My Globe – iPhone 5 experience!

After being an Android for almost 2 years I finally made the switch – iPhone 5!

Things I noticed about iPhone5
There were some units with small scuffs at the back casing –  had mine replaced 2x before I was satisfied with the unit. The scratches were already there as soon as I opened the unit in front of the sales rep.
The screen is a bit “yellowish”, we compared screens side by side with the different iPhone 5 on display and yes each iPhone 5 has a different feel of the screen. Reading online, this seems to be normal and some say it takes weeks to months for the screen to stabilize and get it’s full “blue” color. Battery life? Nothing special, but I am used to it coming from an Android phone, average of 1 day for moderate use.

iOS experience:
The iOS ecosystem does make you feel a bit limiting, but after a couple of days of using the iPhone I realized that what Apple wants to achieve – to organize your files and do everything in a simpler way. I miss using the back button on my Android device, of course with iPhone 5 it’s only the home button. The user experience is just stunning, comparing it to Android the apps in iOS is far better in giving you the full user experience. I am really not a fan of “paid” apps especially if there are “cracks” or “jailbreak” available. But so far there are tons of good free apps and would probably get myself a few paid apps that I really want, like the NBA 2k13 =D .

Got a 32gb Black iPhone 5 under plan 1799
Breakdown:
Unli surf
800 consumable
3 freebies
Cash out of 10,080 with 24 months to pay charge to bill (420/month)

Globe Service/Release:
Reserving for the iPhone5 was hell. I was able to reserve and confirm the unit on the first day of online registration, and still got my confirmation stub just the day before of the release. But before that, it was 1 week of constant followup on twitter, business centers and call centers asking for my claim stub.
On the day itself, they were really slow on releasing the unit. My schedule was 10am, but it was already 12nn when I got my unit and guess how many units were released by 12 noon? just 4!

Nano sim activation took a while, got mine activated after 6 hours? When my sim was activated I noticed something, data was not working. Apparently I needed to call the customer support to activate my 3g singal. So after calling the customer service, everything is now working okay.

Before with my Android device was having an average of  1mbps, with iPhone 5 im getting 1.5-2mbps more often and got upto 6mbps download which never happened on my Android. The nano sim is LTE ready. Hearing that Globe will activate the LTE feature by Jan 2013.
Also no additional cost for LTE according to this article: http://bit.ly/XlZKqY

I heard that Globe and Smart only knew the release date of iPhone 5 in the Philippines the same day everyone else did. They were not informed ahead and it only took them a little more than a week to organize everything for their iPhone 5 event. If this is true, then what they did was not that bad, although of course a lot of improvements can be made.

Globe iPhone 5 kit:

• Insurance
• Sim adapter
• Globe eco bag
• 25% discount coupon for iPhone 5 accessories

Things to remember:

• Scratches on your iPhone 5 will be easy so if you are conscious about this better get a case asap.
• Be careful when inserting your phone to the case, it may cause some scratches.
• According to Globe customer service LTE(Globe rep said it should reach upto 84mbps) is already available.
• If you got your nano sim from Globe, chances are you still need to call up Globe to activate 3G/LTE

Overall:
Was actually expecting to have a more “perfect” finish from Apple. It seems that the iPhone 5 does not have a perfect finish as what I’ve expected. It may not be the concern of everyone but if I’m purchasing one of the more “premium” phones I am expecting superior quality. iPhone 5 may not be a “revolutionary” phone as most have been expecting, hardware specs may not compete with Samsung or other Android phones. But from using the iPhone in just a couple of days the whole iOS experience just blows away Android OS.