Apple iPhone 3G

Author's product rating:   

Look & Feel	Good
Durability & Robustness	Strong
Battery standby time	Excellent
Value for money	Good
Range of features	Good selection

Advantages:	good game play, long battery life, big memory, touch screen
Disadvantages:	can't extend the memory, texting can be a pain, too huge

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

I owned the I-phone 3G for a month before I sold it on as I couldn't get along with it. My cousin got it on contract from O and even he couldn't handle it, so he sold it to me.
However, as we all know to use the 3G I-phone you need a special I-phone sim card from O2.Instead of me buying the O2 contract sim, I just took the shortcut of unlocking the I-phone 3G, which surprisingly only cost me £10. Therefore, I could use any simcard in the I-phone 3G. I however used my O2 Simplicity contract simcard, which was cheaper than getting an I-phone contract simcard.
The I-phone 3G is only available on O2 and has only just started to be sold as pay as you go, suggesting that you don't have to own up to a contract to own one. Which I thought was a good idea, but the I-phone is very expensive prices starting from £200 all the way up to £500 depending where you buy it from.
When I sold my I-phone as a second hand, I sold it for £350, if it was brand new it could have gone for more.

Packaging

When I got my I-phone from my cousin, it came fully packaged as he had hardly used it, due to the annoyance. The box is black in colour and rather thick, opening the box is easy as you take the top lid off and the first thing you see is the glamorous I-phone.
In the Box was the popular apple headphones. I don't really find the headphone comfortable and they tend to hurt my ear, so I never used them. The headphone can't be used as hand free as they don't have a mic, I heard that the headphones are supposed to have a mic, but I couldn't see it on mine (must be a very small mic possibly).
However, the I-phone does have an integrated mic, suggesting that you can chat on loud speaker when you are calling someone. The speaker is rather loud, however you can control the volume if you have to.
There is a manual in the box, the manual only tells you the start up on how to set up the I-phone, for more info it refers you to the apple website. The manual has pictures, to show you the set up and less words, which I thought was alright.
There was also the mains charger, USB charger, sim ejector, cleaning cloths, and the I-phone 3G itself.
Everything is tightly packages, that when it's taken out it's pretty hard to put it back.
The sim-card ejector is rather small and is used to open the simcard slot. I think this is a great idea for the reason that no one can take out your simcard unless they have the ejector. However the ejector is rather small, therefore if miss-placed you may be in trouble.

I-PHONE 3G Weight and Size

I must say the I-phone is rather long though it's slim in depth. It Weighs quiet a lot too (133 grams) and has a huge screen, probably the biggest I have seen on a mobile. Its width is 6.mm, height 115mm, and the depth is 12mm.
The size of the I-phone 3G really did annoy me as I couldn't easily fit it in my jeans like my other mobiles which I have owned. I found my self having to carry a rather big bag, even when I wanted to use a small handbag as the phone is rather huge.

The i-phone 3G does overall look stylish as it doe not have a keypad and only have one button on its front.

Camera

I must say I was rather disappointed with the camera on the I-phone, it was not the worst I have seen but it was not the best either. The I-phone has a 2 mega pixel camera, which I think is alright, but is not as good as my Sony ericssons ca K770I camera which 3.2 mega pixels. The camera of the I-phone 3G is on its back. It can be easily accessed via the main menu. When taking a picture you can always rotate the camera to either take a picture as portrait or landscape.
I thought it has always been better to take a picture as landscape when using the I-phone 3G for the reason that you can capture more e.g. if it was a large group of people.
You can use your picture as the main background if you want to otherwise you can always select from a number of pictures provided by I-phone.

The camera is also used to take video, which tends out to be 2MEGApixel resolution. I hardly ever used the video function, as it does not interest me, but the resolution is good. You can also record for as long as you want e.g. an hour, 30 seconds (as far as the memory takes you really.).

Memory

I had the 8GB model. The 8GB model only comes in black. If you want the white 3G I-phone you would have to purchase the 16GB version which comes in both white and black.
With the 8GB version it allows you to store at least 2000 music tracks, thousands of pictures and at least eight full movies to watch on the Go.
As you all know I am a music fan, so I used my memory for music.
With the I-phone 3G you can not extend the memory like other mobile phones whereby you can insert a memory card. This did not really bother me a lot as 8GB was enough for me. However, for those whom are into movies on the go, might see 8GB as nothing, therefore would rather buy the 16GB version.

