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iPhone: connection hours won't come cheap, says review

Another two-week review of the iPhone reveals that if you're a budget phone user, you should probably think twice about getting the device: "AT&T is offering special monthly calling plans for the iPhone, all of which include unlimited Internet and email usage. They range from $60 to $220, depending on the number of voice minutes included."

The review is from the Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg who did a joint review with Katherine Boehret - and the review is enthusiastic about everything... except the AT&T Cingular network, that is.

The touchscreen, report Mossberg and Boehret, is brilliant: "The iPhone's most controversial feature, the omission of a physical keyboard in favor of a virtual keyboard on the screen, turned out in our tests to be a nonissue, despite our deep initial skepticism," they write. "After five days of use, Walt — who did most of the testing for this review — was able to type on it as quickly and accurately as he could on the Palm Treo he has used for years. This was partly because of smart software that corrects typing errors on the fly."

The WiFi connection, they note sadly, can't compensate for the poor wireless Internet coverage over Cingular, "which uses a pokey network called EDGE, which is far slower than the fastest networks from Verizon or Sprint that power many other smart phones. And the initial iPhone model cannot be upgraded to use the faster networks."