I had my eye on the iphone for a while so when it came to picking a gift for my birthday, i couldn't resist. I got the Iphone 4 16gb in black from o2. My contract is £45 a month and i paid only £30 for the phone. I don't think this particular contract is available anymore as i got it the week it came out but there are many different options so you'll find one to suit you from whichever network.

Now where do i start? The phone itself is a 'brick' type, this means it's not a slider or a flip up. The front and back are made from special glass, apple claim it is very hard to scratch and this is true. There is not a single scratch on mine and i have had it for over a year. The edges of the phone are chrome and there are only 5 buttons, The home button on the front, the two volume control buttons, the slider to mute the phone and the lock or off button on the top.

There was a lot of hoo ha when the iphone 4 first came out about the antenna/signal issues when holding the phone in a certain place. I'm pretty sure apple have now sorted this out but to be honest i never noticed an issue even when purposefully holding it in that place on the lower left hand side. However because apple was determined to sort it out, i qualified for a free case worth around £25. I really recommend you buy a case for your phone, i have dropped it a few times, it spends time in my bag and pockets and it's just generally thrown around a little (not on purpose, i'm no idiot) so really a case to protect it is quite a must have to keep it scratch free and looking nice. Especially if you plan to sell it on one day or sell it to one of those phone recycling sites.

The phone is not very heavy, and feels sturdy nice in the hand. It is a simple design and will suit any man or woman. It's also not that heavy, just heavy enough to feel it in your bag or pocket but not so heavy that it becomes uncomfortable during use.

It is a very fast phone, faster than it's predecessors. Upon clicking any app or link or number everything is loaded quickly. The internet, provided by safari of course, is capable of a lot, it'll load all the websites you want quickly and supports both mobile websites and their full versions. The phone will also play youtube videos from the website and from the app that comes with it. It does everything, texting, calling, playing videos, providing books and magazines to read (using the new 'Newsstand' feature), letting you take notes, setting reminder for yourself, letting you read your emails, it plays your music and takes beautiful pictures and thats only half of it. Let's stay with the camera for a minute, it is 5 megapixels on the back camera and 0.3 mp on the front, although the quality seems better for both. You can also record using both cameras, with HD 720p videos using the back camera and SD 480p using the front. The back camera has flash and makes a useful torch when the flash is switched on in record video mode, as the flash stays on! In the new iOS 5 when clicking options in taking pictures mode, you are provided with two features. HDR which enhances your pictures, adjusting the light among other things and Grid which is useful for checking someone is centered in the shot.

The app store provides us with millions of apps including games, deal finders, camera editing apps, funny apps and genuinely useful ones like train and bus timetables. Itunes lets you buy music, movies and tv shows and as i said earlier newsstand sells magazines, newspapers and various publications from around the world.

Battery life is good, and with the screen brightness below half (which is enough for me) it lasts around 3 days from 100% to 20%. The only drawbacks as others have said are that 1)You can't always have your old simcard, you must get a micro sim. BUT, in some cases you can just cut your old sim card and there are tutorials of how to do this on the internet, just google it. The other disadvantage is that apple brings out a new phone every year and it'll always have something better than the old one. However that is true for all phones as companies are developing bigger and better things by the minute so really it's inevitable, but at least for around one year you can be safe in the knowledge that you have one of the best phones in the world!

Overall this is a magnificent piece of workmanship and apple really continue to outdo themselves, you won't be dissappointed by this!