A year ago, I’ve seen the iPhone 4, presented at the WWDC 2010 via a Web-Video-Stream. I was amazed – looks nice and was THE phone to update to from our 1st generation iPhones that we were using since 3 years.

But – I wanted to look out for other phones, too. I was a user of Simyo, a pre-paid service and rarely paid anything for calling or mobile web. Sure, the 1st generation iPhone didn’t had 3G support and EDGE/GPRS – uhh… slow! What I wanted to avoid is to get into a contract with T-Mobile, the only provider that time in Germany who had the iPhone as option. (Meanwhile you can get it from Vodafone and O2, too).

So I ordered the Samsung Galaxy S, my very first Android device. I must say, these days, I was a bit of an Apple fanboi myself and was happy with my new iMac and everything Apple was “cool” and “good”. Oh dear – the following months should told me better.

The Samsung Galaxy S had a brilliant display and was very light. So light that it felt cheap – in a bad way. I played with it for 3h’s or so and thought: no, that’s not the right one. Want an iPhone 4 *drool*

I’d bought the Samsung Galaxy S via Amazon, so returning it was not a problem. Thumbs up for Amazon

Then I started to call phone shops in Belgium. I had a international flat booked that time, so it luckily didn’t cost me anything. Belgium had unlocked iPhone 4. I was surprised about our neighbors, because they were very angry and sounded very right-oriented “Beglians only.” and they hang on the phone. With some more or less solid dutch knowledge, I was lost. Most were just speaking french, which I don’t – and english? Pfft! No way. But that’s a different story.

A few weeks later, I had just ordered the iPhone 4 for my and my wife from T-Mobile directly, I went to a store in Moers to ask for a free-speech kit for my car. I saw that they are T-Mobile resellers and asked “Do you have 2 iPhone 4 16GB here?” “Yes.” Woah! T-Mobile told me the same morning it will take up to 9 weeks to get some. So I grabbed them, paid 500€ for both (each with a 29€/month contract) and went out of the store. My wife was happy and I was, too. This happiness with this cellphone lasted pretty long – if you use it as iPod touch with a phone function. I often lost and still loose calls. I have a bumper, yes. Meanwhile the 2nd one, because the crack easy above the connection port – the rubber is very thin there.

I had enough of that last week, when I everytime I picked up the iPhone, lost the connection to T-Mobile (or Telekom.de). The provider “logo” completely disappears for a few seconds. Annoying! My first thought was: SIM card? But I was told those SIM card work, or not. Like a power supply – on or off. Hmm..

So I called AppleCare. After 1:30h in the hotline, speaking with different people from their support, I was told the following:

- I’ve no AppleCare and in a few days, I will have no support.
- I’ve no AppleCare.
- I should buy AppleCare for the iPhone 4 NOW.
- AppleCare will cost me 69€.
- I’m dumb, because I don’t want AppleCare.
- I’m crazy, because I don’t want to pay 29€ for shipment of a faulty device, that Apple has delivered to T-Mobile who sold it to me.
- I’m a strange person, because I don’t want to drive to the Apple Store in the CentrO. Oberhausen and get a new one for free there.
- I’m a more strange person, because I’m banned there.
- I will receive the iPhone 4 free, because I’ve a big bunch of other Apple hardware registered.

The next day, the new iPhone 4 indeed arrived with UPS Express. The first thing I noticed was the palish display. All colors – well, how to describe – they look a bit like those Instagram photos – wrong colored and that palish. Also – the bumper for my surprise doesn’t fit very well. By gently hitting the top of the bumper, the iPhone switched off/to power saving mode. Crazy!

Oh! The phone quality was NOT better – picking up the device still let the logo disappear. Hmm…

Ok – so maybe this is how it is and T-Mobile has a bad range here (what I can’t believe). But the display sucks! Really!

So I called AppleCare again yesterday. After 30 minutes discussing with a person of their support, he wanted to ask his teamlead if they could send another one for free. The line dropped.

