07/22/2008: "A Review: The iPhone 3G"

Here is my review of the new Apple iPhone 3G.

It's a great phone. I don't have a lot of experience with the first version of the iPhone, and my previous mobile web browsing experience has had a serious crutch due to TMobile's service. So with that experience, the iPhone is a serious step up.

The iPhone has spawned a couple of rival phones on other networks that sparked our interest, the least of which is the Samsung Instinct. However, Stacey and I chose to go with the iPhone because of our previous experience with, and current use of, iTunes for music downloads, movies, and videos.

The first thing I will talk about is the price, and our buying experience. The AT&T store we visited on July 11th ran out of phones at 9:30am. I had to work that day, so after work, Stacey and I paid the store a visit to find this out. They were, however, taking orders for the phone. We decided to go ahead and place an order. After filling out a form on some kiosk they had set up, we talked to a sales rep about which model we wanted. We went for the 16GB White version for both of us. The big reason was because the White version was not on back order at the time. The 8GB version is $199 and the 16GB version is $299. We added the expedited shipping, because we wanted our iPhones as soon as possible! We had to pay for the phones at that time, although the charge wasn't applied until the phones shipped.

A few days later the phones arrived. Once the phones were set up and at home, we spent about 5 hours working on customizing them. Here are some features:

GPS - this was fun, because the Google Maps app that comes with the phone works just like Google Maps online. Type in what you are looking for, and a bunch of pins showing the location of what you want appear around the location displayed on the screen. GPS was a good addition, because you can just hit a button to see exactly where you are. When the GPS can't zero in, the location-service can use information based on the cell tower you are connected to in order to find a location.

Multi-Touch Screen - you can do amazing things with this. Zooming in and selecting things on the screen are a snap.

Call Quality - I heard the call quality was so-so on the previous iPhone. I think the call Quality on the 3G iPhone is better than any phone I have ever had. The calls are clear, and it is comfortable to hold the phone during the conversation.

Sync - adding content to my phone was a snap! Before the phone came home, I had my Outlook calendar, contacts, email information up-to-date. I also cleaned up my iTunes library. Once I connected the phone, I just selected what to sync to the phone, and that was it! All my email account information, contacts, calendar, music, videos, and podcasts were transferred to the phone. Sure beats having to manually add all that info myself. For the email accounts, I still needed to manually input each accounts password onto the phone.

Camera and Photos - the photo quality is a fantastic step forward compared to my Sidekick, although I believe the camera specs are the same from 1st iPhone to 2nd (2MP.) It helps tremendously that the screen is so large and clear. Photos transferred from my computer (I forgot to mention that you can sync your photos as well) appear just as clear and crisp on the display.

Email - email is simple and easy to use. Each email account has its own inbox, which helps me keep track of which email is being used for what. (I have 5 set up on my phone.) The iPhone supports many different attachment types that you can open and view. I have not had a chance to test this out, but the phone is supposed to be able to view the standard Microsoft Word, Excel, Powerpoint files as well as PDF, and most common image formats. What I really like about the email is that it will display the email as it truly looks. On my sidekick, I was unable to view my Daily Dilbert (no imbedded images) or emails from my Real Estate agent with homes for sale (couldn't really view emails in HTML.) No problems on the iPhone. I can view my comic strip, and the real estate emails looks as they should.

Text - the coversation view takes getting used to. It's nice when you text someone, and they take forever to reply to your text. I sometimes forget what I originally asked.

Visual Voicemail - This is extremely nice if you are the kind of person to leave a bunch of messages in your voicemail. If your not familiar with it, here is what it is. Instead of having to call a phone number, and listen to some options, and then listen to your messages one at a time, the voice messages download to your phone. You can start and stop each message like an audio file to listen to it. Because you aren't calling anything, you don't have to listen to all your messages to get to the last one. Just select the message from a list, which shows the number or phone book entry that left the message. It took a couple of days to get it working. We got a family plan, and so the primary phone was set to go, but the other phone didn't have it set up. A 30 minute call between AT&T, and Apple together got it fixed.

