Source: Tom's Guide | Keywords: apple, iphone, review | Themes: Smartphones, 3GSM
2. The Design
Many first-gen iPhone owners are wary of the iPhone 3G’s plastic back, and think it gives the phone a cheaper feel than the brushed metal of their devices. But the glossy finish of the plastic (in either black or white) adds a finished touch to the phone, especially the way the silver Apple logo offsets the plastic. A metal bezel around the screen and metal hardware trimming the buttons and ports on the phone help lend a sturdiness to the phone, but rather than imparting an industrial look, the metal garnish looks like something akin to a jewelry setting. The phone is substantial, but by no means heavy; it is lighter than it looks.
I never knew it was possible for a screen to be too bright, but when I increased the iPhone 3G’s screen to the maximum brightness, I saw only overkill. Keeping the brightness at about half-way seems right for most lighting scenarios.
I won’t spend time talking about the well-received features Apple has decided not to improve upon in the iPhone 3G’s design: The touch-screen, and the camera, for instance. Apple did fix a few fumbles, including upgrading a too-soft speaker, and unearthing a recessed audio jack. In general, Apple’s second attempt has resulted in a smart phone that accomplishes the big feats you’d want a smart phone to perform.
But, as you’ve likely surmised, there are still several little things that Apple has forgotten (or decided not) to include. By now you’ve probably heard complaints about the lack of voice dialing, video capturing, and cut-and-pasting on the iPhone 3G. Yet there are a few more tricks that even many old smart phones could do that the iPhone 3G cannot.
For instance, on many touch-screen devices you can simply tap the battery indicator icon at the top of the home screen to get a readout of what percentage of your battery is actually drained. As beautiful as the iPhone’s touch-screen is, the battery icon isn’t interactive.
Similarly, the iPhone’s mail application is reliable and uncluttered. But it has no way of sending visual alerts about new mail. What good is "push" or even "fetch" mail on a smart phone if you have to enter the phone menus to find out if anything has arrived? Sure, a tiny beep sounds each time a message arrives, but it is hardly noticeable and doesn’t take into account that your iPhone might be in your purse or pocket.
When I dig my phone out of my bag, I want to take one glance at it, without digging through any menus, and see that I have new mail. Treo owners upgrading to iPhone 3G will, for a while at least, miss that familiar blinking yellow LED that bestows so much information. The iPhone 3G has no lights or indicators of any kind.
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- Next page The Battery
Your chart indicates otherwise. It states it took 57 seconds to load the NYT site on AT&T's EDGE compared to 65 seconds on T-Mobile's EDGE.
So which is it?
Your chart indicates otherwise. It states it took 57 seconds to load the NYT site on AT&T's EDGE compared to 65 seconds on T-Mobile's EDGE.So which is it?
Your chart indicates otherwise. It states it took 57 seconds to load the NYT site on AT&T's EDGE compared to 65 seconds on T-Mobile's EDGE.So which is it?
Thanks for catching our error, mpjesse. T-Mobile's edge was slightly faster in our tests.
-Rachel Rosmarin, Editor, Tom's Guide
Cool, thanks!
Was hoping for your impression on GPS. Left us hanging there when you started to make a comparison with the Blackberry but stopped short. I looked to the next page looking for more.
Can see the signal strength wasn't that great in the Ab Crunch screen shot. And unless it was altered your email address appears in the other screen shot.
So, your Treo had a ridiculously bad battery life. The iphone by all accounts has what appears to be a normal battery life for devices in its class, which, if you surf a lot won't even get you through an entire day. Most reviews have it giving out in under 4 hours or so, IIRC. Since you cannot take the battery out and replace it with a spare this is a real problem for heavy internet users. I have an HTC PPC 6800. While away from home I can pair it with my laptop and surf to my heart's content or perhaps stream internet radio for hours on end while I work. The battery will be gone in under 5 hours but I can just pop in my spare. So no iphone for me. I suppose for more typical users they will at least make it home for an overnight charge so for them this is probably OK.
So, your Treo had a ridiculously bad battery life. The iphone by all accounts has what appears to be a normal battery life for devices in its class, which, if you surf a lot won't even get you through an entire day. Most reviews have it giving out in under 4 hours or so, IIRC. Since you cannot take the battery out and replace it with a spare this is a real problem for heavy internet users. I have an HTC PPC 6800. While away from home I can pair it with my laptop and surf to my heart's content or perhaps stream internet radio for hours on end while I work. The battery will be gone in under 5 hours but I can just pop in my spare. So no iphone for me. I suppose for more typical users they will at least make it home for an overnight charge so for them this is probably OK.
So, your Treo had a ridiculously bad battery life. The iphone by all accounts has what appears to be a normal battery life for devices in its class, which, if you surf a lot won't even get you through an entire day. Most reviews have it giving out in under 4 hours or so, IIRC. Since you cannot take the battery out and replace it with a spare this is a real problem for heavy internet users. I have an HTC PPC 6800. While away from home I can pair it with my laptop and surf to my heart's content or perhaps stream internet radio for hours on end while I work. The battery will be gone in under 5 hours but I can just pop in my spare. So no iphone for me. I suppose for more typical users they will at least make it home for an overnight charge so for them this is probably OK.
