Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Advice about Possible iPhone Purchase

mscriv

mscriv

macrumors 601
Original poster
Aug 14, 2008
4,933
622
Dallas, Texas
My wife and I are long time Mac users, but we have a great deal with Sprint and therefore the iPhone has not been an option for us. My wife's employer is with At&t and this week her work phone died. The boss told her she could get an iPhone if she wants and the company will cover everything, but she has to throw in $100 towards the initial purchase. What do you think? What if anything do we need to know that could help us in this decision? Those of you who have iPhone's give us some pros and cons and thoughts about your experiences so far. I also noticed online that At&t is now selling refurbs through apple. So we could get a 16gb for the price of an 8gb if we decided to go that route. Waiting for the potential June upgrade is not an option since this is a work phone. Thanks in advance for your help. :)
 
Aaleck said:
Can she use her work phone as a main phone for home too or just work?
Click to expand...

She can use it however she wants, but if she goes over the minutes then she has to pay the overage. She tells me that the work plan will give her a ton of talk time, unlimited texts, and obviously the required data plan. Basically, we shouldn't have to pay anything on a monthly basis. It will just be our initial $100 to help with the actual phone purchase.
 
$100 for an iPhone... I'd jump on that immediately. It's win/win!

-Heather
 
mscriv said:
She can use it however she wants, but if she goes over the minutes then she has to pay the overage. She tells me that the work plan will give her a ton of talk time, unlimited texts, and obviously the required data plan. Basically, we shouldn't have to pay anything on a monthly basis. It will just be our initial $100 to help with the actual phone purchase.
Click to expand...


It depends--does she use it mostly for email? If she wants excellent email, BlackBerry is the way to go. If her job doesn't require her to use too much email, then the iPhone is an excellent phone and all around great device.
 
Do It

GO FOR IT. I would HIGHLY recommend the iPhone for your wife especially if the only out-of-pocket price is $100. She can get a refurb on at&t.com and have 16GB of space for music, movies, photos, emails, etc. In regard to emails, unless she receives upwards of 100 emails a day, the email app on the iPhone is going to satisfy your wife's needs. Plus, the 3.0 software upgrade is going to make her email experience even more seamless.

GO FOR IT.
:apple:
 
courtney.bella said:
It depends--does she use it mostly for email? If she wants excellent email, BlackBerry is the way to go. If her job doesn't require her to use too much email, then the iPhone is an excellent phone and all around great device.
Click to expand...

I disagree.

The iPhone is excellent for email. I don't understand what grudge people have against the iPhone's email application. It is well laid out, features push and is integrated into other applications..i.e. Safari, Photos etc..

The iPhone can receive and download tons of attachments including .pdfs, power points, excel, word, pages, numbers etc..

You can zoom in and drag through the email to better read it as well. This trumps the crapberrys ugly email interface any day.
 
mscriv said:
I also noticed online that At&t is now selling refurbs through apple. So we could get a 16gb for the price of an 8gb if we decided to go that route. Waiting for the potential June upgrade is not an option since this is a work phone. Thanks in advance for your help. :)
Click to expand...

Don't be cheap and get a refurbished phone that has a crack in it, just because you want a 16GB iPhone. Especially when it only has about 12GB actually.

Get a brand new iPhone 3G 8GB. Throw in your $100 and be happy that the company is paying the $30 iPhone plan each month.
 
Justen said:
Don't be cheap and get a refurbished phone that has a crack in it, just because you want a 16GB iPhone. Especially when it only has about 12GB actually.
Click to expand...

The 16GB has 14.6 gigs, according to my itunes, and the 8GB is also going to be less than 8 -- probably something like 7.3.

And refurbished phones come with full warranty, so if you happen to get a defective phone, you can have it replaced. But chances of getting a defective refurb should be around the same as getting a defective new phone. Some people would say less, because refurbs go through a strict quality check. I got a refurb Touch when my original Touch malfunctioned, and I've never noticed a difference between my original and the replacement.
 
iPhone Savvy said:
I disagree.

The iPhone is excellent for email. I don't understand what grudge people have against the iPhone's email application. It is well laid out, features push and is integrated into other applications..i.e. Safari, Photos etc..

The iPhone can receive and download tons of attachments including .pdfs, power points, excel, word, pages, numbers etc..

You can zoom in and drag through the email to better read it as well. This trumps the crapberrys ugly email interface any day.
Click to expand...


I actually just meant that until 3.0, you can only get email every 15 minutes, and people BITCH that that isn't soon enough. I own an iPhone, and hate BlackBerry, so I was just adding another POV for different phones.
 
If you're not familiar with the device already, go to an Apple or AT&T store and try one out. One thing to realize: typing my feel a little awkward at first, but you'll rapidly get used to it.

I'd jump on this deal.
 
Front the money for the 16GB phone (however much it costs you) and take that deal. It costs me about $65/month for my line, and I think the 3G is another 10 (without any free text messages).
 
iPhone Savvy said:
I disagree.

The iPhone is excellent for email. I don't understand what grudge people have against the iPhone's email application. It is well laid out, features push and is integrated into other applications..i.e. Safari, Photos etc..

The iPhone can receive and download tons of attachments including .pdfs, power points, excel, word, pages, numbers etc..

You can zoom in and drag through the email to better read it as well. This trumps the crapberrys ugly email interface any day.
Click to expand...

+1, I don't know what people have against the iPhone's email app. The lack of a QWERTY keyboard actually is what drew me to the iPhone. It allows the device to be more customizable and capable, unlike phones that lose half their abilities/functionality/and space(literally).
 
Update

Well, she pulled the trigger and got an 8gb iPhone yesterday at the At&t store. We were hoping to do it over the weekend where we could shop around and I could go with her, but the boss got a call that someone couldn't reach her and he said "go get a phone today!" We were hoping to get the refurb 16gb, but the At&t manager told her that with her business account they could not do special orders and that refurbs are only available through the website and that is considered a special order. :mad: That doesn't make sense and I think he was just blowing smoke. Anyhow, she's excited and we are going to go to Apple store this weekend to look at cases and headsets. Apparently the company will also cover the purchase of a "reasonable headset." So, please give us some suggestions regarding cases and headsets.

The plan apparently covers everything so we will only have to pay for any apps that she decides to download. Again any suggestions here would be helpful as well.

Luke1robb said:
If it wasn't so urgent to buy a new one, I would say wait til June, and compare the Palm Pre vs. the next iPhone, but if she's getting it now, iPhone all the way!
Click to expand...

As I mentioned before our personal phones are through Sprint and my Treo is still going strong. But, I'm anxious to see the Pre and now that we have the chance to use an iPhone we can really assess pros and cons after the Pre comes out.

Thanks again for everyone's help and please send more thoughts or suggestions if you have them. :)
 
mscriv said:
Well, she pulled the trigger and got an 8gb iPhone yesterday at the At&t store. We were hoping to do it over the weekend where we could shop around and I could go with her, but the boss got a call that someone couldn't reach her and he said "go get a phone today!" We were hoping to get the refurb 16gb, but the At&t manager told her that with her business account they could not do special orders and that refurbs are only available through the website and that is considered a special order. :mad: That doesn't make sense and I think he was just blowing smoke.
Click to expand...

I don't know about online order=special order, or whether or not it's true that business accounts are ineligible for special orders, but I do believe it's true that AT&T sells refurb iPhones only through online orders. Since you have to wait a few days for online orders to be delivered, if your wife's boss was serious about "get a phone today!" your wife couldn't have waited for the refurb to arrive even if the AT&T store people were willing to order it for her.

Anyway, congrats on the purchase, and hope your wife enjoys her iPhone!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back