Anand Reviews the Apple iPhone 3G
by Anand Lal Shimpi on July 16, 2008 8:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Mobile
The Bundle
The iPhone 3G comes in a similar box to what the original iPhone did, which is Apple’s typical excellent packaging. It took me nearly a year to finally throw out my last iPhone box, it’s totally irrational but the damn thing just looks so good and is so well made. Yes, I’m talking about the box. The white iPhone also comes in a white box. Cute.
iPhone the Grey, er White.
Unfortunately it’s what’s inside the box that disappoints. You get the same cleaning cloth, USB cable and earbuds with mic that came with the original iPhone, which is fine.
The old power adapter (left) vs. the new power adapter (right)
You get a wall plug, which is now significantly smaller (your wall adapters will also work fine).
Nice touch, but no dock.
You get a SIM card removal tool, but you get no dock.
The iPhone dock was the most regularly used accessory by me, and because of the shape of the iPhone 3G it won’t fit in the old dock. And the phone doesn’t ship with a new dock. You’ll have to fork over an extra $30 to get a new dock for the iPhone 3G.
Even if you can get the iPhone 3G in the old dock, it tends to just pop right out
The dock connector itself hasn’t changed, so devices that worked with your iPhone will work with the iPhone 3G. But anything with a snug fit around the base of the phone will most likely cause problems thanks to the change in shape.
Apple should’ve bundled a dock.
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cocoviper - Thursday, July 17, 2008 - link
Well I think it depends on how we define free. Since you're paying so much for the iPhone's plan one would think they could (or should) include it at some point.The Instinct does turn-by-turn voice GPS and it's included in the phone's plan.
jcal710 - Thursday, July 17, 2008 - link
Anand,You talked about the problems with contact syncing on Exchange. How configurable is it? Does it automatically default to your top level 'Contacts' folder in your Exchange mailbox, or can your point it somewhere else? Do you have the option of choosing whether or not to sync subfolders?
Griswold - Thursday, July 17, 2008 - link
I'm glad I didnt go for the first iphone, that way I can appreciate my 3G more(besides the fact that it wasnt sold until the 11th of july in this country and I would have been forced to import one and jailbreak it).Anand, your friend with the huge lips doesnt listen to the name of S.Tyler by chance? :P
ViRGE - Thursday, July 17, 2008 - link
Anand, do you know if Apple's A-GPS implementation requires cellular network access? Some do, others can revert to traditional GPS operation if there's no cellular network to offer location assistance. I'm curious which of this it isObrut - Thursday, July 17, 2008 - link
So how is it even remotely possible that there hasn’t been a real iPhone competitor in the year since the original’s release?Nokia N95 8GB is far superior to iPhone and it was released even before the first iPhone.
It's right to say there's no competition here. Apple need at least 3-4 more years to be truly competitive to Nokia. I think iPhone is better solution for americans. In Europe you need 3.5G or 4G phone to be truly connected.
michael2k - Thursday, July 17, 2008 - link
You're serious aren't you?Let us count the ways then:
iPhone screen resolution is 2x the Nokia screen resolution
iPhone is nearly half as thick as the Nokia
CPU of nearly twice the speed
The Nokia's one physical advantage is the 5MP cammera (which is only possible because the Nokia is twice as thick).
Obrut - Friday, July 18, 2008 - link
OK, let's count, Michael...1. Screen resolution is bigger and it should be simply because the display is much bigger. The display is much bigger because it's a touchscreen, though not big enough for my fingers.
2. iPhone is thin and that's because it has merely 4 buttons and a low profile, low-end camera. By the way how do you play games without buttons?
3. Speaking of games how do you play OpenGL games? I play Quake 2 with full lighting effects and FSAA at 40 FPS. What about the JAVA games?
4. N95 8GB is a dual CPU solution (2 x ARM 11 @ 332MHz) hence no lower performance here.
5. The 5MP camera of N95 8GB is more that just megapixels - it has Carl Zeiss optics, decent flashlight and can capture movies at 640x480@30FPS. In addition - correct me if I'm wrong but I don't see the front camera which every decent 3G phone has. How can I make a video call with iPhone? After all this is one of the best 3G features.
I can continue counting the battery, office productivity and so on, but this is not the place. I don't want to engage in a Nokia vs. Apple or N9x vs. iPhone battle here. I just don't like statements like "there's no competition", "best phone ever" etc. The most accurate thing to say is that iPhone is the best touchphone to date.
Griswold - Thursday, July 17, 2008 - link
Why talk if you dont know what you're talking about? 3.5G is called HSDPA (an extension to UMTS) in europe, which is supported by the iphone 3G. 4G isnt even available yet, think 2010 for commercial use, so why mention it?Why is there no competition? Because none of the competition has a smartphone that comes with this usability. All the other phones can do the same or more, yes. But all of them feel clumsy like a brick when using them. That is why there is no competition. And this comes from somebody who truly doesnt like apple and its godfather jobs...
cocoviper - Thursday, July 17, 2008 - link
Speaking of not knowing what you're talking about...HSDPA isn't 3.5G, it's definitely AT&T's 3G and that is what the iPhone 3G supports. That's the 3G that Anand complained is not really that much faster.
If there were a "3.5G" in AT&T's portfolio it would be HUPSA (the one that they just upped the offered speeds on.) However AT&T currently doesn't offer any phones that are HUPSA capable. They only have a couple of Aircards for laptops.
And yes, 4G is available in many parts of the world besides the US my friend. WiMax alone is deployed 119 countries currently. LTE is the only 4G that's "not even available yet," and that's because it's yet to be developed. (LTE isn't even into the whitepaper stage yet.)
So don't slam other people especially since there's always someone that will know more than you.
sources -> http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/RDM.Tech.Q1.07/93...">http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/RDM.Te...A0BF6-62...
http://www.ctia.org/consumer_info/wow/index.cfm/20...">http://www.ctia.org/consumer_info/wow/index.cfm/20...
cocoviper - Thursday, July 17, 2008 - link
*HSUPA not HUPSA :-P