I think I mentioned, at least in passing, that I bought an iPhone a few weeks ago. Here’s an early review.

In short, I’d give it mixed reviews. It’s pretty slick. But the little extras that initially sold me on the iPhone aren’t things I use often. Visual voicemail is a good idea, but I don’t use it often. Google Maps is slick, but it’s not good at turn-by-turn stuff, which could replace an expensive GPS. The web browser really has nothing else in it’s league, though. I can load normal pages, which look the same as if they were on a PC. Scrolling and zooming is amazing.

It charges over USB, a big plus. (And it comes with a wall wart adapter too.) It’s not a standard USB cable, but it is the normal iPod cable, so it’s easy enough to replace.

The keypad takes some getting use to. I’m really a fan of tactile response and physical buttons. The OSD keypad is big, though. I’m getting better at it, but it still reajiees thY…. See, that’s a pet peer. Peeve. It gets you into a string of it detecting every keypress accurately, and suddenly your text is garbage. It sometime tries to guess your words, which is often accurate but sometimes has amusing results. But often it’s annoying mrs TVA. Amusing. See!?

AT&T has better coverage in be rural areas I use it on than did Verizon. However, Verizon seems to be the only one trying to bring 3G to New Hampshire. My plan is about $70/month for 450 minutes and unlimited data. This is absurd, but all the other plans at competitors are comparable.

All around it’s slick, but it has some things that annoy me. One is openness. I could do MIDI ringtones on my Treo, for example. Not so here, where you’re heavily steered into buying them. The App Store is nice, but it’s lame that there’s no way to “sideload” your own programs: unless you jailbreak it (bye bye warranty), you can only get apps through Apple. It’s my freaking phone!

With my Treo, I could easily use it in the car, as I didn’t have to look. Here there’s no buttons to feel while you keep your eyes on the road. I miss that.

All in all, I’m not disappointed, but I’m not in total love, either.