The arrival of the Apple iphone has been surrounded with so much hype that the phone has been branded as the JesusPhone in the US!! Is the phone worth all this hype? Let me analyze this through this xombyte.

The pros:
1. The phone's highlight is the cordial marriage between touch screen and user interface.
2. The phone is a blessing for those who love to read webpages on the go. It is speedy to send and receive emails on a wi-fi network.The small screen is compensated by a zoom feature available at a double tap on the screen and then using the finger you can move the webpage around.
3. The operating system is Mac OS X which is robust and has absolutely no problems of hanging or freezing. No more shutting down the phone or removing the battery. In fact the battery cannot be removed in an iphone!
4. The various functions are knitted together in a very user-friendly manner and using this phone is child's play.
5. The iphone has a fully functional audio and video player that can sync with itunes. The touch screen allows you to move around the albums and artistes with relative ease.

The cons:
1. The phone has only a 2megapixel camera and unless shot in direct sunlight, the picture quality is quite poor.
2. It is only a 2G phone and not a 3G phone. Graphic and picture-heavy websites will take ages to load.
3. The built-in memory is only 8BG with no facility to add on external memory cards. This might hurt those who are heavily into music due to lack of storage space.
4. The phone lacks Instant Messaging and VoIP services inspite of boasting to be an internet communicator.
It cannot sync data (calendar details and contacts) either by BlueTooth or over the mobile network.

The closest rivals are Nokia N95, Sony Ericsson W960, LG LGKS 20, Blackberry Pearl and Samsung Blackjack.