So, as I’m sure everyone on here who has an iPhone has done, here’s my review on this little beauty…just by that you can already guess, I’m a fan of this!
After my last contract with o2 expired three months back, I had the choice to renew everything and seeing as there was a distinct lack of phones available with o2 (in hindsight, I would have perhaps opted to look at the phones available with contracts provided by the Carphone Warehouse) I bit the bullet and went for the iPhone 3G 8GB version…the 3GS was available, but I’m not made of money and lets be honest, to pay that much extra for a bit more storage space, voice control and a video camera is not worth it in my honest opinion.
I’m sure you’re all aware of what it looks like, but if not it’s a touch screen operated phone which is a glossy black little number. A smooth back cover and a flat front screen make it look very aesthetically pleasing.
First of all, to get your sim card into the phone, there is a small hole in the top of the phone which pulls out if you get something like a pin inside it – it reveals a thin draw in which the sim card sits and then can be pushed back inside the phone. Also sat on top of the phone is the headphone input and the power button; hold it down for a few seconds to switch it on, and to switch it off hold for about 4 or 5 seconds and then brush your finger across the screen to confirm switch off. On the left-hand side of the phone are a set of buttons – one is a switch to turn the phone from silent to loud, and one determines the volume.
That’s the beauty of the iPhone – the touch control. Literally at the tips of your fingers you have the power to use the internet, message people and do all the other neat
tricks this phone does. The “Home” button on the front of the phone powers things up when its on standby…pressing it will light up the screen, and then merely ‘swipe’ your finger to unlock and take your to the menu page. You can of course include a four-digit code after this point to help secure your phone if it falls into the wrong hands!
Now, realistically, if I wrote about every single thing this product can do then I’d be here until next Christmas, so I’ll try and be thorough but brief at the same time here. When you first set-up the iPhone through iTunes (which is free to download), and sync everything up – by this I mean adding songs to the iPod function, photos from your computer etc. etc. – the homepage of applications will include things such as a Contact Book, Calender, Notebook, Clock, Weather, YouTube, Camera, Photos and Mail. There are predominantly self-explanatory; the Contact Book takes you to the link with all your contacts in (shock!), the Calendar option provides you with, well, a calendar (wow!), and so on…the Youtube link takes you direct to YouTube’s website, which is free to do as all iPhone contracts provide ‘free’ wi-fi and 3G data.
The first trick of it all is this, by pressing your finger against one of the icons for a couple of seconds, all the icons will begin to shake. This will now enable you to move them about the second and order them as your wish. The screen fits 16 icons, plus 4 permanent icons which can be moved about but will stay at the bottom of each page of icons (the number will increase as you gradually download more applications). My 4 permanent icons are Phone, Messages, Safari and iPod. The Phone option takes you to the contacts book, recent phone calls, keypad and voicemail access. The Messages function naturally takes you to your text message inbox – I’ll describe this is details next. The Safari icon is the iPhone’s Internet Explorer (for those without Macs, you may not know that Safari is the Mac’s equivalent to IE), and finally the iPod function lists all your music and lets you play it as you wish. The coolest function on this is by merely shaking your phone when the “Shuffle” function is on, it’ll change tracks…the touch screen option is even starting to become redundant!
The style of text messages on the iPhone is very different to anything I’ve used before. It’s designed in the style more familiar with a conversation on a messenger service such as MSN. Of course they’re listed in chronological order, but they’re listed by the name of the person in your phonebook. By clicking on their name it’ll give you the history of messages between the two of you, rather than just listing the one-off message. You can delete the history or delete individual messages…something you may want to do after a while as it obviously takes up some of the 8GB of space, but only very gradually of course.
You can assign photos to contacts, so when they ring you their picture will appear. This is nothing new as copious phones do this, but I always find this fun to do in finding the most obscure photo you have of the person! The camera function certainly isn’t the best feature of the phone, and if it does have disadvantages I’d say the iPhone needs to improve the camera. Obviously the 3GS version has a video camera built in so they have begun to improve it, but there’s still some way to go. Basically it’s a 2-megapixel camera with no flash option. Shame.
There’s also icons for options such as Shares (something I’ve never felt compelled to use!), Maps and a link to the Apps store. The Maps function is associated with Google Maps and is a great tool as the GPRS can track your exact position. The Apps store icon, err, takes you to the Apps store! Now this is really a different review entirely as there are thousands of applications to chose from. From online radio stations to pinball games. From social networking sites to currency converters – you name it and there will be an application for it. There are many free ones, but the ‘better’ ones you may have to may for. Ones such as Facebook, Sky News and Shazam and free are great – For those unaware, Shazam is a function which will ‘name that tune’ for you – if a piece of music is playing which you don’t know, operate the Shazam function and if it’s a professional piece of music it will tell you the name of the artist, song and link to a YouTube video if available.
So, I’ve gone over 1000 words and still got bits and pieces to write about. Oh dear…so rather than keep you all in for the long haul, let me round things up now. Other things to note are that when using the applications, the battery life will dwindle very quickly, but when it’s on standby it will last for days. The Settings icon contains all sorts of details, such as switching on elements like Wi-Fi and 3G, and other services such as sounds, brightness and the wallpaper background. And, many of the applications you may have to pay for, but if you search around you may find equivalent’s which are free or cheaper so don’t just buy the first one you come across.
And finally, here’s some of the specifications for all you techno-lovers out there…quite frankly, it all means very little to me!!
Dimensions 115.5 x 62.1 x 12.3 mm Weight 133 g GPRS Yes HSCSD No EDGE Yes 3G HSDPA WLAN Wi-Fi 802.11b/g Bluetooth Yes, v2.0 with A2DP, headset support only Infrared port No USB Yes, v2.0 CPU ARM 11 412 MHz, PowerVR MBX-Lite graphics Messaging SMS (threaded view), MMS(threaded view), Email Browser HTML (Safari) Radio No Games Downloadable, incl. motion-based Colors Black(8/16 GB), White (16 GB) GPS Yes, with A-GPS support
For those without an iPhone, don’t be silly and buy a BlackBerry…get an iPhone. Trust me. It’ll be the greatest phone you ever own!
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Advantages: A great computer in a small package, wide range of software, excellent musicplayer Disadvantages: bad batterytime, not being able to delete single smss
daniellubner 02.11.2008 (02.11.2008)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Apple iPhone 3G
Advantages: its beautiful, futuristic and does everything you want a phone to do and much much more Disadvantages: camera is average, people may try to rob you, you need iTunes, so no computer, don't bother
vinzeis 01.05.2009 ·
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Apple iPhone 3G
Advantages: cellphone with ipod, camera and internet all in one and in your pocket, loads of apps to download Disadvantages: battery life, syncing with iTunes, rubbish default earphones
jeaniecz 28.03.2009 (28.03.2009)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Apple iPhone 3G
Advantages: Ease of use, style, fantastic applications, camera, text format, all of it! Disadvantages: Can't send photo messages and have to pay for extra ringtones
Ottavia 09.09.2008 (14.08.2009)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Apple iPhone 3G
Advantages: Incredibly easy to use with huge selection of quality dowloadable apps. Almost perfect... Disadvantages: Battery life it at best acceptable
Sep 12th, 2009
(Sep 15th, 2009)
exceptional by (5%):
very helpful by (95%):
