Austin360 blogs > Digital Savant > Archives > 2008 > July > 18 > Entry
iPhone 3G: the review
It’s been a week and people are still standing in lines, trying to get their hands on the iPhone 3G, the second coming of the so-called Jesus Phone. A year after the first iPhone came out, it seems the pretty slab of plastic, metal and glass hasn’t lost its luster.
Is it the new iPhone App Store paired with the new iPhone 2.0 software that’s got people buzzing. Is it the misleading “Half the price” ad campaign, touting a $199 iPhone as a bargain? (It’s not; as I’ve pointed out before, you will pay more in wireless fees during your two-year contract than you would have with the first iPhone.)
I think it’s a combination of these things, but also a mass exhalation from all the people who swore they wouldn’t buy a first-generation Apple phone, especially at its initial price of $600. It was a big sigh of relief from all the people who’d maintained their self-control for a year and swore they wouldn’t lose their resolve until the iPhone surfed AT&T’s 3G network and had built-in GPS.
That’s why the lines are swelling. Some people had been waiting a whole year for Apple’s version of Christmas morning.
But how’s the phone itself?
For the last week, I’ve been test driving a black 8-GB iPhone 3G on loan from AT&T. I’m keeping my “old” iPhone (purchased earlier this year) for the time being, so I was able to compare the two phones side-by-side, using the same iTunes account to sync music and applications.
I’ll go point-by-point with the caveat that all iPhone users will have varying experiences with the new phone. A lot depends on where you live as far as the 3G coverage goes and how you’ll use your phone: we’re not on a corporate e-mail system, so I wasn’t able to test out the new business-center Exchange features.
Your mileage will vary depending on how you use it, but I’ll try to cover the basics.
Looks: The 3G has a plastic, rounded back now, with curvier edges. On the black phone I tried out, the reflective Apple logo on the back stands out nicely, but the metal circle around the camera hole looks cheap and blingy. The design is a bit of an optical illusion, though — setting it next to the earlier iPhone, they’re not significantly different in size or thickness. Some people I’ve talked to hate the plastic rear and liked the brushed metal better. Others love the option of a black or white plastic phone. Since I slapped a Gelaskins sticker on my phone long ago, I don’t really have a preference either way.
I do like the new metal buttons along the edges, which feel sturdier than the plastic black ones on the earlier phone. And the recessed speaker holes on the bottom and the flush headphone jack (which no longer requires an annoying adapter or super-skinny headphone jack to use) are both welcome additions.
Sound: This is a big win for the 3G: when Steve Jobs announced the new phone would sound better, nobody was sure exactly what he meant. It turns out the speakers put out much louder, clearer sound than the first edition (as long as you’re not covering the speakers with your hand). Phone calls sound sharper, with less of a tendency to break up. If you have a tendency to listen to voice mails or podcasts via the speakers, the 3G is a noticeable improvement.
Visuals: I’ve heard a few reports that video on the iPhone has a warmer, richer look. Though the screen itself hasn’t been upgraded on the 3G, the color temperature has been adjusted. Most people, I think, wouldn’t notice, but if you watch a lot of video on the iPhone, you might see the difference.
Battery life: All right, here’s where we hit a major snag. 3G on the iPhone sucks up a lot of battery life. In my usage, using iPhone apps or doing any heavy Web browsing caused a fast battery drain unlike anything I’d experienced on my older iPhone before. Once I turned off the “Push” option to pull down online information, things got a little better, but the battery life is still the biggest disappointment on the 3G. Before announcing the phone, Apple had acknowledged that battery life on the 3G phone was a big challenge, and apparently they weren’t able to surmount it. One shock I got was when I tried to use the iPhone 3G while it was plugged in to a power source: the battery kept draining as I used the Safari browser. The charger couldn’t keep up with the amount of juice being sucked out of the battery at the same time. WOW. If you buy an iPhone 3G, expect to invest in extra chargers to keep around (make sure they’re compatible; not all iPhone accessories work with iPhone 3G) and maybe even an external battery for emergencies. This is a major issue and I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple addressed it somehow if they’re faced with a barrage of complaints. My advice for conserving battery life: turn off “Push” if you don’t need it, disable Bluetooth and Wi-Fi when you’re not using them and keep your screen turned off when you’re just listening to music. You don’t have to like it, but it’ll help you eke out another hour or two of battery if you’re lucky.
