Salon’s tech columnist, Farhad Manjou, has returned his iPhone despite his initial glowing review:

As a phone, it’s middling (or it’s fantastic and stuck on a middling network, which amounts to the same thing); it’s missing some key features; and even though many of these features could be added by third-party developers, Apple has locked it up. I listed the main missing features here; of these, the one that rankles most is 3G networking. The iPhone’s portable Web, as great as it is, runs on EDGE, and thus is too damned slow. I’m hoping that when Apple puts out a phone that can take advantage of the 3G networking standard, it’ll be appreciably faster.

Read Farhad’s post here.

Actually, if he had access to a fast citywide Wi-Fi network, he wouldn’t give a damn about EDGE. As I have said before, I am not getting the phone until it is unlocked and has 3G. Dan Gillmor, who did not succumb to the iPhone frenzy, writes in All Things D:

I’m a frequent traveler outside the U.S., and this phone doesn’t cut it for serious international use. If I want to make GSM calls, I’m stuck with AT&T’s roaming rates; with my current phone I can swap SIM cards to use another carrier’s cheaper local service if I don’t like the international roaming rates from T-Mobile, my current carrier. Apple can’t fix AT&T. But the device itself, however alluring, needs upgrades. For example, on the international roaming front, the iPhone provides no access to other carriers’ 3G networks, which means the phone won’t work at all in places like Korea, where my 3G-equipped GSM phone works fine.

Read Dan’s full review here.

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