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With its faster networking, GPS for location-based services and, best of all, the App Store, Apple takes a significant step forward with the iPhone 3G as a consumer-centric device. This phone is special, and though it's not for everyone (hardware keyboard lovers need not apply), it is a great choice for consumers who wants a true convergence device. It's not only a decent phone, it's the best iPod on the market and the best portable Web browser money can buy. And with so many new apps coming to market in the near future, the Apple iPhone 3G will only get more exciting when it comes to entertainment and gaming. We're still bothered that Apple's iPhone 3G omits some obvious technology and solutions. Still, if you are looking for an entertaining phone, there's nothing that comes close to the iPhone 3G right now. Release: July 2008. Price: $200.
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VERY GOOD |
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Design - Excellent
The new Apple iPhone is not much different from the original, though its new design does offer some important performance improvements. The sanded aluminum back is gone, replaced by either a glossy black or white plastic. We chose white, since it was less likely to pick up fingerprints, though black looked quite sleek. The chrome ring around the screen is now attached to the antenna, and Apple claims this improvement, along with the plastic shell, should give the phone better reception. The indented headphone jack, a clear design error on the original, has been replaced by a standard jack that will fit any headphones, at last.
The screen on our new iPhone seems brighter and a bit warmer, compared to the cooler screen on the original. It looks fantastic, and interacting with the phone feels more like playing with a living digital cartoon than manipulating a cell phone. We can't stress enough how important the incredibly responsive screen and ultra-snappy user interface are to the iPhone experience.
Calling - Good
Call quality was a problematic issue on the original Apple iPhone, and though the Apple iPhone 3G packs some improved calling features, it still has room for improvement. Calls sounded very good on the iPhone 3G, better than they did on the original iPhone, but we wouldn't call this the best-sounding phone on the market. Even the recent Motorola ROKR on T-Mobile sounded better, though the advanced 3G networking does offer a marked improvement. The speaker on the iPhone 3G was also much louder, though it was not as abusively loud as we like.
For calling features, Apple has added almost nothing since the last version. You can now search your contacts list, but it's ridiculous to applaud Apple for adding such a basic feature. Of course, the App Store brings more calling features to the party, including a picture-based speed dial app and speaker-independent voice recognition software. We didn't include these apps in this review, however, because these features need to be integrated into the OS. As it stands, they cost extra and they also must be opened individually. Browsing a menu and tapping the screen defeats the purpose of voice dialing, which we use often while driving. Also, because it's a separate app, our bluetooth speakerphone can't access the voice dialing feature.
Messaging - Good
Messaging has been greatly improved on the Apple iPhone 3G since the original was released more than a year ago, and we've even come around a bit on the keyboard. For e-mail, the iPhone 3G has a few nice push e-mail options. Exchange ActiveSync is supported on the phone, and it worked well in our tests, better than it did when we tested the new software on our original phone, with none of the bugginess. Apple also offers a consumer version of Microsoft's Exchange ActiveSync hosting called MobileMe. Both of these bring push e-mail as well as address book and calendar synchronization to the iPhone. The Mail app itself hasn't seen any real improvements. We're still waiting for the ability to delete multiple messages at once, as well as a junk mail filter. Push e-mail, which uses Apple's new Fetch feature on the phone, wasn't delivered nearly as quickly as it is on our Prem Trea 755p, on which we use Good Mobile messaging and Exchange.
The iPhone doesn't come with any instant messaging clients built in, which is a shame, but a few have started to pop up in the App Store and elsewhere. Still, though you can download AIM from AOL and direct Safari to a customized Google Talk Web app, these don't function nearly as well as they should. We lost connections continually, especially on the nearly useless Google Talk. Facebook, surprisingly, proved a better instant messaging app, and it was a pleasant surprise to find the chat features there enabled.
After a year on the market, the Apple iPhone 3G is still missing MMS messaging. While there are other options for sending multimedia content, MMS is a proven, reliable standard for messaging, and it's almost embarassing that the iPhone lacks such a basic feature.
Apple said when they launched the original iPhone that using the keyboard is a matter of faith, and we have to say that after a year of typing, we've become believers. Believers in the sense that we think something special might be working here, but we only go to the keyboard on Sundays and special holidays. Apple has some of the best auto-correction software on the market, and the keyboard usually knew what we meant, even when we were far off. But when the keyboard guessed incorrectly (acronyms can be a problem), it was difficult to erase our mistakes and start over.
Music - Very good
The Apple iPhone 3G, like its predecessor, is an even better iPod than it is a phone. The iTunes / iPod combo is the simplest, quickest and most reliable solution for getting media onto any device, and though its too bad that it only works with iPods, that's all the more reason to buy an iPhone. Using the iPod on the iPhone isn't just easy, it's fun, with ultra-responsive scrolling for long playlists and the snazzy CoverFlow interface that lets you browser album covers quickly.
The iPhone 3G still lacks A2DP for stereo Bluetooth capabilities. Clearly there is an unfilled market for wireless stereo sound, and its surprising that this recent iPhone update didn't address this issue. We've had some lousy experiences with stereo Bluetooth headphones in the past, but we've also gotten great sound from headphones like the Etymotic Ety8 (though they were clearly beaten with the ugly stick). If Apple were to jump into the wireless stereo Bluetooth game, we could see some great manufacturers follow suit and release more classy wireless headphones.