Safari - Web browsing with Safari is easy. I love that you can view the web pages as they would display on your computer (my Sidekick re-arranges the pages to fit the screen width, which can make web pages look VERY odd.) Zooming with the multi-touch screen is what makes this easy to use. Advanced security web pages (like for my bank) work like a breeze on Safari, whereas the browser on my Sidekick was not compatible with most.

App Store - Holy cow App Store! Very, very nice! The App store was just started, and there are already a lot of very nice applications out there available. Many of them for free. One I would like to mention is the Apple iTunes Remote. You can connect to your shared iTunes Library over your home WiFi network and control it from an iPhone! Very easy to set up and use. Another application called Shazam is fun and interesting. You can use this to identify a song that is playing by Title, Artist, and Album. Just start the application and tell it to go. The application will listen for a few seconds, and then connect to its server to look up the song information, and even link it to the iTunes store to purchase the song. So far, the app on my phone is 30 for 30 identifying songs.

Wi-Fi - I need to mention this, because being able to connect to WiFi is great! Especially in my area, where 3G has not been quite set up yet.

3G - Not in my area, however, I have travelled to a 3G area, and it is incredible the difference between an Edge connection and 3G. It was just as good as the WiFi connection I used at the hotel where I was staying.

Virtual Keyboard - There is no physical keyboard on the iPhone. The virtual keys take getting used to. However, it doesn't take long, and with a little practice, you can start typing at a respectable rate.

iPod - Its a very easy to use music and video interface. The videos play crisp and clear on the screen, and the music is what you would expect out of an Apple product.

Charging - the phone charges while connected via USB to a computer. Sounds like a small thing, but it is nice to have the choice between plugging it into your computer, or into the wall. In fact, it is the same cable.

There are a few things I can complain about:

Battery life - I've carried around an internet enabled phone for several months now, and there is a difference between a regular phone, and a smart phone as far as battery life. I got used to charging at least every other day, sometimes every-night. With the iPhone, I would say it is comparable to other phones in it's class (3G and/or GPS enabled.) The standby time is great. If you are using the phone for anything with 3G or especially GPS, the battery drains rather quickly. Using GPS, Safari, and the iPod is pretty rough on it. You start to pay attention to where your power sources are located when you have a phone like this. Not unlike how I had to be with my Sidekick, but more pronounced because I am still in the "new-phone phase" where I use it constantly.

The accelerometer cannot be disabled - This is something I have not seen anyone mention on any other review I have read. However, I have come across situations where I am using my phone, and desire to hold the phone at an odd angle to view it. The screen will rotate to stay upright if you turn the phone on its side, and sometimes I don't want it to do that. There is no option to turn this off.

Applications can be a little buggy - I think they are still working a few bugs out of the OS and application interface. I occasionally have problems with applications I have downloaded... where I try to open the app, but it doesn't. I've read online some tips to use when having this problem, which includes restoring the phone, and reinstalling each app one at a time. I have done that once, and it helped quite a bit. However, it would be nice if that sort of thing were worked out.

No Video - Phones I got a couple years ago had video on it. This second generation iPhone still does not have video taking capabilities.

No MMS - Lots of people use MMS to send images and video to each other. I know I have email I can use to send photos, but I'm sorry, most of my friend do not use email on their mobile phones, and sometimes I would like to just send the pic directly to them on their phone.

Lags Sometimes - I don't know what causes it, but occasionally the phone acts like it is bogging down, and is slow to respond. Probably related to the application bugginess I spoke of earlier. However, the commercials for these things make it look like the phone can move between screens and apps very quickly. This is not always the case. It comes and goes, and has only been a minor annoyance.

iTunes Store Only in WiFi - iTunes won't even open up if you aren't connected via WiFi. There are places I have been where the 3G connection was faster than the WiFi connection I was by. Would be nice if they could expand that iTunes requirement to include 3G connections.

Those are the major points of the iPhone I have come up with. Overall, I am very happy with this phone. Just today, Stacey and I went to an Apple store to load up on accessories. We got very stylish cases. We got a screen protector, and car chargers as well. Once of the reason we were comfortable getting White iPhones was because we knew a cover would be hiding the color anyway. The cases we got actually look better with the small amount of white that pokes out.