Apple iPhone 3GS 16GB

Probably a little late on this review since there has been at least another 2 upgrades to this but I'm still rockin' mine so thought I'd go for it.

I was a little sceptical about getting an iPhone at first but thought I would go with the crowd so when my contract was ready for an upgrade I decided to join the iPhone club. I have never been a fan of Apple products or software & this phone pretty much sums up why.

So I get my eagerly awaited package from the delivery guy, open the box & immediately I am at a loss. Not being one for instructions I crack on & just want it to work immediately but my first problem...Where do you put the sim card? This had me at a loss for a little while till I finally figure out that it goes in a little slot in the top which already, before I even have the thing switched on, has annoyed me. So you get a little tool in the box to fit in the ridiculously small hole to get the slot to pop out, I'm sure there are some people that are very careful with their things, but I am certainly not. I lost that very quickly so from then on if you ever want to take out your sim card you have to find a pin or something very thin to fit in. I know this is a bit of a minor grumble as how often do you take your sim card out but still, not off to a good start.

So sim card in, surely just switch it on & ready to rock? Nah, it is Apple after all. Before you can do anything you have to plug it into your PC & get it set up on that. I know just about everyone in the world has at least access to a PC or laptop it still seems a bit crazy you MUST have one just to get the thing going. To be honest I have no idea about most other phones but any phone I have ever had (& that's a lot!) this has not been the case.

So the first two things I need to do with this thing have already annoyed the hell out of me. BOOOOOOO!

Ok I'll stop moaning briefly & lay down the technical specs as taken from the Apple website:

SIZE & WEIGHT

Height: 4.5 inches (115.5 mm)

Width: 2.4 inches (62.1 mm)

Depth: 0.48 inch (12.3mm)

Weight: 4.8 ounces (135 grams)

COLOUR & CAPACITY

Black or White
8GB or 16GB flash drive

CELLULAR & WIRELESS

UMTS/HSDPA (850, 1900, 2100 MHz)
GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz)

802.11b/g Wi-Fi

Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR wireless technology

LOCATION

Assisted GPS

Digital compass

Wi-Fi

Cellular

DISPLAY

3.5-inch (diagonal) widescreen Multi-Touch display

480-by-320-pixel resolution at 163 ppi

Fingerprint-resistant oleophobic coating

Support for display of multiple languages and characters simultaneously

CAMERA, PHOTO'S & VIDEO

Video recording, VGA up to 30 frames per second with audio

3-megapixel still camera

Autofocus

Tap to focus

Photo and video geotagging

POWER & BATTERY

Built-in rechargeable lithium-ion battery

Charging via USB to computer system or power adapter

Talk time: Up to 5 hours on 3G, up to 12 hours on 2G

Standby time: Up to 300 hours

Internet use: Up to 5 hours on 3G, up to 9 hours on Wi-Fi

Video playback: Up to 10 hours

Audio playback: Up to 30 hours

AUDIO PLAYBACK

Frequency response: 20Hz to 20,000Hz

Audio formats supported: AAC (8 to 320 Kbps), Protected AAC (from iTunes Store), HE-AAC, MP3 (8 to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, Audible (formats 2, 3, 4, Audible Enhanced Audio, AAX, and AAX+), Apple Lossless, AIFF, and WAV

User-configurable maximum volume limit

TV & VIDEO

Video out support at 576p and 480p with Apple Component AV Cable; 576i and 480i with Apple Composite AV Cable (cables sold separately)

Video formats supported: H.264 video, up to 1.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Low-Complexity version of the H.264 Baseline Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; H.264 video, up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Baseline Profile up to Level 3.0 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps per channel, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; MPEG-4 video, up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats

EARPHONES

Apple Earphones with Remote and Mic

Frequency response: 20Hz to 20,000Hz

Impedance: 32 ohms

MAIL ATTACHMENT SUPPORT

Viewable Document Types

.jpg, .tiff, .gif (images); .doc and .docx (Microsoft Word); .htm and .html (web pages); .key (Keynote); .numbers (Numbers); .pages (Pages); .pdf (Preview and Adobe Acrobat); .ppt and .pptx (Microsoft PowerPoint); .txt (text); .rtf (rich text format); .vcf (contact information); .xls and .xlsx (Microsoft Excel)

SENSORS

Accelerometer

Proximity sensor

Ambient light sensor

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

Apple ID (required for some features)

Internet access

Syncing with iTunes on a Mac or PC requires:
â—¦Mac: OS X v10.5.8 or later
â—¦PC: Windows 7; Windows Vista; or Windows XP Home or Professional with Service Pack 3 or later
â—¦iTunes 10.5 or later (free download from www.itunes.com/download)

