iPhone 3G Review

I have now had my iPhone 3G phone for a few days so I think its time to write about my experience so far.

I decided that this year I would line up on Friday morning for the iPhone, I got a bit of luck in that the weather in Chicago on Thursday night was very bad rain so when I got to the AT&T shop at 7am there was only about 20 people in line in front of me. As there were a number of techy people in the line the time flew by. At 8 the store opened and the 1st 5 people were allowed in. 8:45 must have been the time that the systems started to go down and it was then the line started to move. I was in and out of the store with in 30 mins and back up by 9:30.

I was not happy when I got home, after the AT&T store telling us it was the “Store’s” computers that were down, to find that it was Apple yet again letting everyone down. At about 3pm on Frinday I finally got my new Phone working and it wasn’t until 10am on Saturday morning that my Voice Mail was working.

So how am I enjoying the new iPhone, well first the bad news.
The Battery – I have found that the battery is not as good as my old iPhone even with 3G turned, I have found that I need to charge my phone at least once again, my old phone was every other day.
The Camera – Although I believe that the camera takes a better photo its still only a 2Mb camera and this could have been a lot better especially with the New Apps and location services. Also still no Video.
SMS & MMS – Still no multi media messages and you are still unable to forward text messages.
IM- Still no IM apart for AIM that only works when the App is open, although this is to be fixed in September we are told.
Crashing – I have noticed that the iPhone does now crash at least once a day I am hoping this is going to be fixed in a future update.

Now the good!!!
GPS – This is one of the best parts to the phone and all the Apps that are now using location services is great, the fact that I can take a picture and upload to flickr and I can see a map of were it was taken is great.
3G – This is a definite plus to the phone and the Internet is faster when using 3G. I do however thing that there is still work to do as when I use 3G for calls I do get some dropped calls.
Push email – Push email is good but not great as only about 80% of my mails get pushed I guess this is more to do with Apple’s lack of infrastructure for MobileMe and will improve in time.
Apps – The Apps are one of the best things about iPhone 2.0 and I will cover this in another blog.
Settings -  I do like the fact that I now have more control over what I turn off when in Airplane mode I can now have wifi ON something I really wanted.

All in all I am very happy with the new iPhone, Apple still has a lot of work to do but I am sure this will be done soon. I hope so!!!

My MobileMe review can be found here http://delboycarter.wordpress.com/2008/07/23/mobileme-review/

My Apps/Apps Store review can be found here http://delboycarter.wordpress.com/2008/07/24/apples-app-store-and-apps-review/