A week ago, after patiently waiting for the price to drop and the long-term test results to come in, I broke down and finally bought an iPhone. As I sit in class, politely ignoring the professor lecturing just four rows in front of me, I’m pounding out a few hundred words about how the super-hyped smartphone/iPod/web browser has changed the way I interact with the world—a tremendous feat considering the iPhone has no physical keyboard.

First, and most surprising, is the fact that the iPhone has nearly replaced my laptop. I receive and send email, update and view my calendar, and perform my morning routine of newsgathering—all before I even get to class each morning. The only time I've abandoned my phone in favor of my laptop was in setting my starting lineup in my fantasy football league. ESPN's graphic-intense site simply takes too long to navigate on AT&T’s EDGE network. Speaking of which, the dual modes of the phone come in extremely handy around campus where Wi-Fi is abundant and cellular service is spotty. I'm constantly connected in a way that would disgust even the worst "crackberry" abusers.

My experience has not been without its fair share of annoyance, however. There is no way to pull contacts from a SIM card, so unless all of your numbers are stored on your computer, there is no easy way to synchronize them. I was stuck entering each number manually--a two-hour process. The dumbed-down, "I'll take it from here" interface—in traditional Apple style—keeps configuration settings to a minimum. Most frustrating is the inability to manually switch between EDGE and Wi-Fi modes. The phone seems to prefer to connect to AT&T's data service, even when the signal is low and there is a speedy wi-fi network available.

Pickiness aside, I love my phone—and my friends do too. In fact, there are times when I am reluctant to pull it out of my pocket, fearing the inevitable barrage of questions that iPhone owners have become accustomed to answering. Yes, it’s an iPhone; yes, the screen does flip over when you turn it sideways; yes, the Bears are winning, it’s 73° and sunny outside, and your Google stock is up almost six points.

Then there’s the heckling that comes from the know-it-alls who are waiting for version two before they buy one. “You can’t send picture messages, and it doesn’t have GPS. Besides, eight GB isn’t nearly enough to hold all of my music,” seems to be the argument of every critic I’ve met. But I don’t need more than 1,000 songs, and the Google map application that comes installed is enough for me. I never sent picture messages with my old phone, so why would I start now?

I’ve settled with the conclusion that I paid $350 for a statement of style. But I also recognize that the iPhone is still much more than that, and everything it does is done in a distinctly simple and sleek way. I may have been influenced by the hype and bought the phone because everyone else wants one, but I’ll keep it because everything it does is executed in an equally sleek and intuitive manner. Oh, and because the girls love it too.

Tony Brown, a frequent Digital Straight Talk contributor, is a sophomore at University of Missouri.