Can anyone help me... Although i have not yet been connected do to the sheer number of new customers to o2 that they could not supply everyone with numbers right away, but anyway my question... I have noticed that you cannot use music as your ringtone which seems quite silly as it is supposed to be an ipod (music phone) so why would you not be able to set a song as ringtone?? seems crazy as all they have is about 10 VERY lame sounds that you can use!! Please help if anyone knows a way of getting music as a ring tone!!
Was hoping for your impression on GPS. Left us hanging there when you started to make a comparison with the Blackberry but stopped short. I looked to the next page looking for more.Can see the signal strength wasn't that great in the Ab Crunch screen shot. And unless it was altered your email address appears in the other screen shot.
tntom,
Stay tuned for our full examination and test of the iPhone 3G's GPS capabilities as compared to various other GPS devices. Coming soon!
-Rachel Rosmarin
Can anyone help me... Although i have not yet been connected do to the sheer number of new customers to o2 that they could not supply everyone with numbers right away, but anyway my question... I have noticed that you cannot use music as your ringtone which seems quite silly as it is supposed to be an ipod (music phone) so why would you not be able to set a song as ringtone?? seems crazy as all they have is about 10 VERY lame sounds that you can use!! Please help if anyone knows a way of getting music as a ring tone!!
Nadine,
There are many songs (99 cents) you can choose from via iTunes to create a custom ringtone: http://www.apple.com/itunes/store/ringtones.html
Of course, Apple needs to have agreements with the owners of the song. I'm sure a little bit of Googling might reveal a free (but perhaps illicit) way to turn any song into a ringtone!
--Rachel Rosmarin
You state that you have to enter the mail app to see if you have mail. I am using a v1 4gig iphone and my mail is set to download or fetch every half an hour. When it fetches and new messages arrive, I get a number indicating how many new messages I have. This is all done without opening mail. I suspect this functionality is available to you through settings you may need to adjust, unless something has changed.
You state that you have to enter the mail app to see if you have mail. I am using a v1 4gig iphone and my mail is set to download or fetch every half an hour. When it fetches and new messages arrive, I get a number indicating how many new messages I have. This is all done without opening mail. I suspect this functionality is available to you through settings you may need to adjust, unless something has changed.
He meant without even having to look at the phone. The light he referred to was a blinking status light so even if the phone was feet away on a table across the room he would know whether or not he had received new mail or not.
[citation]Out to dinner on Saturday night, two first-gen iPhone toting men spotted my iPhone 3G and introduced themselves as Apple employees.[/citation]
How cute. Two male Apple employees out to dinner with each other. LOL.
Man, my Nokia 3210 would be lucky to get 36-48 hours standby time. 5 hours of talk time is unheard of!
25 minutes battery life on your Treo ? Are you using it as a business tool or an entertainment device ? My Treo, a 650 bought in the 1st week of Cingular / ATT availability(what is it 3+ years old ?) still goes a whole week between charges and that includes keeping my youngest son occupied when he's in the car with me and my daily fix of Sudoku. It shuts itself off at 11 pm and wakes me up at 6:30 am, otherwise it's on all day. Of course I don't take cell calls when I am in my office (about 4 hours a day) and won't do e-mail when a big screen and full size keyboard is available. I just can't imagine a usage pattern that kills batteries as fast as you are .... again assuming the use is as a business tool.
A second comment would be that judging a anyone's performance based upon experiences on "product launch day" is not representative of what anyone would experience whop didn't fell a need to be the first one on their block with "the new thing". Business's have long said an "OS is still a beta until SP3". The numbers say this thing sold at a rate about 3 times higher than anything electronic product in history. As with Firefox's download day, these conditions are bound to cause some hiccups as systems are stretched in a manner that they have never been tested at before. You don't want problems, wait a week for the new gadget.
25 minutes battery life on your Treo ? Are you using it as a business tool or an entertainment device ? My Treo, a 650 bought in the 1st week of Cingular / ATT availability(what is it 3+ years old ?) still goes a whole week between charges and that includes keeping my youngest son occupied when he's in the car with me and my daily fix of Sudoku. It shuts itself off at 11 pm and wakes me up at 6:30 am, otherwise it's on all day. Of course I don't take cell calls when I am in my office (about 4 hours a day) and won't do e-mail when a big screen and full size keyboard is available. I just can't imagine a usage pattern that kills batteries as fast as you are .... again assuming the use is as a business tool.A second comment would be that judging a anyone's performance based upon experiences on "product launch day" is not representative of what anyone would experience whop didn't fell a need to be the first one on their block with "the new thing". Business's have long said an "OS is still a beta until SP3". The numbers say this thing sold at a rate about 3 times higher than anything electronic product in history. As with Firefox's download day, these conditions are bound to cause some hiccups as systems are stretched in a manner that they have never been tested at before. You don't want problems, wait a week for the new gadget.
Thanks for your comments Jack. I'm glad you've had such good luck with your Treo 650. It is quite obvious, however, that my Treo 650 has suffered numerous hardware failures after warranty expiration. Sadly, I know I'm not the only one to have these problems. It was a pain to live with the device for so long, though its problems had nothing to do with my usage pattern.
--Rachel Rosmarin
can t mobile edge works on iphone 3g, and be able to access the safari browser internet