The iPhone 3G: Our initial findings
Here are our first impressions of Apple's new iPhone 3G, based on preliminary tests in our lab. Overall, the 3G is an improvement on its predecessor, though, as we found, there's still a lot of room left for improvement. The details:
3G performance is fast. The new iPhone can use AT&T's faster 3G network, where available; the original iPhone could only trudge along on AT&T's creaky 2G EDGE network. In our tests, the new iPhone was about twice as fast when using the 3G network than the 2G. It took just 30 seconds to download the front page of the New York Times in our lab, compared with a minute to download the same page over the EDGE network. In fact, surfing the Web on the iPhone was even faster than on another high-profile phone that uses 3G: Verizon's LG Voyager. The phone allows you to select the EDGE network to conserve battery life. According to Apple, talk time in EDGE mode should be about 10 hours, compared with about 5 hours when iPhone is in 3G mode. We'll check both those claims early next week.
Better GPS navigation. Our Cars colleagues have completed an initial, real-world session. While the team has only just begun its full, authoritative test, their initial impression is that the iPhone 3G does indeed improve over the previous iPhone in pinpointing your location. However, the navigation ability does not approach that of previously tested competing GPS-enabled cell phones nor dedicated navigation devices.
Still a great screen. The new iPhone's screen appears to be comparable to the old one. That is, readability of text was still excellent thanks to the large, high-resolution display, which had no trouble handling different font sizes, colors, and formats such as bold, italic, and underline.
Office documents: Look, but don't edit. We were able to view attachments such as MS Word and Excel files. But the 3G, like its predecessor, doesn't allow you to edit or create new documents, as you can with phones that run on Windows Mobile or Palm operating systems. We were also able to view PowerPoint files—a nice touch that the old iPhone lacked—though we couldn't view them as individual slides. Rather, those slides appear as a list that you have to scroll through. The iPhone can't open ZIP attachments, which many BlackBerry, Palm, and Windows Mobile smart phones can do. You also can't use the 3G as a mass storage device to shuttle files back and forth between home and the office, as you can with many smart phones and even Apple's own iPods.
Our initial take: What was, hands-down, the best multimedia smart phone on the market just got a heck of a lot better. But as a corporate instrument, the 3G may still need a little more polish.
—Mike Gikas
Posted by: Prairie Girl | Nov 15, 2008 1:32:52 AM
I waited quite sometime for "an iPhone," to come to Canada. About a year and a half ago you could purchase an unlocked iPhone off of EBay for two to three times the price of the new iPhone 3G. So I called Rogers and asked the opinion of one of the customer service reps about these unlocked 2nd generation iPhones, they responded by telling me that you wouldn't have full use of the phone and it wasn't really worth it and too pretty much wait. I knew that Rogers would be the first too come out with a service supporting the iPhone and its different capabilities, so I waited patiently. The day finally came when the iPhone came to Canadian Consumers and I ordered one. For 3 days I rushed home from work to see if my iPhone 3G had been delivered yet. Finally, I walked in too see my little white box with a beautiful picture on the front of it, my phone!! The set-up was a little difficult but called Rogers and they walked me through every step. It took a little time to get used to as it was totally different than the Razor I've been putting up with.
My phone is amazing and worth every penny. Besides a few glitches here and there its worth it! You could never get bored of it as it's 1000 things in one, a personal lap top in your pocket. Being a small business owner it comes in handy with emails and contacts also. I can't leave out some of my favorite features such as Google maps (different views of the maps!) , Application Store, Safari, IPod, You Tube, Facebook and finally the Camera and it's capabilities.
Stuff I was never told or knew?
#1- Make sure that if you are buying a protective case for the entire phone, that it is made for the IPHONE 3G!!! I made the mistake of buying the wrong one and mine was hanging up on people and so on. I called Rogers to ask them why it was doing this and we figured it out, opps.
#2- RE: Battery Life, Because you have so many different things too do on the phone, my battery lasts for one day and needs to be charged every night and sometimes twice. Approx: 8 Hours of use
FYI: I was on bestbuy.ca and found a back up battery device that doubles your battery life. :)
#3- RE: Safari
When I am on SOME websites, Safari closes. I can bring up where I left off, but its pretty annoying. If that the only thing I can complain about with this phone, than that is ok in my books.
All in all, I highly recommend the iPhone 3G!
Posted by: Blair | Nov 8, 2008 1:34:19 PM
This phone seems freaking awesome!! =]
Posted by: Zumagi | Nov 2, 2008 3:17:13 PM
sanjeev- The Iphone 3g can't send files via bluetooth but however it can take self screen shots. You can do this by holding down the home button and pressing the sleep button on the top. :)
Posted by: Michael Hanna-Fein | Sep 12, 2008 2:32:15 PM
I've had the new 3G iPhone for about three weeks, and thus far I have no complaints. It is faster than most phones; surfing the Web is a pleasure, and the App store continues to make the iPhone more useful every day.
Posted by: marie | Sep 3, 2008 4:33:12 PM
i want to get the new iphone do u recomend it?
Posted by: Mike | Aug 24, 2008 10:17:31 AM
I bought my Iphone 3G last Friday. After going through the long task of loading the software I had nothing but problems such as locking up, when on a call it would just tern off, locking up got worse and finally I could not even shut it off. Took it to the AT&T store did a reboot as I did and said that fixed it. Before he could hand it back to me the phone shut off. He told me to take it to the Apple store mile from my home and go to the Genius desk who would diagnose the problem. This was on Saturday and they told me I needed an appointment. I said fine and asked when could I see a Genius and was told not until next Tuesday!!! That was enough for me so I took it back to AT&T and returned it. I would not recommend an Iphone to anyone!!!!!
Posted by: ShinobiGarth | Jul 15, 2008 2:45:41 PM
Got the 3G when it debuted, and its pretty good. It cant do the stuff mentioned by sanjeev (MMS, data over Bluetooth, etc), however, these are issues that can be addressed with future firmware updates. Apple just released version 2.0 firmware along with the 3G, so its obvious that its not going to be perfect right away.
Apps will also crash randomly. I've had Safari crash a couple times already, perhaps due to a memory issue. A couple other apps (mostly seems to be non-Apple ones created by users) have crashed too, but again, these can all be addressed in future firmwares and updates for those apps. Overall, its a great product.
Posted by: sanjeev | Jul 13, 2008 5:25:36 AM
The new iPhone 3G cannot send files via Bluetooth, can't send pics by mms, the battery can only can be serviced by the Apple service center, and it can't take self snaps. Here in Asia, the new Samsung touch screen can do all of the above, and packs a 5 megapixel camera. But the screen isn't as sharp. So, which one should we choose?
Dan