First of all, I feel it's time to upgrade my phone. I currently have an old ass motorola, that can do it's job as a cellphone, but nothing more. I also have an iPod touch, which serves to make up the motorola's shortcomings; except I still can't browse the internet on the go. So, I was thinking that I can get all I'm currently getting plus the ability to browse the web if I were to get an iPhone 3GS. I'm currently a university student; and I'm also Canadian.

Now that I've provided the brief introduction, here are some questions I have, and I'd really appreciate if you could take the time to answer them for me. Thanks in advance.

1. I have never had a phone on contract; are there any drawbacks (besides the official commitment)? From what I understand, the phone's mine at the end of the term (I know it'll probably be outdated in 3 years). Is this true?

2. I'll need a data plan. I'm not sure how big of a plan I'll need, but I really can't imagine myself using more than a gigabyte per month. I won't be doing any tethering either. I understand that with most providers you get unlimited evening and weekend minutes (correct me if I'm wrong), so ~200 minute calling will probably suffice. I also think I might need the unlimited text. With this in mind, what will be a ball-park figure of what I'd be looking at for a monthly bill?

3. Is there an app on the iPhone that tells you how much data you've used so far the current month? That would really be helpful.

4. This one's to anyone who's had an iPhone: do you like the phone? Can you please tell me everything you really liked about it, anything that really stood out for you, and anything you didn't like?

Once again, thanks in advance.

Hey, I'm a Canadian with an iPhone 3GS on Roger's network!

1. Rogers locks you in for 3 years. My advice to you is to figure out exactly what kind of services you want from Rogers at the start, because some changes to your contract cannot be made without renewing the 3-year lock-in. And yes, after 3 years, the phone is yours. It's also possible to buy out your contract early if your really want to switch networks or get a new phone. I don't know how much that will cost, but it's supposed to depend on how much time you have left on your contract.

2. In my experience, it's very unlikely that you'll go over a GB per month, so you should be okay unless you plan to be moving a whole lot of files or you don't spend much time around Wi-Fi. Depending on the other details of your contract, you're looking at a monthly bill of $70-80. You might be able to wrangle things down to the $60s if you give up enough other goodies.

3. The iPhone itself monitors data usage and call time under Settings > General > Usage, and you can reset it it monthly if you want to track that month's usage. I have sent 2 GBs of data on the phone in about 9 months. I think Roger's web site will also let you look up your usage, but I found it so terrible that I haven't been back there in a long time.

4. My iPhone has been the best device that I have ever bought, no kidding. All the power of the internet in your pocket, plus so much more. I use it for communication, navigation, research, taking records in text, audio, image, or video format. It's incredible the number of problems this piece of hardware can solve. I use it as an alarm clock, remote control, flashlight, level, and it's very helpful as a server administration tool. And that's not even touching on the games.

There are a few annoyances, but they've all been trivial to me, so far. I think managing data and apps on the device through iTunes could be a lot more elegant, I wish Safari would let me search pages for text (Opera Mini does, but it has other limitations). Some people don't like Apple's control over the App Store, but I have yet to see an app that I care about get blocked.

I don't have any hands-on experience with an Android phone, so I can't provide a good comparison with the iPhone's closest competition, but iPhone OS 4 seems to eliminate the biggest advantage Android has over iPhone OS.

One parting piece of advice. If you can hold out for 2-3 more months, new iPhone models should be on the way. Even if you don't want the new features (scuttlebutt says a much higher screen resolution), the 3GS should get a price cut at the same time.

famousringo has you covered. I agree with everything he said.

Wow, thanks a lot. That's really helpful; I'm now convinced to get it. I'll have to wait 2 weeks until I'm 18 though.

@bolded: is OS 4 actually announced? And what advantage are you talking about? Would a higher resolution even be noticable on iPhone's screen? I don't think I can wait a few months now lol.

Once again, thanks a lot. I really appreciate you taking the time to write such an awesome reply.

OS4 was released to developers just last week, and should be available to users sometime around when the new iPhones launch. The key feature I was talking about is multitasking with third party apps. Apple's built-in apps have always been able to multitask, and iPhone OS 4 allows certain third-party functions to also run in the background, such as VoIP and streaming audio. App switching and notifications are also being improved.

Other features of iPhone OS 4 include organizing apps into folders, a better Mail app, and an Xbox Live-like Game Center service.

A higher-res screen would be noticeable on the iPhone, especially in Safari, but how much it would add to the experience is another question. The real point is that you won't know what hardware you're missing out on in the 4th-generation iPhone unless you're patient. Of course, if you need a smartphone now, you need a smartphone now.

I wouldn't say I need it, but your original post made me want it even more. I still have 2 weeks, so I'll think about whether it would be a worthwile investment. Thanks!

To add to the multitasking of the iPhone in 4.0

What Apple has done, is expose the features it thinks people want multi-tasking apps to do. For example, people say they want to run Pandora in the background, but they don't really want Pandora running. What they really want, is the ability to listen to music from Pandora while they do other things.

So, what Apple has done, is exposed an audio API that applications like Pandora can utilize, so if your in Pandora and have to navigate away, Pandora can throw some code at the audio streaming API, and shut down.

This gives the user the exact same experience as Pandora running in the background, but saves a huge amount on battery life, system memory, CPU cycles and so on, because the app doesn't really need to run.

It's a great way to solve this problem. They have exposed many things, like Audio, VioP, Messaging, fast app switching (so Pandora can save its state, and instantly fire back up, so the user experience is the same as it if was really running in the background), and several others. I think it's a great direction to go.