Before this phone I had a simple no camera, flip, bulky cell phone. To go from that to this was like watching the Wizard of Oz in theatres the year it came out. My friend and I were picking out our dream phones for months and this was always on the top of my list. Finally for my birthday I got it! The camera has excellent quality, the rose color isn't a baby pink and won't be easily outgrown, and the ability to connect the phone to my computer via USB awed me for months! At that time, I was unable to text because of parental units and the costs. However, for Christmas, I received the gift of the ability to text. This is where I first found my problem. When you really get good at using the numeric keypad to text, you type pretty fast. You can tell that the letters were coming to the screen a little slower than the speed at which you text. It doesn't sound like a big problem, because it isn't, but it can be somewhat irritating and it can screw you up when you type. Similarly, the buttons do have a second delay when you open up the menu and other applications. Another problem I have found is that after sliding it all the time, you start to feel the front part become a little loose; almost like a loose tooth, kinda. One thing I was kinda dissapointed with was the music player. It wouldn't recognize any itunes files, so I couldn't download any of my itunes-bought music. But music files from CDs would open and play. A problem I have been having lately is that it keeps freezing on me when I open my contacts, but it returns within a few seconds. I can't give any advice about the IM or internet programs, but I can tell you that they are there, and from just opening the T-zones, the internet is slow. So definitly do not buy this phone thinking you will use the internet. The good applications are the voice and movie recordings because you can set your personal voice recordings as a ringtone or even more specificly, which I had fun doing, set a specialized "Caitlin's calling!" ringtone for a specific contact! Recording movies on this phone is phenomenal because you can record for up to almost half of an hour! From my experience, (and I'm not the business type), but the voice recognization program seemed to work pretty well. Taking all of this into consideration, I thought the cost was a little pricey because I didn't get a discount from a 2-year contract. (I didn't want to be locked to the phone company or plan.) The signal strength usually wasn't that great, but I'm pretty sure that it was T-mobile's fault. But when it did the quality did sound pretty nice. All in all, I love this phone and it has met my needs.