iPhone, therefore iAm

If you've been hanging around here for long enough, you'll remember my inner turmoil back in mid 2010 when I was trying to choose a new mobile phone. I eventually settled on the HTC Legend, and in the main I've been pretty happy with it. Android is a fairly decent operating system, and the availability of decent apps improved immeasurably in the 18 months that I had the phone. My main gripes were to do with the hardware of the phone itself, rather than the operating system. Firstly, there was nowhere near enough onboard storage (the phone was constantly telling me it was running out of space) and the screen was a bit small for web surfing (and more recently, Kindle reading).

So anyway, my 18 month contract came to an end and it was time for me to choose yet another new phone. Would I go Android again? Or would I, just maybe, finally opt for the iPhone? When the iPhone 4S was released, I was - like everyone else - a bit disappointed by it being just a gradual evolution of the iPhone 4, rather than an all new iPhone 5.

But at the same time as Apple showed the world the iPhone 4S, they also sneaked out - with little fanfare - a cheaper, 8GB version of the iPhone 4. With it being effectively a "last gen" phone with less storage space, Apple were asking a very reasonable price for it.

I'd heard a lot of good things about the Tesco phone network, and in particular their good-value 12 month contracts. I figured if I could manage the upfront cost for a handset, then 12 months would be ideal.

The amount of minutes, texts and data on offer for £25 a month were more than enough, but the handset prices were still a little on the high side. If I wanted the latest-and-greatest iPhone 4S then I'd have to find £335 for the phone itself. However, if I was happy to slum it with an 8GB iPhone 4 it would only be £200. Talking to friends who were still stuck in their iPhone 4 contracts for several more months, but who were still incredibly happy with the performance of the 4, I decided this was the way to go.

And here we are. I've now had the 8GB iPhone 4 for a little under 2 weeks, and I absolutely love it. I realise it's not the 4S, but compared to my wilderness years without any iPhone at all, it is just brilliant. So finally you can hear the end of my "I wish I had an iPhone" moaning. It's here, and it's staying.