My RAZR has quickly decended into its hospice care of battery life. What used to be robust is now pathetic as when I charge it, it says it’s full and then starts honking its low-battery signal after a five minute call. I just got back from the Apple store with my 8GB in tow because I needed a new phone anyways and my plan with Cingular wasn’t up to the 2 years where I could get a discount. If the battery goes dead, I’ll take it to the local Apple repair techs (we’ve got two shops) and I’m assuming that in a year or so, they’ll have had replaced the batteries just like they did in my 3rd gen iPod. And that was done in 20 minutes while I waited.
When I worked at my father’s pub, there was an old article on the wall about Guinness Stout. There was a paragraph talking about being able to etch patterns into the head. It said you should bet a girl that if she etched her number into the head, it would remain readable all the way to the bottom. You’d lose the bet, but you’d get her number. Brilliant!
On topic, I don’t plan to ever get an iPhone. It seems gimmicky to me, and I hear the internet (outside of wi-fi) is terribly slow. I already have a 20GB iPod that I only use at work and in the car, and I already have a phone that works fine. It looks neat, and I want to play around with one the next chance I get, but I don’t ever foresee myself getting one unless they drop the price to under $250 and make it available under a non-AT&T network.
Apple’s battery plans:
I want an iPhone the same way I want a remote controlled helicopter with an on-board camera. It’d be real cool and I’d play with it for a day or two, but I have no actual compelling use for one. But this is largely because I make so few phone calls that I don’t even currently have a cell phone. Were I to suddenly, I dunno, develop a social life, I guess I could see having an iPhone in the sense that it’s an iPod with a really nice screen and, oh yeah, you can dial it.
(The iPod part actually makes sense for me, because I’d put it in the cradle at work to listen to music and it would charge. I’ve rarely had a cell phone that was actually charged when I needed it.)
The non-replaceable battery? You think they’d have learned from the iPod. Doesn’t make for happy campers.
It’s worse than I thought.
The technology reviewer for the New York Times (one of the few people who got advance iPhones) thought that people who get iPhones are essentially gadget-heads who will be of the mindset, “Recharging is for dorks. I’m just shelling out for the newer, cooler one.”
Which, essentially turns the $600 purchase into a 2 year rental plan at $25 per month. Whatever. I hoard my gold, so I find this stuff ridiculous. My favorite way of dealing with it is knowing that I own little itsy bitsy pieces of Apple.
I’m not interested. I just don’t have that much need for the functionality. I won’t even carry a cel phone. No one needs to get in touch with me so universally. (I have a pay-as-you go phone for emergencies in the car, which is handy. I have never needed it, but I like knowing it is there.)
Last week, I saw the 8525 for about $170. This week, the same phone is $125. I’m guessing they’re having a hard time selling anything other than the iPhone. Hey, more savings for me.
I fall into that gadget freak mindset, and if you ‘hoard your gold’ I fail to see why you’d care about this thread (or the battery life), other than the positive effect on your stock ownership. 
They’ve said a time or four that the iPod’s goal was to be a seasonal fashion statement, rather than a device to solve a problem. 
No, I do not. I explain my reasons in this thread.
Short version: it doesn’t do anything I can’t do on my current phone, which can actually do quite a bit more than the iPhone. In addition, I’ll die before I give AT&T another penny. I ran screaming from them way back in 2000 and I’ll never go back. And I don’t buy locked devices.
Take the SIM out and put it in another unlocked or same-service-provider phone. You won’t necessarily have the fancy features, but you’ll have a phone.
Swappability is all part of GSM’s design.