The General iPhone Thread and FAQ

Thanks, now everybody has to find out for himself/herself whether the 30 minutes of talk-time and the free SMS are worth the lack of the EDGE network. I personally don't think so, mainly because Orange doesn't have 3G coverage where I live, work and spend my weekends (only when I step outside, at all three locations - Basel suburbs, Basel City, Lake of Constance area)

peter

Just to make sure, does this mean it cannot be reserved in an Orange store?

Updated the FAQ to include Orange's newly announced tariffs.

peter

This true? Have I got my hopes up? I also live and work in Basel.

You can check coverage here.

I'm not saying this is the case in all of Basel - it's more of an issue with our building, I guess - but that doesn't change the fact that Orange's offers aren't very useful to me. I'm not intending on browsing the web at 9.6kb/s :-)

It says in the announcment, it's CHF 0.10 per additional MB.

I get a pretty strong and consistent 3G signal throughout BS. I even get it in the basement of the Media Markt at the station, which is where I use it to compare prices or look up specs on the net

thanks, I updated the FAQ accordingly

I've never had a problem in Basel except in our building (University, center for economics). Normal GSM coverage is good, UMTS only works on the balcony. Same goes for Sunrise, though. I think Swisscom has an indoor antenna in one of the neighboring buildings, so reception is very good for me.

That's the only reason why I'm sticking with Swisscom. Don't have anything against Orange.

If only iPhone would make videos.... and not even wireless music witht the bluetooth profile...

that's the only reason why I am not getting the iPhone.

I've been reading through some comments over on macprime.ch , and am starting to wonder about the Orange network performance a bit more.

Does anyone have any experience of it in the Zürich area? Is it as patchy as some people try to make out?

It should be fine in densely populated areas. It's not so good on the train and in rural areas. I have an Orange Option UMTS USB-stick for my computer and oftentimes can't use it because the UMTS reception isn't strong enough. At my current workplace, I don't have any UMTS reception with the USB-stick. I sometimes get one bar on my normal cellphone. We'll soon be moving to the Jacob Burckhardt-house near Bahnhof SBB - we had a meeting there two weeks ago for which I used the stick. I didn't have reception at first but when I moved my computer closer to the window, I had enough to browse the web.

But I guess experiences will greatly vary and also depend on the reception quality of your handset.

the lack of stereo bluetooth connections are definitely a problem :-(

The option of a 12 month contract also makes it quite attractive. I'm not as dependent on my mobile work-wise as some, so I could probably live with it if it was not great, especially if I knew it was for only 12 months rather than 24.

My Nokia N95 has bluetooth stereo, so I invested in some bluetooth headphones and it was a complete waste of money. The quality is rubbish and I continually get interference, so I've gone back to wired headphones.

Its certainly not a deal breaker as far as I'm concerned, but what would put me off the iPhone is a poor quality GPS chipset e.g. like the Texas Instruments one used in the Nokia. The only way I can ever get a lock with my N95 is by using the GPRS assisted lock, which doesn't seem to work outside of my home country. Compared to my TomTom with SirfstarIII chipset which gets a satellite lock within 10 seconds without needing a-GPS. For such an important feature I'm surprised Apple haven't released any more information

There's really not much info around on the hardware. And yes, my former e90 had an extremely sucky GPS chip, as well - had to wait several minutes in my car until I would get a lock.

peter

Who is selling his iPhone v1?

50chf or 100chf?

The plot thickens...

I might be asking a stupid question but what is data volume?

It's the loudness of the data when you download mp3's. Classical music mp3's typically have lower volume than death metal mp3's.

Just ****ting ya, actually it's the AMOUNT of data you download/upload, typically measured in periods of 1 month.