Can I get in on this?

The iPhone. It's all the rage on the blogs. "It'll do this!" "It can't do that!" Obviously, there's some stratification out there. Either you love it or you hate it.

I'm not going to lie: I will probably buy one as soon as I can get my dirty mitts on one.

But that's not why I'm posting this. I'm an engineer, and I like to think things out in a quantifiable manner. So, I'm going to compare the RAZR that I bought two years ago to a potential purchase of the iPhone.

First off, let's look at each plan's features: With the RAZR, I pay $0.15 per SMS, receive no internet, and get 450 minutes each month (of which I usually use about 250). With the iPhone, I would get 200 free SMS messages, unlimited internet (yes, it's EDGE, but it's infinitely better than nothing), and the same 450 minutes. Keep in mind that I live in a city with municipal wi-fi, so I won't be languishing with EDGE at all times.

What about the plans' costs? For the RAZR, I end up paying, depending on that month's SMS usage, about $45 after taxes and fees. The iPhone plan costs $59.95, which I'll round out to $65 after the government takes their cut.

And finally, the equipment cost. I plunked down $200 of late-2004-cash for the RAZR. Tax (5.5%) and inflation (a conservative 3%) brings that to $223.85. The iPhone, assuming a 4GB version, would cost me $500 plus tax, or $527.50.

Let's amortize the costs, forgetting about inflation in the monthly rates. After 24 months of the RAZR, I'm out $1303.85. The same calculation with the iPhone and its plan yields $2087.50.

That's a considerable difference until you start looking at feature difference: The iPhone is basically an iPod nano, so let's subtract the nano's educational price (hooray grad school!) of $209.95, tax included. The iPhone now sits at $1877.55, giving it a $573.70 premium. Averaged over 24 months, I'm getting unlimited internet and a vastly superior interface (no really... the RAZR is terrible) for $23.90.

Is $24 per month worth it? That's your call.