quick question for the iPhone veterans

[benmrii]

I am hoping to use my iPhone as my stand-alone internet device for home use, sparing a monthly internet access bill. No, I will not have WiFi.

I really only care to receive my personal emails and check basic news, weather, sports scores, etc. I really don't do a whole lot of web-browsing or forum posting. Only thing I would miss would be, hypothetically speaking, if I was someone who might occasionally use torrents to download tv shows... hypothetically.

Am I setting myself up for a nightmare?

 

[silbeej]

well, EDGE is like dialup 1.5. It is a little faster, but it all depends on your signal quality. If all you need is email, and that is it, it might be ok, except for the small keyboard could possibly drive you nuts after a little. Anything more, and somewhat bandwidth intensive, you would need a dedicated line.

 

[Telp]

I wouldn't do that but that is just me. It is definatly possible and it isn't a horrible idea. If you can live with that then I think you should do that for sure. Make sure you have good service in hour house first, or see if there is any free wifi around you.

 

[ksmith80209]

So are you saying that you won't have a computer of any sort? If so, you won't be able to back-up or update your iPhone.

I personally wouldn't try to do bill payment and other activities that require a rich graphical interface via EDGE. Although it's doable, it is a little slow. WiFi is sooo much nicer.

 

[TonyHoyle]

You aren't going to be able to use an iphone to download torrents.. quite apart from the fact that EDGE is way too slow the iphone doesn't support tethering and there's no torrent app for the phone.

 

[colonelbutt]

anyone tried this torrent app:

http://azureus.sourceforge.net/plugin_details.php?plugin=azhtmlwebui

 

[chr1s60]

I am hoping to use my iPhone as my stand-alone internet device for home use, sparing a monthly internet access bill. No, I will not have WiFi.

I really only care to receive my personal emails and check basic news, weather, sports scores, etc. I really don't do a whole lot of web-browsing or forum posting. Only thing I would miss would be, hypothetically speaking, if I was someone who might occasionally use torrents to download tv shows... hypothetically.

Am I setting myself up for a nightmare?

It depends on a few things really. EDGE is slow, not as slow as many people act like it is, but it is nothing like any normal home internet service. If you don't mind the speed, you will be ok there. Also, if the sites you check news and weather at use a lot of Flash, you will not be able to view it because of the lack of Flash support on iPhone. As far as EDGE goes, I use it all the time for checking sports scores, news and email with very few problems. You might want to check out the signal at your house before doing this too. If you have bad signal, you will have a bad EDGE connection and things will go really slow.

 

[benmrii]

Thanks for the responses, I appreciate all of the input already.

To clarify a few things, I do have a computer (MacBook Pro 2.16 GHz) that I use at work and have full out internet access regularly, so setting up and updating the iPhone won't be a problem. There aren't any free WiFi hotspots around me, especially not at home otherwise I wouldn't be worried about iPhone vs. internet access bills. And I'm not looking to tether it, just looking for a device separate from the computer entirely, and obviously won't be looking to torrent using the iPhone.

After I mostly decided to go with iPhone I've been trying to fast forward the process as my contract expires in under a week with another company. I actually just got back from an AT&T store and with a full on network connection (and I turned of WiFi) the web was pretty honkin' slow.

 

[benmrii]

It depends on a few things really. EDGE is slow, not as slow as many people act like it is, but it is nothing like any normal home internet service. If you don't mind the speed, you will be ok there. Also, if the sites you check news and weather at use a lot of Flash, you will not be able to view it because of the lack of Flash support on iPhone. As far as EDGE goes, I use it all the time for checking sports scores, news and email with very few problems. You might want to check out the signal at your house before doing this too. If you have bad signal, you will have a bad EDGE connection and things will go really slow.

I'm a pretty patient person. Sports and weather and some newspaper webpages are all I'd really use regularly. I didn't want to set up one of my email addresses on it at the store though, so I didn't see how the email flow was.

 

[GTiPhone]

I could not possibly recommend this to anyone.

But completely possible, yes.


I must say, advertising must be damn effective if this person, the op, is buying an iPhone. This is a person with virtually no interest in using/paying for the internet at home. That represents less than .00001% of iPhone users.

 

[benmrii]

I could not possibly recommend this to anyone.

But completely possible, yes.


I must say, advertising must be damn effective if this person, the op, is buying an iPhone. This is a person with virtually no interest in using/paying for the internet at home. That represents less than .00001% of iPhone users.

Nice. I appreciate your honesty.

Full disclosure: Previously I was a Treo 650, email checking, web browsing junkie. I adored having all of my information at my fingertips - addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, birthdays, calendars, to-do list, web on the go, etc. I tried to downgrade to a simpler phone and just can't stand not having those things with me.

The iPhone does all those things and more, and better. iCal is finally not a piece of garbage and the upgrades to Mail and Address Book are nice too. So now the iPhone looks to reunite me with those long lost mobile joys.

The only problem is now that I'm in a job that doesn't require such connectivity I have trouble justifying the cost to myself. Since the monthly rate for iPhone is a negligible difference than others it comes down to the $330ish (yay, discounts) cost of the iPhone, which I rationalize by saying that I won't pay the $35+ a month for my first year in my new apartment. That is sounding less and less likely to be a sane compromise.