I would agree. It’s a great phone, if you live in Europe and have a good provider with a lot antennas around you.

Ciao
Dennis