Gift Giving Guy

I needed a good excuse to wander over to the Apple Store today. Fortunately, June 19 is World Sauntering Day, an annual celebration of strolling. So I leisurely walked into my local Apple Store and gave myself the gift of a new iPhone 3GS (16 gigabytes in black). Since I owned the original iPhone, the upgrade cost $199, plus an $18 AT&T charge.

The speed difference with the 3G network is dramatic. In the last two years, I tolerated the Edge network on my old iPhone because I’m almost always near a wireless network. However, today I spent the day shopping with my wife, away from wi-fi. The Safari browser was impressively fast. And we took crisp photos during our shopping travels, thanks to the new 3-megapixel camera with built-in autofocus.

Where will my first-generation, 8-gigabyte iPhone go? Gadget reseller Gazelle will trade an Amazon.com gift card worth $131 for my old iPhone. In the next few days, I’ll receive a Gazelle shipping box with prepaid postage. I’ll ship my old iPhone, headphones, dock charger and power adapter. Gazelle will verify the condition of my iPhone and, within 10 business days, issue my Amazon.com gift card via e-mail. While I wiped my data from the iPhone, Gazelle also verifies that no personal data remains.