A few minutes later, I’ve got a call back (the only plus on their side so far). The teamlead was a very arrogant and unfriendly guy and told me I did the restore wrong. Woah. I mean, I’ve been working for a long time in a hotline on my own and I know a lot about technique stuff. When I say the display looks strange, creates stripes when scrolling and the phone calls are dropping, I’m 100% sure a restore will not help. Of course I understand they have their procedures…

The next point of the discussion was the payment for the shipment. I was really pissed when I told me that I will HAVE TO pay for the next shipment. 29€ – or I could buy 69€ – then, other shipments will be free. Uh?! More iPhones? Does this guy really told me that all their iPhones are crap and I should expect more issues!?

I told him (I think for the 5th time this day) that I don’t WANT AppleCare for “my” iPhone (or any!). I just want a working device that I paid for a year ago and still pay for every month with my monthly fees.

So – 29€ – NO! I said that clear and he understood – “For a last time, a very last time, and he will note this into my database record that this was the very last time, I will receive it for free”.

The fancy thing that annoys me here is: Why do have I to pay ANYTHING for a shipment?! That’s 100% manufactures part to pay for. Funny enough: I had some switches of stuff in the past, keyboard, graphic card and mice (yes – more than one, 3! because some Magic Mouse(s) suck, and some are great). I NEVER had to pay for a shipment. And 29€? I could send a complete Mac Pro to UK for that money! We’re speaking about a freaking light iPhone!

Even other manufactures NEVER asked me to pay anything for broken stuff. HP send meanwhile 2 new displays and a new feet for one of my displays. For free! For the displays, even a guy from HP came around and replaced them.

Samsung had send me a technician for my color laser printer – for free. WD even sent me a HD for free and put in a free voucher to send the broken HD back to them.

I really can’t understand why Apple treats their customers this way. This is just another episode of Apples bad service.

Oh! Just to mention – the 2nd replacement iPhone (the replacement for the replacement) just arrived a few minutes ago, and the display is great! The logo still drops and I think I will ask T-Mobile for a new SIM card next – maybe that helps, but I guess the “Antennagate” is not off the desk. Even here in Germany, where T-Mobile has a very good coverage (they say ).

PS. If you wonder what will happen, when the 3rd one will become faulty, I will ask them to send me the money a new iPhone 4 costs. With regards to the german law, the manufacturer has to has the chance to fix it 3 times. If it’s broken after that, they will HAVE TO transfer you the money (or a part of it).

Unfortunately, I couldn’t do much with it. I had my hacked iPhone 2G (that was recently replaced with a “clean” iPhone 4) and my provider Simyo was (and is still not) supported.

But now, since I moved to T-Mobile Germany, I’m happy to report that this iPhone app helps me a lot. I’m not using my iPhone as much as others, I’m sure. Mostly being in the home office, I don’t do calls using it, but it’s very nice to have a mobile internet device when I’m on the road to visit customers or simply doing private things. Because of that, I’m using the smallest data plan (Complete 60) which allows me to do 60 minutes calls in a months (+ free calling every weekend). Internet traffic is set to just 200MB/month. I know that’s not much, but so far it’s enough.

Using these limited services (and having to pay for every additional minute and MB), is a risky thing. Here is where Consume shows it’s power.

Consume allows me to log in using my T-Mobile credentials and uses them to display me how much minutes and MB I’ve used in the current period and how much I’ve left. Having a look at these data helps you not to run into additional costs – and don’t be afraid – it just takes a few KB to upgrade your information.

Additionally, Consume also allows to view other accounts, for example your Dropbox. This is VERY handy, I just wish they had Amazon S3 in their list

A last thing that I’ve to mention is, that before you go out and download this application on the iTMS, check if your provider and country is supported! For Germany, T-Mobile is the only provider available.

Ciao
Dennis

PS. No, these bars are real, not faked Good network coverage = a lot of bars.

The last two days we switched from our previous provider Simyo to BASE (both companys of e-plus+). We switched, because we get 30mins + 30 SMS internally + 50mins into every mobile & regular network p/month + an internet flat (250MB 3G, then it will be limited to EDGE/GPRS, but at NO additional costs) for “just” 15€ per month. That’s a MUCH MUCH better deal!

Searching for new mobile phones, a friend of mine told me that he has a Samsung Galaxy S and he’s quiet happy (not to mention that he meanwhile send the Samsung back to Amazon and ordered an iPhone 4 from UK (unlocked ). So it sounds very well and the videos on YouTube! about it were looking very promising, so I’d just ordered it and got it today.

