Phones.com » Cell Phones » Review of the Apple iPhone 3G

The iPhone 3G has dimensions of 115.5 x 62.1 x 12.3 mm. That makes it a bit larger than the older iPhone, but the difference is hardly noticeable. The iPhone 3G's construction is largely similar to the original iPhone. It is hard to distinguish between the iPhone and iPhone 3G by looking from a distance. The iPhone is provided with a generic 3.5 mm audio jack and the SIM card slot on its top. The right side of the iPhone 3G is empty, and the left contains metallic volume and mute keys. The iPhone's high-res screen took an improvement, and looks much better and color-rich. Everyone knows the iPhone's simple front panel design, the full 3.5" touchscreen, and the home key below it. This is exactly what you find on the iPhone 3G, too. The rear of the iPhone 3G has taken some changes though. The metallic back was changed to a plastic one, probably to save some ounces off the iPhone 3G. It weighs an impressive 133 grams, managing to be 2 grams lesser than the older generation iPhone while packing much more. The iPhone feels great in one's hands, with the right combination of a large screen and comfortable weight. Looking at the screen outdoors on a sunny day is no issue, the screen is very legible in sunlight.

One of the strengths of the iPhone is it has now become a well-backed mobile phone platform. The Mobile MAC OS X running on the iPhone 3G supports a great number of applications developed by a growing number of software developers. Apple has made buying and installing third-party apps through the "App Store" on the iPhone. Users can try numerous free or paid applications easily found on the App Store. The iPhone 3G still lacks multi-tasking like its elder brother; which is a great drawback of an otherwise powerful smartphone. The screen of the iPhone is a high resolution, half-VGA running at 320x480 pixels in 16 M colors. The touchscreen supports multi-touch and is a capacitive one, with great touch feedback. Apple says the surface is scratch-resistant but it is prone to fingerprints. The 3G iPhone comes with three memory options: 8GB, 16GB and 32GB. As an Apple tradition, the iPhone 3G doesn't have a memory card slot either. We had no issues with the virtual onscreen keyboard, input was also available in many other keyboard layouts. Apart from the usual, the iPhone 3G features a proximity sensor to turn off the display, an accelerometer for screen auto-rotate and Ambient light sensing. iPod lovers will definitely love the iPhone for its media support. Audio quality was very good and of higher quality than that found on many smartphones. One pleasure of the iPhone 3G is web browsing. Combined with HSDPA, the Safari browser renders pages at blazing speeds, and offers a superior browsing experience with the touch-based scrolling. The camera is a turn-off, with its 2 MP resolution and mediocre image quality. There was no lens cover, no Auto-focus support or video recording. Email support is very lacking in terms of features. Geo-tagging is supported, thanks to the integrated A-GPS. Google Maps also works flawlessly. Then there's the TV-out functionality as seen on the original iPhone.

The iPhone 3G says "no more kidding" when it comes to connectivity. The iPhone 3G supports Tri-band HSDPA support for the 850/1900/2100 MHz bands. This combined with the Quad-band GSM makes the iPhone an anywhere-connected device. EDGE and HSDPA support allow for fast data over the air. Coming to local connectivity, the iPhone is armed with Bluetooth (no A2DP or FTP support sadly), WLAN 802.11 b/g and USB 2.0 connectivity.

The iPhone is capable of a practical 6 hour talk time. Some users claim up to 24 hours of music playback time or 7 hours of video. While all of them sound very good already, the iPhone 3G is only powered by a 1150 mAh Li-ion. Which leaves us wondering, how nice it would've been if Apple was generous with a bigger battery!

After enjoying an exclusive status in the market, the iPhone 3G still is a piece of jewelry. While there are atleast a gazillion touchscreen phones available in the mobile phone world today, none of them came anywhere close to beat the iPhone's popularity. On the other side, many smartphones equipped with touchscreens can beat the iPhone to ground when it comes to power and functionality. But the iPhone is alone in its world; it wants no competition. So those wanting to try an 'Apple' for its dissimilarity, will have no problem paying the full price for an iPhone 3G.