iPhone 3G S: First, and mostly positive, impressions

The new Apple iPhone 3G S.
[ Photo courtesy of Apple ]

Based on a few hours of use, the new iPhone 3G S lives up to its promise—or it does, at least, once it’s actually up and running.

In a seeming rerun of last year’s problems with the iPhone 3G, eager new iPhone 3G S owners have been plagued by activation problems today—the phone’s first day of sale.

We succeeded in buying (at retail, like any other consumer) three 3G Ss by 10 am this morning. As of 4:30 pm, we’d succeeded in activating only two of the three. The screens of the remaining reads that it’s “Waiting for activation,” which “…may take some time.” Indeed. Some iPhone 3G S owners have been told the wait may be as long as 48 hours, according to Apple Insider.

Here’s what we have observed so far in our labs:

The display seems largely unchanged. Which is to say it’s better than fine. Contrast appeared to be slightly higher than on earlier iPhone models, we thought, but the difference was modest even in side-by-side comparison. While the screen is claimed to be more resistant to oily smears, due to a special coating, there wasn’t a noticeable difference in smudge resistance between the 3G and 3G S screens in a grueling, selfless "Happy Meal" test—in which we ate fries and then ran our fingers across the screens.

Claims to higher speed appear to stand up. We measured (using the stopwatch of an iPod Touch and with 3G network strength at a full five bars) the times to fully load some popular and fairly demanding Web home pages—including the New York Times, BBC, and TMZ—on a 3G and a 3G S. All loaded at least 50 percent more quickly on the 3G S, saving at least nine seconds of load time, and some met and even exceeded the claim that the 3G S is up to twice as fast as its predecessor, saving 15 seconds or more of load time—which actually feels like quite a big difference.

Voice control seems to work, more or less. This feature, a first for an iPhone, worked fine for me. Holding down the Home button summons the Voice Command interface. I then spoke the word “home,” and the phone summoned my home number and dialed it flawlessly.

There were a few glitches. One of our testers who speaks in an accented voice had to repeat some commands before the phone understood them. When I spoke the phrase “I’m yours,” it began dialing the number of a colleague with whom I am not romantically involved. (FYI, it did the same when I tried a ruder variation of the phrase with the opposite sentiment.)

Video gets an early thumbs up. Another first for an iPhone, you activate this by pressing a movie-camera icon on the bottom right of the camera-viewfinder screen. A red button along the bottom of the viewfinder begins to flash; press it once and recording begins. Videos looked sharp and well-exposed, though we did not compare them to those from other cell phones, or view them anywhere except on the iPhone screen.

I’ll continue to use this new iPhone over the weekend, and will send out my findings on Twitter—and gather them into further blogs next week.

New iPhone 3G users: Have you activated your new phone yet? If so, share your first impressions. – Mike Gikas

Comments

[Jesmi]

I have struggled for years with the various iterations of Windows Mobile and its predecessors with a number of PDA's - Failed connections, failed syncs, reinstalls of software. So far, none of this has happened with my iPhone. Since the 2.1 firmare upgrade, my sync and backup of the iPhone takes about 60 - 80 seconds and includes multiple files, almost 1 GB of music files, 3 GB of movies. My e-mail is synchronized flawlessly with Yahoo and the downloads are quick. My contacts and calendar sychronized with MS Outlook without problems. I love the number of high quality applications that are available for the iPhone, most of which are free. In summary, Great Phone, Great PDA, Great iPod capabilities all rolled into one easy to use, compact and high quality device.

[Daryl]

Got the iphone 3g s friday when it came out. had the 2g for almost 2 years i love it! its almost flawless except today i started having problems with it..everytime i was in a app it would cut out of it all of the sudden anybody else having this problem?

[Tracy]

I just don't know. I just got the new iphone 3GS , had to wait over 2 hrs today and don't know if it's worth it! I can't hear anything and the vol is maxed out. The speaker phone is also not audible. I am probably going to return it tomorrow.

[CB]

After 8 years as a Sprint customer, I finally broke down and got my first-ever iPhone.

I went on the launch day to an Apple retail store to purchase a 32gig Black (for my dear husband) and a 16 gig white (for me). I waited only >5 minutes to be "helped" at the store, but activation had some issues and I was there for 2 hours. The Apple staff worked hard and was very apologetic. I left happy-with the two new gadgets and some free accessory merchandise for my trouble.

After over 24 hours my iphone could make calls and not receive them. I called ATT for my husband's iphone. and they were able to fix this activation issue just fine. I asked for a credit for my first day of the iphone because I was not able to recieve calls and ATT credited my account $30.

I was worried about the battery life- but mine has lasted 1.5 days with me on apps, internet, email and talking about 30 total minutes and hours of music playback.

This thingy is soo cool. it does so much stuff-both productivity-wise and entertainment-wise. It has already saved me time and gas money by looking up where I needed to go. If your on the fence, go buy it. Great product-I am impressed.

[Bill C.]

My new iPhone 3Gs arrived Friday afternoon. Everything has been pretty much flawless. I'm very impressed. It's my first iPhone. The activation was without a hitch. I pre-ordered my phone and my plan so all I needed was to connect the phone to iTunes and set up my voice mail.

Coverage from AT&T has been comparable to my old carrier - Verizon.

