Apple iphone 3G
I swore to myself that after I had gotten myself out of the 10k worth of debt that I had somehow managed to acquire, that I would never have another contract phone as they were “a total rip off”. However one particularly hung over morning I suddenly got the urge to own one of these iphone that everyone was going on about. I really got a bee in my bonnet about it and ended phoning up all the phone stores in my area to see if anyone had one. Eventually I found a single renaming phone at the Orange store which I demanded they held until I drove into town to claim it as my own.
So less than two hours later I was walking out of the Orange store with a new contracted iphone with a girly pink iphone case all together in a tiny little Orange shop bag. I had a big smile on my face even though I felt rather sad that I had gone back on my word and was now tied in to a £35 a month 18 month long contract, and indeed I still do. That said however I have literally found the best phone ever in this iphone and I have to say that I really don't know how I coped without it before!
Price and Availability
As I said before I had to hunt around every to get this “outdated” iphone 3 so availability is not brilliant and you either have to order one in at a specific shop or most probably order from the Apple store direct. Looking on the internet there does seem to be a lot of different stores that are selling them but it is always worth checking in advance with the store to see if the phone is in stock.
The price for a pay as you go phone can again depend on where you are buying it from but around the £400 mark seems to be more or less standard. The apple store is selling them for £428 with free delivery for a pay as you go.
I do think that the mobile phone operators are not rushing to get these on a contract offer and when I did a quick scout of different options available, there really did seem to be very few to choose from. Orange did seem to have the best deals to offer and I am not too disappointed with paying £35 for my contract as the package I got had the right amount of calls and texts for me to be able to chat and text much more than I have been doing in previous months.
Look and Instillation
Most people have probably now seen the iphone 3 and in my opinion it looks pretty smart but quite a lot more confusing. I really didn’t' think that I would be able to get the hang of using it as when I had seen other people use theirs it looked so different from a regular phone. The phone has a large 3 ½ inch touch screen which is where you control everything from. There are minimal buttons actually on the phone, one large main button at the bottom of the touch screen, the volume up and down button is located on the left hand side of the phone next to a really handy mute button. The only other button is the on/off button on the top of the phone which also works as a screen lock button is pressed quickly.
The phone is predominately black in colour though mine looks far more jazzier now that I have covered it in a bright pink coloured hard case.
The case seems to make the phone more personalised as it is different from every ones at work but I have still seen plenty of people with this very same cover. The overall look of the phone is of course very modern and very sleek looking. The phone itself is lightweight compared to my last Nokia N95 phone but the size of the thing is so much bigger and this aspect did take some time to get used to.
Getting the phone itself up and running was pretty straight forward and luckily the sales assistant in the Orange shop got the phone registered for me with apple and with orange. It did need a good deal of charging up before use and it took a couple of hours or so for my contract to be up and running for me to send messages and make calls and at first I was a little unsure as how best to use it. However once my network connection was running it didn't take long for me to type in my password for my Wi-Fi connection at home and get up and running using the itunes store. I already have an apple ipod so my laptop was all set up with the necessary programmes for me to add my collection of music to my phone.
I have to say that I was really surprised with how straight forward and simple it was to get up and running with both the phone itself and the connection to all the applications available. As I said before I was a little worried that I wouldn't have a clue how to work the phone or that it would take me ages to suss out how to get the best from it but I would say that it has been the easiest of phones to navigate around and to use. I probably think my mother would even be able to work it out in a reasonable amount of time.
Whats It all About?
The Apple iphone is not just a phone it is like carrying a little computer around in your pocket. I have more or less made my old ipod redundant since getting this and it now sits at home in its docking station and I use it when at home just like having my CD collection on tap. I can link my iphone up to my car every time I drive with simply slipping a connector into the port in the top of the phone and not only does this make all my downloaded music available for me to play through my speakers but it also asks as a hands free kit because if I get a phone call whilst its plugged in playing music, I hear it ring and the caller through my speakers, its brilliant.
So the iphone can replace a car hands free kit, a regular mobile phone and an mp3 player but what else?
There is a camera and a video camera on the iphone but it is really not that good. There is no flash for the camera which makes it pretty naff at taking photos in the dark. Saying that I did have an evening out with work not so long ago and took a few pictures in the dimly lit restaurant which although not the clearest or brightest pictures was still not too bad. It still beats carrying around a camera separately to capture any special moments so I would say it also replaces a day to day camera.
Getting onto the internet is so simple at home or when out and about. It really saves a lot of effort in putting the laptop on for a quick check of something on google (Himself thinks he knows everything which really annoys me and means I have to google everything he says to try to catch him out!
Most of the time he is right which is really sickening!) So I can't say that it replaces a laptop for my overall internet use but I would say that it replaces having to turn on the laptop quite so often and does fill time when waiting for the dentist!
I have also downloaded the Amazon Kindle application meaning that I am able to have a constant stash of reading material available to me because of all the free ebooks that Amazon are letting people have therefore I never have to carry around my bedtime book just in case I get a spare 5 minutes to read a few pages, I just carry on with the book I am reading on my iphone! Thus making my handbag less full of clutter by replacing my book with the iphone!
Although I am not a massive gaming fan, the fact that you are able to install a lot of free applications has meant that I have started to play a lot of different little games such as my current favourite “Tiny Chef” where you have to cook and serve different meals to customers to earn coins which allow you to continually improve your restaurant and the choice of foods on offer. It may sound naff but it is really quite addictive! I wouldn't have ever carried about a portable games player such as an old school Gameboy or current Nintendo DS but if I had I certainly wouldn't need to now having this iphone as there are so many different types of games literally at your finger tips you can play whatever you want whenever you want.