3G: Depending on how you look at it, 3G is either a big boon to the phone or a big bummer. The 3G network is indeed much faster than the pokey, but consistent, EDGE network. Unfortunately, 3G is not perfect or ubiquitous. Sometimes, the iPhone 3G takes a full 15-30 seconds to start downloading a page speedily on 3G, even when you’ve got full bars and the 3G logo at the top of the screen. I’m not sure if the phone is attempting to connect or what, but sitting there watching the phone try to take a running start at downloading data is one of the most frustrating experiences anyone who’s waited for 3G will experience. Once it gets going, 3G is great. Using Google Reader, I zipped through my RSS feeds, pulling down lots of images and text. It was close to being in a Wi-Fi area. But, again, more problems: even in parts of Austin, the phone would drop the 3G network and switch to EDGE for no apparent reason. I was able to pick up 3G in New Braunfels, but on I-35, 3G went off and on the whole way. (Please don’t iPhone and drive.) AT&T has apparently made big upgrades to its 3G network and expanded it at a huge expense, but it’s just not enough. The network has to be more consistent and have a wider coverage area to justify the $10 more a month iPhone users are paying for the privilege of using it.
Text messages: Text messaging works exactly the same on the iPhone 3G as it did on the earlier iPhone, which is why it’s mystifying that AT&T is now charging $5-$20 a month more for texts. Color me completely annoyed by this. If you want to avoid text messaging altogether, just to mess with The Man, there are work-arounds.
GPS: A pleasant surprise. An early review by David Pogue of The New York Times made it sounds like the GPS on the iPhone 3G was total weak sauce, but maybe he was trying to use it among giant skyscrapers in Manhattan. I’ve been surprised with how well the GPS works in Google Maps: watching a red dot of yourself going down the highway is a very cool experience, and it seems very accurate. The sooner the right applications come along to take advantage of the GPS feature, the sooner iPhone users will be able to ditch their other redundant, clunky GPS devices.
iTunes: Aside from the complete fiasco that activation and upgrading was on launch day, the new iPhone 2.0 software has introduced a few annoyances to the iTunes experience. For one thing, the iPhone now tries to back up its entire memory every time you sync. You can stop it in mid-backup by clicking the tiny x in the dialogue box at the top of iTunes, but it still takes much, much longer to do a sync than it did before. New iPhone 3G users may not notice anything’s amiss, but older iPhone users will definitely be annoyed. Another weird feature is having your applications backed up when you sync. This is nice in theory, but one I download an app, I don’t want to have to worry about it every time I sync.
iPhone 2.0: This is a bit of a moot point because except for certain GPS or 3G-specific items, the software runs the same on the iPhone 3G and on the older iPhone (and, even, on the iPod Touch). The new software creates a new “Contacts” icon (previously only accessible via the Phone icon), adds the App Store (more on that in a bit) and a few improvements like a scientific calculator that appears when you run Calculator and turn the iPhone on its side. You can now search contacts (finally!), mass-delete e-mails and open certain e-mail attachments like PowerPoint documents. Unfortunately, the new features come at a price: overall, 2.0 is less stable than the previous iPhone software. It’s more prone to crash, lag when you’re tying, or simply stop responding. Expect a patch soon to address performance issues that the new operating system version seems to have introduced.
App Store: Hands-down the best new feature on the iPhone 3G or the older iPhone. With the iPhone, you now have access to literally hundreds of new programs, many of them free. It would take a whole other review just to talk about some of the great applications available, but taken as a whole, the App Store is simply an overwhelming ocean of goodness. Sure, there are some clunkers in the store, but there are more than enough enjoyable, free Apps that they make up for the weak ones. It’s simply long overdue and totally welcome. My favorites so far are Remote, a simple and beautiful way to control iTunes or an Apple TV with the iPhone, Pandora’s music service which streams songs directly to the phone based on your musical preferences, the useless but entertaining PhoneSaber (like having a light saber in your pocket with accompanying sounds), the Facebook and AOL Instant Messenger apps and Yellow Pages’ YPMobile, which shows you restaurants and other businesses in your area, including reviews and phone numbers. It’s worth wading in the deep waters of the App Store and finding the programs that suit your interests and needs. The best part is it’s not exclusive to iPhone 3G users. Check out Webmonkey’s poll of the top Apps.
Conclusions: Is the new iPhone 3G great? Yes. Yes, it is. Is it much greater than the original iPhone? If both phones have the new iPhone 2.0 software installed, not so much. 3G service is inconsistent, and while GPS is very nice, there isn’t enough software yet to really make it a killer feature. The phone sounds better, has a more refined design and a cheaper price at the register (but watch out for that phone bill later). The verdict is that those who don’t already have an iPhone will certainly fall in love with the 3G if they’re already used to paying Blackberry-like data fees. For those who got the original iPhone, there’s no shame in hanging on to the original phone and seeing if the price or service fees drop in the next few months. (Or at the very least, whether AT&T gets rid of the ridiculous text messaging fee increases.) As for me, having a 3G for a week hasn’t convinced me to go out and buy one for myself. But, I have a feeling it’ll be my next phone at some point in the future, perhaps after the 3G network has matured enough to provide a better experience.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment Categories: Applications, Austin, Gadgets, Internet, Phones, Videogames
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By Corey Fields
July 18, 2008 9:12 PM | Link to this
Thanks Omar, good review!