One thing I assumed would be worse was typing because it has no keyboard. Wrong. It was much easier for me to text on than the Blackberry I have from work. The keys in the newer Blackberrys are very close together and for an old guy with fat fingers it's tough to type accurately. I've found the iPhone keyboard to be much easier - though I still hate typing.

I've compared this iPhone with phones used by colleagues - Palm Pre, iPhone 3G, HTC Android and Blackberry Storm. The iPhone 3Gs is much faster and it has better applications. The user interface is better too. From looking at the other phones I'd say that maybe Palm "gets it" but they need some time to mature before it will begin matching the iPhone in polish and speed. If I didn't have to use one for work, I can't see using a Blackberry. They are not fun to use; not very useful on the internet - just utilitarian messaging devices.

[Skater]

Watch out for ATT and the iphone , there changing over 20 % they charged me 61.16 in taxes and say its the state of california, I checked , its BS . im returning my new iphone 3Gs its not worth it do not waste your money.

[Michael Todd Koren]

I have a 1st generation iPhone and have felt very happy with the software 3.0 upgrade, knowing that without purchasing the 3GS, I wouldn't get certain new features..

My co-worker got a new 3GS and I must say, upon repeated comparison loading of web sites, a 3GS on the 3G network loads sites about 3 times as fast as my 1st generation on Edge. Not only was that mind-blowing, like going from dial-up to cable, but so was the very snappy overall performance of the 3GS phone. Very smooth. Have struggled to hold back temptation to throw in the towel and sell my beloved phone which now feels a bit stone-age in speed by comparison. And by the way - my phone has outlasted any phone I have ever purchased before in the many years I've used cell phones.

Anyhow - there is a part of me that is holding back cause 2010 is around the corner and I haven't seen confirmation that Apple has renewed its exclusive deal with AT&T.

But here is the rub, I hated Verizon when I had it (for 5 years), not for its service which was fine, but for the fact that I had no roll-over minutes and paid through the nose every time I ran over. Worse, when I changed plans to avoid those penalty minute charges then return down again when I knew service would be limited, Verizon ruthlessly moved my contract out to 2 years from the date of the change. Every time I changed! And I had to find a salesperson at a Verizon store that hated that policy to override the change each time. And how much longer will he work there?

Anyhow, AT&T does not do that and has roll-over minutes. I never pay for running over. I have changed plans and it was easy and very fair. So, the few interactions I've had with them over the phone have been absolutely delightful - better than I recall from Verizon. So there is a part of me that does not want to return to Verizon. Even though I'm aware of locations I'd get better reception in. Am somewhat in the dark as to why people seem to like that company so much more, other than what does appear to be wider areas of service. I wonder if people just seem to like to gang up and create good and bad, justified or not.

[Tom C.]

Yes, I finally gave in. After being loyal to Verizon Wireless for over 8 years, the new iPhone 3G S was a justified, necessary purchase. I held out as long as I could, even went so far as to purchase an iTouch just a month ago to get the handy features (music, movies, apps, etc.), which I now plan to sell. I pre-ordered both a black 32GB for myself (moving over from a Blackberry Storm) and a white 32GB for my wife (to replace her original generation iPhone). Although they were separate orders, both arrived around 10am on Friday. What can I say? The process was SEAMLESS and neither of us had ANY activation issues. I am LOVING the new phone, it's look, it's speed, it's functionality. Anyone reading this: NOTHING is better than the iPhone, so don't waste your time with any of the generic, slow "touch screen" phones w/ branded names... they are all only a cream-puff iPhone wanna-be (trust me: I've been there & done that, over and over, until now... I've arrived). Don't hesitate, this one takes the GOLD.

[Terry S Freedman]

Not well publicized is the fact that you can call a toll-free number and quickly activate your new iPhone. This is an excerpt from an email received from AT&T this morning, two days after I got my new iPhone:

"Step 4 - Activate Your Service

. . . call 1-866-895-1099 from another phone
• Be Ready to give the wireless number you want to activate, the account holder's SSN and shipping zip code

Step 5 – Turn New iPhone ON & Make a Test Call
• If your test call is not successful, call 1-866-391-0749 from another phone"

This is basically what the customer rep did when I went to the AT&T store to activate my new iPhone when I discovered the authorization servers were overloaded.

[Barry Gerber]

Just moved from iPhone 1G to 3G S. Love landscape mode in email and almost everywhere else. Proof of speed, I was able to find best vacuum cleaner for us on the CR website, cut it's name from the report and buy the Hoover Duros S3590 by pasting the name into search field at Amazon. All in less than 3 minutes. Yes, I'm writing this on the 3G S and pasted the vacuum name here too.

[Nicole]

So does it send picture messages now like almost every other cell phone out there?

[Pat N]

Picked up my pre-ordered iphone 3G S after 4pm at AT&T store (switched from T-Mobile). Phone started working right before 6 pm.

No glitches.

It is my first iPhone (Blackberry user), and so far 3G S is easy to handle. Really like the Spotlight feature that can search through the entire phone.

[John Z]

I picked mine up today from the AT&T store. No problems with activation - it was working when I left the store. As for comparison between this and the old 3G, I only had the old one for a week when the press release hit about the 3G S version. I was not pleased to pay an $18 re-stocking fee.

AT&T tried to sell me a $45/m corporate data plan since I use MS Exchange at my office. The regular data plan, at $30/m, works perfectly with our Exchange server.