In February Orange are going to say to me “hey there, valued customer, you can have a brand new shiny handset now, totally for free!” and in response I shall say, “Eh, I suppose.” – I have been shown the future of phones, and I have been told that I must wait patiently.

I mean, I still really want the W850i, but now it is merely the best handset currently available. I would be pleased with it, but I would also be waiting for better things. I am not sure how the W850i will feel about this – it is not a solid ground on which to build a rewarding and lasting relationship.

In the mean-time I shall content myself with the things that are not so cool about the iPhone, that I might yearn for it a little bit less.

No 3rd party apps. That means no Skype, no IRC, no SuDoKu game, all the raw capability that redeems WinMo and Symbian.

No external memory. You’re stuck at 4/8GB. It’s a lot now, but maybe 12 months down the line when I actually get to buy one it will have been surpassed by a whole industry playing catch-up.

Low-res camera. My current phone is two years old, and it has a 2mpx cam. Also, no word on focus or a flash, methinks that particular part isn’t ready yet.

EDGE isn’t really 3G, I’ve never had a 3G phone though, and EDGE still beats the shit out of GPRS…

No IM. And with no support for a 3rd party client I am reduced to 10p-a-go SMS.

A merely mortal battery, but tasked with powering a phone of biblical capabilities. 5 hours talk-time is plenty, and I’m sure it’ll last forever on standby, but who could resist the urge to play with its power-hungry bells and whistles all day?

ZOMG Expensive. No word on European pricing yet, but in America it is going to cost approximately the price of a PS3 – with a 2-year contract. I can only hope this is Cingular being ass-backwards or something.

No IP syncing. I don’t want to fill up 8GB over wifi, but if all I need is my calendars and a small playlist then it’d be nice to have the option.

It’s BIG. I did a size comparison, right? Same width as the iPod, same weight and same thickness (by which I mean, between the 80GB and 30Gb variants), but a whole half inch taller. It is huge like Xbox.

Of course, I’m still going re-mortgage my house and sell Helen to some Arabs to buy this when it finally appears, I’m just trying to rationalise waiting in the meantime.