Uh oh. I didn't think I needed an iPhone -- sure, it's pretty and lovely and nice, but $500! And then $70ish a month! Eek. I definitely do need a new phone, though, so I started the evaluation process. Whenever I make a biggish purchase, I put together a semi-complicated spreadsheet with weighted scores on various criteria, just to make sure I get the most empirical, objective, non-negotiable, scientifically certain, unimpeachably perfectest solution.

Which, it turns out, is an iPhone.

In my personalized scoring system, it nets 381.2 out of 580 -- the nearest competitor, the Samsung Sync, staggers in at 284.04. Or, if you want to be more precise, iPhone meets 65.72414% of my criteria, and the Sync only 48.97241%.

Here's a quick view of the results of my examination -- and a bigger, expanded version appears beneath that.

I fear that my next step is clear.

	Score out of 100
iPhone (4gb)	65.7
SYNC by Samsung	49.0
Samsung A717	48.9
Pantech C3B	46.4
Sony Ericsson W810i	46.2
Nokia 6126	44.5
Samsung A727	43.5
Motorola KRZR	42.6
Ericsson w610i	41.2
Nokia 6102i	41.1
Nokia N75	41.1
Motorola V365	36.9
MOTORAZR V3xx	36.0
Erisscon w660i	32.2
Cingular 3125	32.1
Ericsson w300i	30.9
Motorola L6	18.4
Ericsson s500i	11.0