I did it! I got an iPhone and so far I love it. Here's what I posted on a local forum about the purchase.

I went down to the Telcel office (Gran Plaza mall) in Merida on release day, Friday July 11th. I had thought about going when they opened at 10am but other things came up and I finally got there about 1:30pm. They had one on display with a couple of Telcel employees explaining it and they had a separate line for people wanting one. I got in it and was about 5 back, the line stayed at about 5 -10 the whole time I was there.

I had to apply for an account with Telcel as my previous phone was an Amigo pre-pay. That required a local address, a Telmex land line and a couple references. I don't have a land line anymore so the guy said to just put in a friend's number. I put my friend Theresa's landline in there and called her and she said it was fine.

They didn't give me the phone that day and I didn't see anyone else leave with one either while I was there. What I got was a promise that they would check my credit and let me know if I was approved. They did accept my US AMEX card and they didn't say anything about it expiring this month, that had me worried. I have the new one coming down with a friend from the US but it won't be here for another week or so. They said no to the US Visa, only Mexican Visa or Mastercard.

As it turned out I was over at my friend's house this morning and they called! She gave me the phone - how lucky was that - and they wanted a fax of my last AMEX statement. I printed it from the internet and faxed it to them.

Because my Spanish sucks on the phone, I thought once they got it I was done and I went back to the office and stood in the regular line for about a half hour only to find out they weren't done yet and they would call me. Luckily, when they called Theresa she'd given them Mimi's Amigo number from the coast so they called on that about an hour after I got back home.

Back I went and stood in the line again for about 45 minutes and then I got the meathead of all Telcel. Everyone else I'd dealt with was nice and very sharp but this guy was slow, didn't seem to know what he was doing, stared at his computer screen for over an hour only occasionally pushing a key and asked every other agent that walked by him something and they all said 'Sí' but nothing happened. Finally, he gave me a paper to go and pay at the cashier, the iPhone 16g cost me $2159 pesos (including the 15% IVA tax) or about $210 US, and then I watched him stare at his screen for another half hour before he printed a bunch of papers and had me sign my name about 27 times including on the pages that were my copy. I asked why I had to sign my own copies and he just said it was required.

He didn't seem to know how to transfer my numbers from my old chip and they had given me a new number even though I'd been promised my old number. At that point, I just wanted out of that freezing Telcel office and away from meathead so I didn't push it.

I've been playing with it for hours, the maps are great with good street level of Merida plus GPS tracking, the phone voice quality is wonderful, it syncs beautifully with iTunes and I have a bunch of music and pictures on it, I've been texting and sending emails and have it set to pick up my gmail and push my me.com mail, it defaults quickly to my wireless network when I get close enough, the 3G is really fast... I love it.

With this plan, I can call to any southern MX state (Yucatan, Quintana Roo, Campeche, Chiapas) for only minutes, it's an additional long distance rate for other areas. I haven't tried routing with the GPS and although I browsed a bunch of programs on the App Store I haven't downloaded any yet. My account there works from my sat connection but I haven't tried it yet from the 3G telcel connection, I've heard there is some problem buying from the iTunes store from Mexico but that could be with a MX credit card. My account with them is from the US and when I'm on the sat connection I have a US IP number. I'll try it tomorrow over 3G.

I had none of the activation problems (that I know of, maybe that is what took meathead so long) that they are having in the US and some other countries. I was able to connect to me.com and to the app store without a problem as well. Really, it's been smooth and there seem to be plenty of iPhones available, although there also seems to be a lot of interest and from what I saw when they had the special line on Friday, a lot of people buying them.

Telcel may be bad but I got the iPhone cheaper than I would have in the US from ATT and I think my plan is cheaper as well. There's a VOIP application that I will probably load that works for international calls when you are connected to broadband wifi and for pretty cheap.

I love new shiny toys. Did I mention how gorgeous it is and how nice it feels, the touch screen is a joy although it will take some practice to get more accurate typing with it.


photo credits to CNET, if they'd put their credit nearer the pic I wouldn't have cut it off