The Samsung Galaxy S is based on Android, but comes with a lot additional software by Samsung. The display is a 4″ SuperAMOLED display which is indeed really stunning, you can remove the battery and add up to 32GB MicroSD cards. Something you can’t to with an iPhone. Also, it allows you to tether 3G to your notebook – and it’s fully compatible to Mac OS X (the tethering). It seems like there’s currently no way to sync you data between your Mac and the Samsung Galaxy S – the software “KIES” by Samsung is only available for Windows, but hey – it’s Android, so it would work the way using the Cloud – in this case GoogleApps.

You can see all these photos in high quality on flickr: sgsreview

The unboxing itself was not very spectacular. It was the same process like unboxing an iPhone, except that you have the chance to put the battery in on your own.

MicroSD slot on the left, SIM on the right (and yes, you need to remove the battery to insert the SIM).

Putting the Samsung Galaxy S and the iPhone 2G side by side, they indeed look pretty similar. The Samsung has a 4″ display while the iPhone has an 3.5″ one. Also, the Samsung has a Home-Button like the iPhone, but comes with 2 additional touch-buttons for the menu (left) and back (right). As long-term iPhone user, it’s very uncommon to use them

The first look: Indeed, the display is very good, but compared to the iPhone 4 (as far as I remember) it’s not sooo much better (in my personal opinion).

You can see all these photos in high quality on flickr: sgsreview

My first SMS, sure, it was the very first time using the BASE card, since the number is not yet ported from Simyo to BASE.

Software

Of course, it’s not only hardware that matters, maybe even more important than the hardware is the software nowadays. Far away a these days with monochrome LCD displays of Nokia 6110 and so. They were great – these days, but nowadays you EXPECT a better OS on your cellphone. Especially when you’ve used an iPhone for the last few years.

The software, namely Android, looks a but undone for me. The optic is mostly ok, but far far away from the “stunning” of iOS appz. Maybe I’m not that open-minded as I wanted, when trying this cellphone. Of course you can’t really compare an Android to an iPhone. Why? Because you can’t compare things which a different. You can’t compare OS X to Windows or one of them to Linux, UNIX or OpenSolaris. No way!

In my mind, it’s a great phone, if you were not using iPhones in the past or simply don’t like them. But for me: I’m a bit disappointed. The menus are complicated, you’ve a billion options, which is great, and that’s one thing that I would love to have on my iMac (yeah, I switched my Macs, but that’s another story ), but on a cellphone, it’s honestly a bit overwhelming.

Video

Videos are looking fine on the SuperAMOLED screen, no question, but you can’t zoom it when watching YouTube! like you do on an iPhone (you know, removing the black bars from top/bottom or left/right).

Audio

The speaker is a mono one, a little tiny spot on the back of the phone. Yes! Right! It’s on the back, which means, if you want to watch a YouTube! video and put the phone on the desk, the audio volume and quality drops tremendously.

Flash

Internet is fine and yes, it has Flash. The first I visited was the Speedtest.net website, because for an unknown reason their app didn’t installed right for the first 1/2 an hour from the Android app store. What it tells me was: “This flash version is outdated.” Tapping on the link to Adobe told me: “Newest Flash will be available in Froyo/2.2″. Great! So that’s why you want Flash on a mobile?

3G Network

Anyway, after 30mins I was able to install the Speedtest.net App and I got a good transfer rate inside my office and in the garden (1700KBit/s down, 333KBit/s up using BASE 3G service). That’s not much and far away from 7.2MBps, but it’s ok.

USB / Access to the data

It took a few moments to access the files directly which are stored on the internal storage. I had to go through 3 menu options to enable USB sharing, then I could access the storage using the USB cable like a regular SD Card.

Camera / Video

Here is a photo and a short video I’ve done with the Samsung Galaxy S. I have to mention, that I’ve forgot to set the camera to 720p (1280×720), but it’s in 720×480 and the quality is very nice in my mind. The camera is really a highlight!