Language

Just like any other phone, you can change the language on the I-Phone to suite you. The languages includes English, Simplified Chinese, French, Ukrainian, Italian, Japanese, traditional Chinese, German, Danish etc.
I was pretty impressed with the language selection, it shows that apple are really interested in selling the I-phone world wide.

Buttons/Controllers

The I-phone 3G only has four buttons on it. The first button is the volume control button which is on the left side of the I-phone when looking on the screen. The volume control, can be used to control all the volumes including game volumes, loudspeaker volume when you are using hands free or listening to music or videos on loud speaker. You can also use the button to control the volume on the headphones and ringtone volume.
The second button is the silent/vibrate or ring button. This button basically puts your phone into silent or ring. I found this button useful as I could turn my phone into silent quickly when I am at work or when I was at school in my lesson. It saved me time in having to go to main menu, then settings etc.
The third button is the sleep button, this puts the I-phone 3G into standby and saves you battery. You would have to press the same button to take the I-phone out of standby or sleep mode (as some know it as).
The fourth button is the main button which is just under the I-phone screen and is used to access the main menu. The button is also use to select some applications and also for playing games and taking pictures or videos.
However, I would say the button is mainly to access the main menu, because every time I pressed it, it usually took me to the main menu. Sometime I found this annoying, as I wouldn't want it to take me to the main menu, it took me quiet a while to get used to this button.

Battery Life

I was impressed with the battery life of the I=Phone 3G, I mainly used it to listen to music and the battery used to last at least 12hours. Basically if I listened to music all day, the battery never ran out, I usually charge my phone in the evening whilst I am sleeping and a full battery gets me through the whole day without me having to charge it twice.
The talk time for the I-Phone 3G is meant to be between 5 and 10 hours depending on your phone settings e.g. 3G or 2g.
3G settings are meant to use more battery than 2G settings apparently. The standby time is approximately 300 hours, my I-phone 3G was hardly on stand by as I used almost all the time (listening to music).
Video playback with the I-phone 3G is approximately 6hours.

Another application that seemed to cosnume battery life was the internet. As with my o2 contracti had free access to the internet, I used to go on social websites and msn via the I-phone 3G and the battery seemed to reduce pretty quickly.
The I-phone 3G has a built in battery, which can be charged either via the PC or the mains charger. However, I noticed that it's charges quicker via the mains rather than the PC or Laptop.
The I-phone does have a battery indicator on the top right hand of the screen, when the battery is about to finish it will warn you and the battery indicator will turn red. The battery life is rather impressive, even though it may indicate red, telling you that the battery is about to finish, it will take at least another hour before the battery actually goes dead.

Messaging

Now we have reached the main thing that put me off the I-Phone 3G. I love texting so much that I send at least 500 text messages every month. With the I-Phone 3G it does not a texting pad as it is touch screen. Therefore you have to use the touch screen key pad to text. When I am texting the words tend to lag and it types very slowly, sometime it sticks for a few seconds, and I find myself having to wait for the words to come up. I normally text fast buy the touch keypad slows me down as it's rather small and if I make a mistake it takes ages to delete the word or letter.
This is all the same when I am trying to send an email, chatting on msn or trying to chat to someone on social websites. So I was really put off and I thought I was going to get used to it, but unfortunately I had to give up.
If I was the kind of person who is not into texting but likes calling people a lot instead I wouldn't have sold on my I-phone 3G. Another thing that put me off is the expensive accessories for the I-Phone, a case for an I-phone cost me £24 which is a lot for one cover case.

You can however, send pcitures, videos etc with the I-phone 3G, but when it comes to typing you could be sending one sms forever unless if you are patient. Sending a picture message does not take long at all especially if you put the I-phone 3G on 3G which allows it to send messages faster.

Connection

Like many old mobiles the I-phone 3G does not have infrared. It however, does have Bluetooth connection which you can use to connect to other mobiles devices or PC,s which have are Bluetooth enabled. With the Bluetooth you can send different types of applications and documents wirelessly upto ten metres in range. Bluetooth is possibly the best way to send pictures to your friends or family as it does not cost you a penny, the problem is they would need a mobile with Bluetooth and there have to be near you (so it will be useless if your friend is in America and you are all the way in Europe).

