Apple has hit all the right buttons to make the iPhone 3G an instant hit. It's still sleek, it's still great to use and it's still the best touch screen phone by a country mile. Wed to this the excellent value it now represents and you can understand why people have been falling over themselves to get one. Unless you absolutely must have a better camera, MMS or any of the other missing features, there's no other touch screen phone that comes close.
There is, however, one obvious loser from the inclusion of 3G: battery life. Yet, the end product isn't anything near as bad as some might have feared. For starters, although on 3G battery life is obviously worse than on the original, at just over five hours 3G talk time it's still better than the majority of other 3G based smart phones. A further plus is the ability to turn off 3G whenever you like and with close to ten hours of 2G talk time, it makes a massive difference - it's a shame this can't be done automatically. Other quoted figures include seven hours video playback, 24 hours audio playback and 300 hours stand-by, all of which sound fine and given the talk time figures have proved more or less accurate are believable.
What's more revealing, however, is the real world experience. In medium to heavy mixed usage, including phone calls, 3G and EDGE data, Wi-Fi, GPS and music playback, you can expect one day of usage with around 20% of headroom to spare. If you restrict yourself to lighter usage, using only 2G and listening to music, two days of usage is easily attained.
Aesthetically there are a few other minor tweaks, but ones that enhance the overall look of the unit. To match the black back, all the hardware buttons around the sides are chrome coloured instead of black. There's no change to the composition of the buttons, though, with a volume rocker and silence switch on the left and a hold/power button on the top. Even more subtle is the bezel, which is ever so slightly thicker due to this model being 1.1mm wider than the original. Overall, the iPhone 3G is every bit the exemplary piece of design and engineering the original was and its slimmer looking exterior only enhances this
Ostensibly the basics haven't changed one iota. There's still the sliding bar to unlock and the grid based main menu is still navigated through effortless prods and flicks. Indeed, it's hard to underplay exactly how responsive the 3.5 inch, 480 x 320 multi-touch screen is. Every action is swiftly enacted and you're never left wondering whether a request has been registered: it just works.
It's a lovely screen to behold, too. Bright, bold, sharp and clean, it brings photos and video to life and is another facet few can match at this moment in time. If anything, though, its viewing angles aren't as wide as on the original iPhone. It's hardly a big problem, one generally looks at phones straight on whatever you're doing, but a difference exists.
Predictably, however, Mobile Safari is still the jewel in the iPhone 3G's crown and despite the recent beta launch of Opera Mobile 9.5, it's still by far and away the best mobile web browser on earth. It renders pages quickly and accurately and its excellent scaling makes them easy to read, too. Throw in the intuitive interface, multi-touch controls, Wi-Fi and now the faster 3G data access and browsing the web on the move has never been so good. Want a
There is, however, one obvious loser from the inclusion of 3G: battery life. Yet, the end product isn't anything near as bad as some might have feared. For starters, although on 3G battery life is obviously worse than on the original, at just over five hours 3G talk time it's still better than the majority of other 3G based smart phones. A further plus is the ability to turn off 3G whenever you like and with close to ten hours of 2G talk time, it makes a massive difference - it's a shame this can't be done automatically. Other quoted figures include seven hours video playback, 24 hours audio playback and 300 hours stand-by, all of which sound fine and given the talk time figures have proved more or less accurate are believable.
What's more revealing, however, is the real world experience. In medium to heavy mixed usage, including phone calls, 3G and EDGE data, Wi-Fi, GPS and music playback, you can expect one day of usage with around 20% of headroom to spare. If you restrict yourself to lighter usage, using only 2G and listening to music, two days of usage is easily attained.
Aesthetically there are a few other minor tweaks, but ones that enhance the overall look of the unit. To match the black back, all the hardware buttons around the sides are chrome coloured instead of black. There's no change to the composition of the buttons, though, with a volume rocker and silence switch on the left and a hold/power button on the top. Even more subtle is the bezel, which is ever so slightly thicker due to this model being 1.1mm wider than the original. Overall, the iPhone 3G is every bit the exemplary piece of design and engineering the original was and its slimmer looking exterior only enhances this
Ostensibly the basics haven't changed one iota. There's still the sliding bar to unlock and the grid based main menu is still navigated through effortless prods and flicks. Indeed, it's hard to underplay exactly how responsive the 3.5 inch, 480 x 320 multi-touch screen is. Every action is swiftly enacted and you're never left wondering whether a request has been registered: it just works.
It's a lovely screen to behold, too. Bright, bold, sharp and clean, it brings photos and video to life and is another facet few can match at this moment in time. If anything, though, its viewing angles aren't as wide as on the original iPhone. It's hardly a big problem, one generally looks at phones straight on whatever you're doing, but a difference exists.
Predictably, however, Mobile Safari is still the jewel in the iPhone 3G's crown and despite the recent beta launch of Opera Mobile 9.5, it's still by far and away the best mobile web browser on earth. It renders pages quickly and accurately and its excellent scaling makes them easy to read, too. Throw in the intuitive interface, multi-touch controls, Wi-Fi and now the faster 3G data access and browsing the web on the move has never been so good. Want a
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