iPhone

The sticker price and upfront costs are only a small part of what an iPhone (and other smartphones) cost.

If you don't currently have AT&T or a data plan then below are some of the costs of buying an iPhone.

Only shows time received, so in the even that you're off the network and receive the message later, you don't know when it was actually sent.

It's nice to not have to explicitly close apps though.

My old phone would speak the caller's name so I didn't have to go pick it up or even look at my phone in order to decide if I wanted to answer it or start thinking about what to say to the person. I loved that feature.

Drop it and you have to pay $200 to replace it if you have AppleCare, more otherwise.

It feels like it takes more attention to press a button at a certain spot on the screen to answer or end a call than flipping a phone open or close.

On a computer screen if two buttons are 12 inches apart you can move a mouse 3 inches to cover that distance. Imagine if you had to move the mouse the same distance as the objects on the screen. Your hand would get pretty tired. On the iPhone your fingers generally have to travel the entire distance unless you're scrolling, and even then the acceleration is not very big. Rollerballs on Android devices allow you to move your thumb a small distance and have the input move a large distance.

For me the smartphone is not a strong substitute for a workstation unless your main work tools are for communication not creation. I don't consider pocket office apps adequate except in a big crunch, and that's an example of a low end of product creation tools.