iPhone arrives in Verizon stores. Should you buy it now?

Verizon Wireless will begin selling the iPhone in stores Thursday, ending AT&T's monopoly of the country's best-known smart phone.

For Verizon, which has already run an online-only sales promotion for existing customers, today marks end of its years-long wait to sell Apple's popular phone. And for unhappy AT&T iPhone users -- AT&T's network is notoriously spotty -- Verizon means a chance for better service.

The iPhone is widely regarded as the trend-setter among smart phones, which now make up a quarter of the nation's 234 million cell phones. As of November, Apple had about a quarter of the smart phone market, slightly less than the BlackBerry and Android phones that have been available on several different cellular networks while the iPhone was limited to AT&T.

For consumers, it all comes down to this: Should you buy a Verizon iPhone today for $200 to $300 or not? For the answer, we asked some experts about the major issues surrounding the phone. Here's what they had to say.

Q If consumers buy a Verizon iPhone 4 now, will they regret not having waited for iPhone 5, which most analysts expect to be introduced in June?

Roger Entner, an analyst at Recon Analytics in Boston: There will not be many holdouts waiting for the iPhone 5. The people who want a Verizon iPhone have waited so long that they don't want to wait another six months for the iPhone 5 to become available.

Ezra Gottheil, a senior analyst at Technology Business Research in Hampton, N.H.: If I were a Verizon customer, I'd wait until June to see what the iPhone 5 will be. The iPhone 5 may be a much faster 4G [fourth-generation network] phone, while the Verizon iPhone 4 uses only the much slower 3G network. Anyone who buys a Verizon iPhone between now and June will have to wait until their two-year contract is up to buy an iPhone 5, or face an early termination fee. [Verizon is requiring all iPhone customers to sign up for a two-year contract.]

Q Verizon says it will soon discontinue its $30 a month unlimited data plan in favor of a more restrictive tiered pricing plan. It also plans to throttle back the Internet speed of its top data users so they can't hog the network. Will those changes make customers more hesitant to sign up with Verizon?

Teng: If Verizon can't deliver the iPhone service quality they promise, their brand is going to be damaged. So this is long-term thinking for them.

Entner: It's only a big deal if you're one of the top 5 percent of data users. Data limits make sense because those people are potentially ruining the user experience for everybody else.

Q Can Verizon's network, long rated by consumers as the best, stand up to an influx of iPhones?

Gottheil: There's no way to know. Verizon has been able to sustain high network performance in the past. But the iPhone is going to bring Verizon millions of new subscribers over the next year.

Entner: Verizon has had years to prepare for the arrival of the iPhone, and in the vast majority of places their network is ready for it. But they have heaped scorn on AT&T for not being prepared to handle the iPhone's data load, so Verizon's network had better hold up.

Q For technical reasons, iPhone owners can't talk and use the Internet simultaneously on the Verizon network, while they can on AT&T's network. How will that affect potential Verizon iPhone customers?

Gottheil: For some iPhone customers it might be a good reason to go to or stay with AT&T.

Teng: It's a slight inconvenience, but it's not a show-stopper. You can always tell your friends you'll call them back later.

Entner: It's only a big deal when you are driving and using the phone as a GPS device. When a call came in, I lost my Internet connection, the GPS quit working and I got lost. Everybody has to decide how often that would be a problem.

Gottheil: The Android phones are great, but the Apple iPhone has a brand identity and its App Store works more smoothly. There are few glitches with Apple, and people prefer that.

Entner: The iPhone is right now a more polished device -- easier to use and more elegant. The Android phones are very good, but everything doesn't fit together as well as it does on an iPhone. The Android phone is a little bit more for techies.

Teng: Both the iPhone and Droid are good smart phones, but what distinguishes Apple is its customer service. The iPhone isn't problem-free, but when you go to an Apple store, they'll exchange the phone for you if it doesn't work.