Hands On With The UK O2 iPhone

Engadget got some hands-on time with the new UK iPhone running on O2's network, and the differences between it and the US version look to be pretty minimal: There's an option for European languages (presumably the same phone will be sold through the various rumored European carriers), the ability to switch the roaming carrier and the iTunes WiFi music store comes pre-installed. But perhaps the most interesting difference shows in this shot that Conrad Quilty-Harper took of the O2 phone next to his unlocked phone on T-Mobile; we've zoomed in on the carrier logos. The O2 phone is browsing at GPRS speeds (a maximum of 14.4kbps, while the T-Mobile iPhone is running on EDGE). As he wryly puts it: “O2's EDGE coverage sucks”; the company only claims to have 30% of the UK covered. We browsing is already slow over EDGE; I hate to think what's it's going to be like over the GPRS coverage the O2 will be offering iPhone users over the rest of their network...

[Via Engadget, photo by Conrad Quilty-Harper]