As you may have all heard, the iPhone launch in New Zealand was far from… smooth. Both Apple and Vodafone didn’t announce anything in the week leading up to the 30th. The night of the 29th came, and went. Still nothing. Then launch day, and still nothing.

I had pretty much given up on getting one on Friday, but decided to make one last attempt to get some information, so I headed over to Vodafone on Lambton quay with Brett and Brock. And, amazingly, we got told they were going to be on sale at 12, in very low numbers. In his words, “I can’t say how many we have, but we have at least three, so you might want to hang around.”

So we sat down and started the line, on the concrete, on a cold, Wellington winters day.

Mojo Old Bank was awesome, and donated some drinks to the first few people waiting in line to keep us warm. Then the news camera’s showed up. The shame. Not something I wanted to be on the news for, not that I’ve ever wanted to be on the news before.

Amazing Vodafone dropped the price of the phone while we were waiting in line. The 16gb model on a $60 a month plan went from $660 to $560. The 32gb on the same plan dropped a large amount as well (wasn’t paying attention to it though, so can’t remember from what/to what).

And then the clock hit 12. And the first four people in line got called into the store, me being the first, which turned out to be a bad thing as the news people wanted to interview me when I got outside, not that they used it in the end.

But I got my phone.

And so far, I love it. It’s a huge step up from my trusty old Nokia N95 (old being the keyword there). The screen is amazing. Seriously. It makes my Nokia, or even mum’s iPhone 3GS, look dim and washed out. And pixel-y. Even the lack of a physical keypad doesn’t annoy me like it did on the LG phone I had a few years back (and sold after 2 weeks).

I’m also not sure what the antenna issue is all about – yes, I can reproduce it if I grip both the sides very tightly, which lets be honest, 99.9% of people wouldn’t do in day to day use. I have yet to have it drop a call. Although, I’m right handed. I can see how it may be slightly more of an issue for left handed people, I’m still not convinced however.

Would I recommend it? Yes. Sure it’s not perfect, but it does what it sets out to do, and it does it very well.

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