iPhone 3G Review

The downside of such speedy downloads is a reduced battery life, something the original couldn't stand to lose much of. We're do more testing of that soon. But here's an interesting thing: According to the data out there, the iPhone 3G has better battery life using 3G than the old iPhone does using EDGE. This need an explanation. Apple's official browsing battery life rating on Wi-Fi is 6 hours for both models. They never rated the EDGE battery life but most testers found it to be about 25% less than Wi-Fi. That's 4.5 hours. The iPhone 3G rating is 5 hours of browsing. Apple is claiming that it's 5 hours for both the new iPhone 3G and the EDGE on the old one. We shall investigate such claims soon. But I wish Apple would take me up on my idea for using the 3G only for active browsing, maps and certain apps that need it, dynamically switching to EDGE for IMing, email downloading and weather checking.

Phone-wise, doing side-by-side calls, the difference when using the new phone and old is like the difference between talking to someone with their hand over their mouth and with their hand taken away. While the new iPhone's speaker and mic definitely improve sound quality, it seems packets do matter too. When the the phone is running on a 3G network (in downtown NY), calls sound especially clear compared to the old iPhone. But when both iPhones are on EDGE, the call difference is noticeable, but not night and day. Even the speakerphone's audio is much louder and so, music played through the mono speaker is also improved.

The old iPhone's location detector was accurate within a few blocks, using Skyhook's system of logging cellular towers and Wi-Fi spot MAC addresses and pairing them with physical addreses. The new A-GPS system is accurate within meters, opening up the iPhone to more useful location-based apps, maps and geotagging of photos.

The A-GPS helps get quicker fixes in the city, compared with a typical PND. However it doesn't refresh as quickly (every 5 to 15 steps), and won't give you a "heading-up" view, so when you're walking, it takes a bit longer to figure out where you're going. This is clearly optimized for walking, though in a pinch it could help lost drivers. The greater accuracy isn't the only reason it's better than the older iPhone: The ability to track your path is a nice enhancement too. The time to GPS lock is between 1 and 10 seconds, using a combination of Wi-Fi and cellular as well as GPS. 

Apple didn't write a dedicated turn-by-turn navigator for driving, with voice, but now we hear that companies are making them, so we look forward to revisiting this once real navi apps are out.

The old iPhone's software can take a photo and email it or send it to a MobileMe gallery, but the camera itself is relatively weak. It won't capture video, and I've lost countless YouTube hits by not having a video device at the ready. This situation has not been improved much.

The new camera has the same 2MP shooter which returns 1600 x 1200 pixels. There still isn't video capture. Image processing seems to be slightly less grainy but it's not something you would notice. The MP count would be fine, but the low-light quality is still terrible. Nokia and Motorola have built thin phones with better imaging, why not Apple? And Apple's forte is software, so why can't they beef up the software tools, by adding image stabilizers and noise reducers, not to mention Photo Booth-type frames and effects?

This is really not a revolutionary phone. It's more like the iPhone we wished Apple made last year. But basics, like cut, copy and paste are still missing. (As is MMS) As well are the ability to use the phone like a hard drive. Other than that, we're hoping for some more revolutionary changes to come by software update. And let's take a moment to remember how many developers are making killer iPhone programs right this second. There's the revolution.

So the hardware is interesting in the iPhone 3G, but the real story here is the new iPhone OS 2.0 firmware, which we've written about in depth here. You manage to install that, iPhone users, you've got about 80% of this new iPhone's new mojo. But if you're not making your calls on an iPhone yet, well then, what are you waiting for?