Click here to download:

video-2010-07-22-20-01-38.3gp (14326 KB)

Camera / Photo

Personal Resumé

The Samsung Galaxy S is not a bad phone, it’s maybe for some Android-liking people the best mobile available. But for me and our Apple-centric household, I think we should better get 2 iPhone 4′s from UK and use them for our (already bought) applications. There are 3 I can’t live without:

- Things Touch
- DeliveryStatus
- WebEx
+ ChocChocShop which is a fantastic game

I think I will return it tomorrow to Amazon. My wife should have the chance to play with the Samsung when she comes home later, but I guess she also wants to have an iPhone after this experience.

Ciao
Dennis

PS. Follow me on Twitter http://www.twitter.com/klein2 and NEW http://www.twitter.com/klein2podcast // You can see all these photos in high quality on flickr: sgsreview

Yesterday, we finally had the chance to touch an iPad the first time at the new Gravis store in Essen (Germany). When it was introduced I thought: Hmm… nice, but is it really worth 499$ (or here in Germany 499€!)?

With more and more reports and videos that I’ve read and seen in the last few weeks since it came out officially in the US and now also in Europe, I was really warming up for this device, though – I haven’t ordered one from the Apple store. I wanted to buy it on my own, but that’s another story.

By having the chance to test it in a quiet atmosphere, I found some painpoints that hinders me from getting one (not mentioning that you have simply no chance to get one until July).

For example: It’s really heavy. If you see it, you don’t think it’s that heavy. Sure, compared to a good reference book, it’s a lightweight, but that wouldn’t be my main function for this which drives me to the result that I simply don’t need it: checking websites. You can check websites also on the iPad simulator with the same effect and you could be sure if it works or not.

I’m having my MacBook around pretty often and it’s very comfortable to work with. Sure, playing videos makes it hot easily, but I don’t see the reason to spend 499€ for this device as I don’t see a real usage for myself in it. It’s hyped, that’s it. If you’ve read some of my last articles or my old blog, you know, that I enjoy to use Apple products since software is mostly better designer and more intuitive compared to their Windows competitors, but I also try not to react “Fanboy”-like. Apple does a lot mistakes in my mind when it comes to politics, but that’s not what I want to discuss here. Just to highlight: At the moment, Microsoft is more congenial than Apple – they are opening more and more stuff to OpenSource which is a step into the right direction and letting me do more with Windows 7 than I could ever do on my Mac (for example: customize it). With one leg, I’m already back in bed with Windows :/ Now: Complain! Just as an argument why: Outlook. I haven’t tried Entourage yet, but Outlook for Windows is in my mind THE BEST eMail & Collaboration software in the world – shout at me, but in my mind it is (if it’s connected to a great working Exchange Server).

I wouldn’t say that I would never get an iPad for me or my wife. I also can’t see the future through a glass bowl and I’ll try to keep my mind open.

Another issue I run into is the cellphone. Not “THE”, but mine. I’m happily using my iPhone 2G for 3 1/2 years now, but I would love to make the next step and get a 3G connection when I’m out of my office. iPhone 4G/HD – whatever, will be 100% sold by T-Mobile in Germany and you can’t select another provider. I guess there’s nearly no chance to get an unlocked one unless you’ll get one from Belgium or Italy. No big deal, because Bruxelles is just 200km from here, but… I don’t know. Having the iPhone was nice and so, but again: mixed with Exchange it’s nice, but also you can’t use all the stuff that Exchange provides. Call it: Tasks for example.

So, I’ve also taken a deeper look onto unlocked cellphones on the market and let me say one thing: It’s horrible! The only GUI that is nice enough is Android, and guess what: you can’t upgrade it as easy as an iPhone to a new software version. Why? Well, because the companies like HTC and Co want to sell phones! New version of Android called “Froyo”? Yes, but the best chance to get it to buy a new phone. In some ways I miss the old times. I was a happy user of my SonyEricsson K600i – it simply worked, could do some videos and photos, play some MP3s and that’s it. Sure, eMail and Web was horrible, but in the past it doesn’t matter that much. As resumé – I will see what will come at the WWDC tomorrow and then I will take my time (and give Apple time to ship it to the local stores) and then choose if I want to get one or not. My iPhone 2G is phone and would be perfect if it wouldn’t miss the 3G Maybe I should get an iPhone 3GS when the 4G comes out

Now I’ve written a lot and need to change the title from “Hmm… iPad” to a better fitting title yey…

Have a great day!

Ciao
Dennis