I have also been able to turn of my alarm clock on my bedside table which is a clock radio. The reason for this is that I have thought it silly to wait power having this on when my phone is on anyway and I have now installed an application called “Night Stand” which glows all night displaying the time and also offers an alarm clock with a few strange alarm tones. Of course this is more or less a standard with any old regular phone but the overall look of this application and the way it works makes it a great thing thing to make use of.
There are other things that the iphone has to offer which mean you can get rid of the old method of doing things include adding addresses to your phone contacts (ridding your paper type address book), adding dates to your virtual calendar and setting alarms (ridding your paper calender and meaning you never miss a birthday), recording special voice messages and notes (ridding the old style Dictaphone) and the list really does go on.
But these things can all be done on any modern-ish mobile phone so what is the real draw and appeal to the iphone?
Okay so the main reason for me getting one of these phone was the fact that everyone seemed to be talking about “apps”. Get a new “appt” for this, get the latest “app” for that and at 27 I felt old and really “not with it” and never wanting to be out of the loop I felt that to know about the “apps” and be up on the latest “trend” I needed one of these phones, pronto.
I am so glad that I did because these “apps” that everyone is talking about really are BRILIANT. Apps, short for applications, can range from anything such as games, information like local/regional news, weather, lotto results, to doing your Tesco grocery shop by scanning in the bar code.
There are so man useful applications that it would really need a whole review in itself to go through all the ones that I personally have come across which I find so useful.
Another favourite application of mine is Disney Crafts. This gives a whole ton of things to make and do for people of all different ages. There are things to make that take 5 minutes or trickier things that take longer and generally someone of a older age to complete. There are a hundred or so things to make and do and it shows you a picture of the final product, things you will need to make it and how you go about doing it! There really are so many great ideas avaliable at the touch of the screen!
I love the fact that I can get youtube on the iphone as this means having all those clips and videos again compressed into this small machine. Using this combined with the BBC iplayer and other services like this mean that watching a programme or listening to live radio is all possible and given at a high quality sound and visual resolution.
I also find myself using the eBay application a lot of the time as I do a fair bit of selling and I am able to quickly and efficiently check on my items I have listed or items that I may be watching or bidding on. Browsing for things to buy is really easy too.....far too easy for my liking!!! But being able to be out and about and see your ending items and their final listing price is a really good tool to have if you do a lot of selling.
The fact that there are so many free applications available for the iphone means that you can install them and see what they are like and then if you decide you don't use it that much it takes all but a hold down on the icon and another press to delete it and all the corresponding data! Simple! I am so amazed by all the applications that I am probably spending way too much time looking at the app store and seeing what new free ones are available and ones which I might like/use. There are of course tons more applications that cost various amounts of money to buy and once set up to use the iphone store all it takes is entering your password for them to deduct the amount from your linked bank account (slightly dangerous in the wrong hands!). I am unable to express how brilliant I find the applications as a whole (I am easily impressed) but just for this aspect alone I would wholly recommend the iphone over any other new phone.
The battery life on the phone is not that great but considering how much I use it for it is not surprising that I have to keep it on charge throughout the night to do a full charge up.
Having multiple chargers at home and one at work means that i am always able to charge if the need arises and I would really advise this!
Making Calls and Sending Messages
All right so I have gone on about all the nifty functions but I haven't mentioned about the basics of making a call and sending a message, after all this is what some people just use their phone for! With the text messaging I found it took a while to get used to the “QWERTY” type of keyboard that you have to use but turning the iphone on its side means the screen self adjusts to the new position and the keyboard is in turn larger and easy to use with both thumbs.
When sending messages to the same person I like the fact that all the messages to and fro are displayed in speech bubbles in two colours allowing you to easily see whole conversations when scrolling the screen up.
Making phone calls is quick and easy and although I haven't used the 3G option it is another method of contacting people if you so wish. The sound is both clear and loud and when on speaker phone doesn't seem to get distorted in the least. Storing and retrieving contacts is very easy and no more complicated than any other phone and I like the fact that my own number is stored at the top of the contacts list because I never can remember it!
Conclusion
Well I feel I really could ramble on for ever about this iphone and I probably have done that enough! There are so many useful aspects to the iphone that its really any wonder I have found the time to tear myself away from it long enough to write this mammoth review but seeing as how impressed I am with it I though I better rave to you guys about it!
There is so much you can get from this iphone that it is a library, television, computer, alarm clock and personal device all in one. I can only real find one fault with this model and that is the fact that the camera is pretty naff but of course newer iphone models have rectified this I think.
All in all though I really don't know how I could ever go back to a normal phone again. I would highly recommend the iphone and for that reason give it a top score of 5 out of 5!
A couple of useful things I have learnt
~ To make sure all your applications are not continuously running and thus draining your battery, double tap the main button at the bottom of the screen and all the apps you have looked at will come up. Hold our finger on one of these for a second to get a red “remove” button appear on it then close the application back to the desktop to use again at a later time. (saves battery life)
~ To get a full stop in the text message easily, double tap the space bar and one will appear! (saves changing screen to get it).
**If anyone has any other hints and tips to get the best out of the iphone I would love to hear them!**Many thanks for taking the time to read.
I do hope that this has been of some help/interest to you.
==I have not added any specifications for this iphone mainly because you can find these on any retail site for you to look at and compare models. This review is not very technical but gives my opinion on how I get the best use of the product for me==
~Hits The 3-G Spot- Apple iphone 3G~ 
Top review really detailed!