In which I discuss why I'm going to get a 3G iPhone on Friday ( or soon after ), and somehow try to still feel good about myself.

In preparation for the big day, I've been doing some research, crunching some numbers, comparing this and that, and generally trying to rationalize the purchase to myself and my fiancee. It's a whole lot of reading fine print gibberish and boring spreadsheet work, so I won't get into details, but I do have a conclusion.

The Rogers / Fido 3G iPhone plans are no better or worse than anything else available here, at least not in any significant way (No! really!) The iPhone itself however is a far superior device.

My options are pretty simple in terms of a smart-ish phone:

• the iPhone 3G - minimum plan cost around $3k on Fido over 3 years, $3300 on Rogers.
• a 2G iPhone and some sort of data plan? ( but potentially no contract! ).
• a Blackberry Curve - expensive, 3 year commitment, 2G data speeds.
• a Nokia N95, more money up-front, better camera, but the data plans are not as good.
• some sort of HTC Touch-y Samsung Jack-y sort of thing. The appeal to the original Touch model is you can get it at a reasonable on a 2 year contract. The jack is pretty cheap as well. CDMA is a dead technology, and the whole idea of using it in this day and age kind of makes my skin crawl.

I do honestly think that for my own purposes, the iPhone is the best phone available right now. I'm a Mac user, at home and work. I'll freely assume that the sync / integration between the iPhone ( of any version ) is better than Windows Mobile devices. As well, I've used iTouches and iPhones owned by friends and I love the interface in ways I never have with the tiny buttons on blackberries or the T9 guessing of my old Nokia 6620 or my current ( hated ) Benq EF81.

So the real goal is to spend as little money as possible on the plan, which will probably lead me to switching from Rogers to Fido. This is for the simple reason that the evening unlimited calling period on Fido starts 2 hours earlier. I might be able to convince Rogers to give me 6pm unlimited calling as part of some sort of retention plan, however I kind of doubt it. I am instead drawn to the perverse idea of switching my number from Rogers to their slightly cheaper subsidiary because the CRTC requires them to do so =).