We’re just wondering: How much is everyone spending on clothes these? We’ll say: We are spending fuck and all. Recession! It is no stranger to the magazine industry, which, unfortunately, happens to be the one that we work in. (For now. We swear, we made better money waitressing.) In the past, we haven’t minded putting $300 dresses on the site, because there are some occasions that call for it. But at least at this point in time, it seems a wrong-headed. We’re sure, as we come back from our summer slowdown, that we’ll show $100 jeans again, or $300 dresses, and we maintain our belief that some occasions still call for them—even if they’re fewer and farther between. But we also think that until the financial picture improves nationwide, we’re going to be a little less buy-minded than previous. (Ergo the contests and stuff we’ve been doing lately.)

Anyway: as always, click here for the sale item of the day. It’s under $10!

We know we are not a tech blog. We do not even try to be, we don’t front. We know how to do anything technical we want to do, but we were recently confounded by an additional cable wire when connecting cable because we didn’t realize that there was ANOTHER cable wire coming from the wall. We do like gadgets, it’s true – but while we’re not complete nerds, we’re not complete idiots, either. We did not, despite what people may say, buy an iPhone because we like things that are shiny, or because we could get a pink case. We bought one, just as we buy anything else, because we wanted it. Here is our review!

We were one of those sad sacks/excited folks (depending on your outlook) who waited in line on Friday morning. We met a lovely, lovely, lovely librarian and we had a verbal altercation and public humiliation of a line jumper. We very loudly accused him of making a complete dick move, and, after he said he didn’t care, asked him what was so freaking hard about understanding where the front of the line was. We were not scared, as he was in line at the APPLE STORE. And wearing sandals. Apple was nice enough to have coffee, water, and cheery Apple store staff roving about to keep everyone happy and caffeinated. 5 hours later, we left (there were issues, it shouldn’t have been that slow). Once we finally got our phone up and running, 4 hours later, we were cautiously eager. Would it be like magic? Would typing on a touchscreen keypad make us want to poke our eyes out? Would the ‘app store’ be worthwhile? Would we, could we, like it more than our BlackBerry?

The answer to all of these questions is a mediocre yes. This thing isn’t life saving (though we very much like the easy directions/GPS [though it's barely a GPS]), but it will tell you where the nearest Starbucks is, along with cheap gas. The keypad is a bit annoying, but like anything, we’re sure there’s a learning curve, and the predictive texts are pretty on point. We’re enjoying stupid things like being able to see web pages in full view, emails that we don’t have to squint to read, and we bought a sweet video game that you control by moving the phone. Oh, and YouTube videos look amazing. Our Loved One was astouned to realize that it has stereo speakers. We also really like how it syncs with our Mac (something BlackBerry struggled with, even on the good days).

The downside? The plans aren’t cheap – that’s for damn sure. The battery life has gotten a resounding FAIL from us so far. The 3G just seems to eat battery life and doesn’t make the phone that much faster (though it will connect to wifi if it’s available, and that’s cool). It’s a little bit bigger than we’re used to, and accessories (chargers, etc aren’t cheap. We spent $50 on chargers – just chargers – today). The camera doesn’t have a flash (truth be told, we don’t love on camera flash on phones – it always looks night-vision green), the camera is 2.0mp, and it doesn’t zoom. Kinda weak.

Our total rating? ***/5. It’s not awesome and life changing, it won’t do your laundry. But if you have a couple bucks to burn, have ATT, or just dig neat gadgets, go for it. Chances are, you’ll have a pretty top of the line phone, you can use it to take a couple pictures, it’s easy to email and text, you can store enough music or podcasts to keep you going for a little while, and you can read BS in full page glory. We’re happy we bought it, but we’re not yelling it from the rooftops. We do like it ever so slightly more than our BlackBerry, though.

Anyone else have on and want to chime in?

-LB