ENVIRONMENTAL REQUIREMENTS

Operating temperature: 32° to 95° F (0° to 35° C)

Nonoperating temperature: -4° to 113° F (-20° to 45° C)

Relative humidity: 5% to 95% noncondensing

Maximum operating altitude: 10,000 feet (3000 m)

IN THE BOX

iPhone 3GS

Apple Earphones with Remote and Mic

Dock Connector to USB Cable

USB Power Adapter

Documentation

If you bothered to read that you can see that it is rather feature packed but I will start again by shooting it down some more,

BATTERY LIFE

This has got to be the worst point of the iPhone, it is just ridiculous. Stand by time isn't too bad but what is the point in having it if you aren't going to use it. I generally have to charge mines at least a couple times a day but I do use it rather a lot. Also with the battery being built in there is no option to carry a spare.

FEATURES

It is a handy little gadget indeed, the touch screen is very useable, I've had a touch screen before this & this is way better. No need for a stylus, which I'd lose rapidly anyway. The wifi is good on it but as to be expected the range isn't quite what you'd get with typical PC hardware but what can you expect from a phone, but the bluetooth... pointless is all I can say. You can play some games via bluetooth and thats about it. You can send pictures & video to another iPhone but thats it I believe. The sensors are very hand which brings us onto...

APPS

There's an app for that. Over 500,000, actually. This is clearly the main selling point of the phone. There is literally an app for just about anything you can imagine, I just downloaded one called runpee, which tells you when it's safe to go to the toilet so you don't miss anything important in the film, loads of games, some good, some not so good, news, weather, sport, you can even watch tv on it which is great. The head start Apple have got with all the apps will make it very hard for other competitors to catch up. I believe the latest Windows phone has around 70,000 apps, which is still a lot but compared to the amount you get with this it seems frankly rather poor. The apps are broken down into the following categories:

Books
Business
Catalogues
Education
Entertainment
Finance
Games
Health & Fitness
Lifestyle
Medical
Music
Navigation
News
Newsstand
Photo & Video
Productivity
Reference
Social Networking
Sports
Travel
Utilities
Weather

So as you can see, there really is an app for just about anything.

You also have a featured app section & a top 25 section as well as genius which is taken from iTunes.

9/10

EASE OF USE

Have to say the iPhone was really easy to get to grips with, very user friendly & everything kinda works how you would expect it to. It can be a little tricky fiddling about with settings but generally one of the easiest phones I have used.

8/10

SOUND

Have to say the sound through the headphones is very good, no complaints there at all but through the external speakers it is pretty poor, even compared to most other phones I've heard but if you get a half decent docking station then you're laughing. The ability to limit the max headphone volume I would imagine is very good for parents who are concerned about ear damage to the kiddies but for me it can never be lound enough.

7/10

PHONE

As a phone, it is pretty basic but more than does the job, the keypad when you open up the phone is nice and large for all of you with fat fingers, contact list is straight forward, texting is actually quite good on it although the corrective texting can get quite annoying at times, the e-mail is pretty good on it & the safari internet is fairly decent too.

8/10

DURABILITY

Well I have to say my phones get a hard life & that's been about 2 years I've had this & it's still on the go, I do have a crack along the corner of the screen & the back is a bit of a scratchy mess but I did decide to get the white one & I don't do covers so musn't grumble. I have dropped it so many times drunk it's amazing it's still alive. So on the basis my phones have a very hard life I give it top marks here considering it's not specifically designed for punishment like a few other phones are.

9/10

OVERALL

This really should have been the best phone ever & it so nearly is but just too many stupid things that annoy me about it. Ideally I would like to plug my phone into my PC and just drag files such as MP3 and pictures and video in & out but everything has to be done through iTunes. It's not a programme I would ever use on my computer if I didn't have an iPhone. The whole point in this really is that you have everything you need all rolled into one & you pretty much have, I can phone, text, e-mail, surf, listen to music, play games, check the weather, book tickets, find restaurants, even use it as sat nav but with the terrible battery life it almost makes more sense to have a normal phone & get an iPod touch which makes it pointless. It wouldn't take much to sort it out & make it virtually perfect but Apple will never make this happen unfortunately. I'm sure a few of the niggles have been improved in the later models but the OS is basically the same so they'll be a bit faster, maybe a couple new features but essentially the same thing in a new box.

7/10

Not everyone will agree with me, plus I do like a good moan & I'm hard to please. I'd still recommend it to just about anyone & the amount I use it I do have a cheek to moan.

Thanks for reading!