I first decided to buy a new phone when my old phone (the Samsung taco light) got dropped in a puddle and stopped working. I decided quite a long time ago that I wanted to buy a smart phone but always thought I would get the use out of my own phone first.

When searching for a new phone, I took a walk down to the O2 shop to look at what they had on offer, I decided that I wanted an iPhone as afew of my friends have the iPhone 3GS and they say it is really handy for opening email, that there are a few great apps on it and also their internet on their phone was always much quicker than my taco light phone.

I bought the iPhone 4s with 16GB memory on a 24 month contract, because I am already an O2 customer, I got the iPhone for free (on a deal saving a one off £49.99) as I took out a 900mins and unlimited texts 24 month contract, on this contract I will pay £36.00 per month until the 24 months are up. I thought that this was quite a good price for me as I normally top up around £30 per month anyway as I use my phone a lot so I am really only paying around £6 a month more than usual to get the phone. You can buy this phone in either white or black, I bought the black phone as unfortunately there were no white ones available in store when I bought it and I did not want to wait for a white one to come in.

The iPhone 4s is great, the first thing that I noticed about this phone is that I can access the internet anywhere that I have O2 signal, the 3G coverage is great, especially compared to my old phone though it would probably be unfair to make this kind of comparison as my old phone cost me only £80. To access the internet outside wifi areas its best to buy an internet bolt on from O2 as it can be very expensive otherwise and could end up in you racking up a high bill monthly.

The interface on the iPhone is really easy to get a hang of, using the touch screen is really simple, and typing in messages or into the internet you can either use a qwerty keyboard on the screen, this is great as I think it makes texting a lot quicker than the original number keypad way to enter text into a phone. The interface is also great as it puts all the important things that you may need on your phone in one place, your email, texts, phone calls, iPod, calendar, pictures, camera, clock and notes and internet can all be seen and accessed on one screen at one touch of a button, this cuts down the time it takes to do these tasks on your phone and anything that saves time is ok by me.

The battery on this phone isnt great, however my friend assures me its better than his iPhone 3GS. If I use the features on this phone alot e.g. the iPod and surfing the internet quite alot in that day, then the battery would need charged about once a day, if I am not using the apps that much during the day then it may last for about a day and a half, I am comparing this to my old phone the samsung taco light, its battery used to last almost 3 days usually, however the taco light didnt have half the features that the iPhone has so its a good trade up in my opinion anyway.

The camera on this phone is quite good, it is a 8mega pixel camera so it is not as good of quality as my digital camera but it still is very good quality especially for a phone, the pictures that I have taken on this are really clear and there is a function that you can use to stop them from being blurred, this is the best camera that I have ever seen on a phone. There is also a video camera on this phone and and LED flash which is good as there is no flash on my friend's 3GS.

There is a good iPod on this phone where you can store music, this is really handy for me at work as sometimes in my job I can get really bored and want to listen to some music. Also it adds to the value to have your MP3 player in your phone.
Another good thing about this phone is that there is Bluetooth, this means that sending pictures and numbers to other phones with Bluetooth is possible if you are within close range, my friends iPhone 3GS however does not have Bluetooth so I cannot share pictures or contacts so easily with him.

I have just started looking on the iPhone Apps store, there are so many great applications that you can get free or buy for your iPhone, there is almost an app for everything, for example so far I have downloaded a Facebook app, MTV news for my phone, an app for my ebay account, an app for PayPal and also a popular game called Angry Birds, there really is so much entertainment on this phone.

Making a phonecall on this phone is really easy, you just use your touchscreen and touch the little phonecall button, you then use your finger to drag down your call list and touch the contact that you want to call (or you can type in their number in the keypad by touching the keypad button on the bottom of the screen and press call), this will start the call, its pretty basic really. Features of calling on the iPhone 4S include that you can mute the call if you need a second for privacy, you can use facetime (which is video calling) though I havent used this feature yet as I dont like the thought of video calling though others may like it, you can also put the call on loudspeaker. The speakers on this phone are really good and call quality is excellent. Sending texts on this phone is also easy, you just choose the contact that you wish to text and then you type your message on the qwerty keypad on the touchscreen and then you click send, its really simple and easy for anyone to use. A feature I like about texting on this phone is that you can see a log of previous text that you and a contact have sent between eachother all on one screen, this is handy as when you are typing a text you may forget things asked in the previous text and it helps you remember without having to stop texting and re-read the text again. Overall I'd say that the basic functions are good on this phone.

The last feature that I am going to explain on this review is Siri, this is a new software that has been introduced to the iPhone and it is really quite interesting. You simply press the main button on your phone and then you ask it any question you like and within a minute your question is answers, for example when I first got my new phone I asked Siri to play a song off the iPod on the phone and it done it within about 20 seconds or so, it's great, you can also ask it questions like 'is it going to snow anytime soon' and Siri will respond by telling you yes or no and also give you a weather forecast for you area to have a look at.

Overall I think that this phone is fantastic, I am really glad I bought it and I would recommend it to anyone who needs a new phone at the minute or could do with a phone upgrade.

*also posted on ciao under lorrainek90*