Video - Very good
In addition to the excellent music handling, the Apple iPhone 3G makes an excellent video player. We were already impressed by the quality of videos we had loaded through iTunes. Movies look great on the iPhone's screen, and iTunes does a fine job keeping track of television series, loading only the programs you haven't seen and keeping track of your progress through individual episodes and films. Now, with vastly improved networking speeds, the YouTube client becomes an even better option on the go, with plenty of content at your fingertips.
Of course, this has us clamoring for a SlingBox client for the upgraded iPhone 3G, and while we haven't heard anything official, we fully expect SlingMedia to deliver. In fact, we can imagine quite a few apps that could offer a great video experience, though it's hard to imagine improving on an already-great video device.
Web browsing - Very good
The Safari Mobile Web browser is the best Web browser on any phone, though some notable entries from Nokia and Samsung have come close. A year ago, Walt Mossberg from the Wall Street Journal all but promised Adobe's Flash would come to the iPhone, and that hasn't happened yet, which is disappointing, but no cell phone we've seen has a browser with full flash integration. For that you have to go larger and buy an Arcos 605 or a Nokia N810 tablet.
Safari is much quicker on the new Apple iPhone 3G, but performance definitely suffers when network coverage is suffering. Even though we're getting 3G reception, with only 1-2 bars in the New Jersey suburbs the Web browser hasn't been as impressively quick as we'd hoped. In major urban areas like New York City, though, the iPhone 3G benefits from AT&T's fastest 3.6 Mbps HSDPA network, and pages should load much, much faster.
Navigation - Very good
Navigation hasn't been much improved on the Apple iPhone 3G, even with the addition of a real GPS chip. Google Maps now uses GPS to get a better lock on your location, and this took about three minutes from a cold start, which was disappointing, but we've seen much worse. This simple addition doesn't tell the whole story of location-based services on this phone. In fact, Apple has already claimed that turn-by-turn navigation will make its way to the iPhone 3G, which will offer dramatic improvements over Google Maps, which can divine your location but doesn't offer active help in navigating.
More important are the myriad apps that use the GPS sensor. Bundled with the phone, the camera is now able to geotag photos, embedding location data into each picture. But in our first casual browse of the App Store, we found plenty of location-based apps that were fun and useful. We're glad to see Loopt and Buddy Beacon (part of the Where app) on this phone, and we think location-based social networking will really catch on once these apps become ubiquitous. We also found apps that suggest local restaurants using location, and a Google search tool that only searches for nearby results. Location-based services are the killer app for the Apple iPhone 3G, and these applications are merely the beginning.
Camera - Good
With so many hardware improvements to make the iPhone faster and better, we're surprised that the camera has been left untouched. The camera is the worst part of the Apple iPhone that people use all the time. Pictures looked okay, better than on most cameraphones we've seen, especially under the best lighting conditions. Colors were vivid, if a bit saturated, but noise was a significant problem. On the small screen, images look fine, but blown up to their full 2-megapixel size things got a bit messier. There are also no camera options on the Apple iPhone. Not one. We would at least like some control over white balance and exposure settings, and at best we'd like to see real auto focus on this phone. The camera can take advantage of GPS for geotagging pics, but we'd like to see this feature accompanied by great pics. Also, the lack of a video camera feature is surprising, considering even the most basic cameraphones pack this feature. The Apple iPhone 3G's best competitor, the Nokia N95 8gb, can even take full VGA videos at 30fps.
Gaming - Very good
We've already spent too much time playing Super Monkey Ball, more than we've spent playing any other game on a mobile phone. It isn't that the game is so great (nevermind, it's great), it is the iPhone's hardware that truly impressed us. We never suspected that the Apple iPhone's accelerometers were so precise. We've tried some racing games, puzzle games and simple arcade games, and the iPhone has blown us away. The graphics are better than we've seen on any other mobile phone, including Nokia's venerated N-Gage devices, and the games on the iPhone will appeal not only to the casual gamer. We're hardcore console and PC gamers, and we think the iPhone will appeal to the hardcore gaming set as well. From the start, third-party developers are taking gaming on the iPhone seriously and trying some very innovative ideas with the tilt-controls and multi-touch screen.
Mobile services - Very good
Carriers like Helio and devices like the T-Mobile Sidekick won their audience by offering an accessible and wide range of mobile services, but with the Apple iPhone's App Store, the iPhone has access to almost every feature that made these options unique. With over 500 apps available at launch (though this admittedly includes quite a few e-books and simple ToDo list apps), we expect the App Store will balloon in the months ahead, especially since it reaches not only the Apple iPhone 3G's audience, but the original iPhone and many ipod touch users as well.
Price and availability
The Apple iPhone 3G is available now from Apple and AT&T stores in 8GB and 16GB capacities for $200 and $300 respectively, with a qualifying contract agreement.
Also checkout www.cheapandunlocked.com
