iPhone 3G White (OMG!)
ALERT – WE’VE MOVED TO RAZORIANFLY.COM
Yes, I got one.
Late news, I know, but I thought I’d give my opinion on the device anyway …
It is in fact, the iPhone 3G – Twice as fast, Half the Price – or is it?
I’ve had the device for over two weeks now, and it has it’s good and bad points. Being my first ever iPhone, I had to get use to the device and how iPhone-specific features functioned. With previously owning the iPod touch I wasn’t entirely new to the interface or most of the software-related features previously added in v1.1.3.
I have to mention, that this is now my second iPhone. The first unit had a battery which lasted 3 hours including standby, and after toying with myself whether to take it back or not, I decided, I just had to. The exchange was painless (or less painless than I thought it was going to be) – and I now have another perfect looking, iPhone.
3G Networking
Ok, so firstly, 3G speeds are great. I’ll go as far as to say it’s approaching Wifi speeds. The first thing I loved about the iphone 3G, quite ironically, was 3G. The ability to be in the car, and browse the internet is truly a necessity, but doing it with no limits – is even better. Thanks to O2 here in the UK, data usage is unlimited and uncapped meaning no extra charges, and no limitations of how much data your device can receive.
GPS
As well as 3G, iPhone 3G now has GPS. Now the type of GPS differs to that of, say, a garmin or Tom Tom GPS unit, in the sense that it is A-GPS (Assisted GPS). This means iPhone switches to cell towers when GPS information is not available or is unreceivable in your current location. I’ve only tested it a couple of times, but I have to say, it works, and it works, very well. It will consult several services to locate you. 3G/Edge (cellular network), Wifi and finally the satellites. Some users on Mac Rumors have been experiencing the device not showing their location as precisely as they’d like. I’ve found that this is due to one or two of the iPhone’s GPS sources to be unavailable or not reachable. For example, iPhone will first triangulate you by cell towers, if not Wifi, and finally display a direct reading from A-GPS. Overall I’ve found it to work as advertised.
So thats the main features of iPhone 3G, but what about the other features added, through software …
The App Store & Software 2.0
On July 10th – in time for the iPhone 3G launch (July 11th) – Apple released the App Store, a new, user-intuitive way to download, buy and install further 3rd-party applications onto iPhone.
The App Store
Let me tell you, this works, but has some flaws.
Firstly the app store allows you to browse the 500+ application library from your iPhone, Mac or PC.
30% of the store consists of completely FREE applications – some of which are really so very, very kool.
Some of my current favorites include;
- Aurora Feint (The Beginning)
A fast paced game which is really good for passing time, and possibly the best free application on the store to date.
- Password1 (Free for a limited time)
Need to lock information down on your iPhone securely? – Get this.
- Bejeweled
Great port of Bejeweled 2 for iPhone
- Twinkle
This is a great client for on-the-go twitterlious tweets
Checkout my latest review
Battery Life
So with this great platform, new applications, demanding 3G networking, push email notification and more, how does the battery life fare on this truly capable device? – honestly? – not that well.
I mean ok, for a device which does nearly everything, it is great battery life, but realistically, you won’t get more than a day, and it may die before the day is out requiring a recharge on the move.
Verdict?
It’s a great device.
It looks great, it sounds great, it functions pretty well, but it has flaws which your probably now sick of hearing as they were not present on iPhone Classic, either.
- No MMS Support
- No SMS forwarding support
- The camera is still stuck at a measly 2MP
- Software 2.0 is extremely buggy
I’ll keep you all up to date of how I fare with my new iPhone 3G …
R-Fly