You can use the USB connection to connect to your PC or laptop which enables you to synchronize music and videos onto your I-Phone 3G. The USB connection is possibly the easiest way of transferring music onto your I-Phone 3G via I-tunes.
With the I-phone 3G you can also connect to the internet. I must say my experience on the internet with the I-Phone 3G has never been amazing. The Big screen totally showed its full potential
You can always connect via wi-fi which you can either buy from your network provider or a wi-fi provider such as 'the cloud'.

The reception quality is good, when using my O2 simcard i never had problems when connecting to the internet, it all seemed to be fast and within seconds.

Other Specifications

--It supports WMA, MP3, VBR, Apple Lossless, and WAV output. Therefore, the frequency of the audio ranges from 20HZ to 20,000HZ, depending on the audio format.

--You can access wi-fi on the I-phone 3G but only if you have the tariff from your network provider.

---The I-Phone 3G has touch screen suggesting that to access any of the applications on the mobile you will need to use your fingers. The I-phone does not come with a pen to use on the touch screen like other touch screen mobiles such as PDAs.

---You can play different types of games on the I-phone 3G. Most of the games which are compatible with the I-phone 3G can be found on I-tunes. Some of the games are rather expensive. It's a bit cool when you are playing games such as racing games because you can use the I-phone as the steering wheel.

---The I-phone 3G takes different types of video formats including mov files, MP4, M4V, etc.

---Just like any other mobiles the I-Phones 3G does have notepad for your notes, a calendar to keep all your anniversaries, a timer,

---The I-phone 3G has GPs suggesting that it can work like a sat-nav giving you directions in the area you are going to. You will however, need internet connection to access this application.

---You can view different files on the I-phone 3G including excel, adobe pdf, PowerPoint, Microsoft word etc. Which is rather impressive.

---Like many mobiles you can use your music as a ringtone for both calls and messaging.

---The security on the I-phone is rather tight. You can set a four digit passcode which you have to enter whenever your phone is keypad locked. To make the security even tighter you can always change the settings so that the I-phone locks itself after certain minutes or seconds.
I find this very helpful that I actually set a passcode for my I-phone and set it to lock automatically. It however does get annoying soemtime when it locks itself automatically and I want to change the track of music I am listening to.

---When you are listening to downloaded music or music from an album you bought the I-phone will show you the album picture and will also recommend you music which you might like.

---You can download loads of application for your I-phone 3G but you ought to be careful as some applications may be viruses.

----The I-phone 3G has a weather application which allows you to see the weather in a lot of cities around the world, and also shows you the current time of the city.

---You can save contacts in your I-phone 3G as well as in your simcard.

Recommendation

Apart from the annoying touch-screen pad I would recommend the I-phone to those who want to try out something new. The sensory application is a bit amusing whereby it rotates the pictures or application itself automatically when you change the angle of the I-Phone 3g.
The I-phone 3G really takes you to the next level in the mobile world, the internet experience is amazing as the huge screen shows you everything on the web page. The 3G makes sure you get to the internet faster which differs from the GPRS connection. Setting the I-phone is easy even those who are not into technology you will not find it hard to set up your I-phone. As soon as you plug it into your PC or Laptop it will take you to the apple website to download I-tunes. I-tunes will automatically gather all the music and video files in your PC and gets it ready to synchronize. I-tunes will also tell you the memory left in your I-phone. It's pretty easy to browse around the I-phone.
The I-phone 3G is the best mobile phone I have owned, too bad we couldn't get along.

Note

--- To transfer music to and from your I-phone 3G you will need I-tunes higher than 7.7. Your P.C will need to have a USB 2.0 port to connect the I-phone 3G, your PC or Laptop windows XP, Professional, Vista or Mac OS X,
---The I-phone 3G comes in different colours, white and black, However if you want the white one you can only get it as a 16GB rather than the 8Gb. The 16Gb version of the I-phone 3G tends to be more expensive.
---You can't extend the memory of the I-Phone 3G.
---The I-phone 3G is touch screen.
---The I-phone 3G can be bought from an O2 shop or possibly eBay on either contract or pay as you go. You can easily unlock the I-phone 3G if you prefer to stay on your current network.
---It is recommended that you upgrade the I-phone 3G software as soon as you start using it, so that you may not get the viruses from downloaded applications which are not associated with Apple.
---The I-phone 3G screen does scratch easily, so it's best you buy a case for it or a screen protector.
---Please for more info about the iphone don't hesitate to visit the apple website.