Apple iPhone 3GS – 32GB – black Review
- Jul 06, 2009
              
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What we liked: At last the iPhone 3GS joins expected phone features voice dialling, MMS of great quality and handy video recording with longer battery life. It also runs faster. The iPhone 3GS is to support the new iPhone OS 3.0 update from its launch. Being able to copy and paste or cut anything we like and sensible editing for text messaging and stereo Bluetooth function are welcome additions. The ability to rent and/or purchase movies, access iTunesU and download audiobooks and TV shows as well as having the security of finding a lost phone through using a computer to determine its location on a map is terrific too. What we didn’t like: Still no improvement on call quality – signal reception patchy, lacks Flash Lite, multitasking and the ability for USB storage and transfer. Waiting to hear if companies like AT&T are supporting MMS (or not) and TomTom supporting GPS (or not) and whether it’s going to cost us more to have it is irritating. Overall: It’s a move going the right direction but no quantum leap. Smiles and scowls pretty even. Spec: OS provided: Apple Mac OS X 10.4.11; Talk time: Up to 600 min Following the hype of the iPhone, which greatly excited the techno/communications community awaiting the new iPhone 3GS has been much lower key with pledges of increased speed, longer battery life, additional memory, and further features. All this is good but hardly mind-blowing. Do I put my hand in my pocket to make a purchase of the iPhone 3GS? It would be worthwhile if you don’t already own an iPhone but if you currently own one it might be worth waiting for an upgrade and you don’t mind being tied into a two-year contract. $200-$300 for the 16GB/32GB models is a bit stiff. Design and interface You could be forgiven for thinking the iPhone 3GS appears exactly the same as the previous model but don’t let looks deceive you. It might have the same shape and external controls, however the iPhone 3GS does possess distinctive differences. Both memory sizes are available in black or white, and with its oleophobic coating it should be more resistant to smudges and fingerprints. Size is the same though the iPhone 3GS weighs in a little heavier (0.06 ounces – hardly noticeable). The menu interface remains the same so you’ll have the same joy and despair as you’ve had working with apps – so many there that we’ll never use with no way of deleting them. Features Many of the previous models features are present and used in the same way. Here’s what’s new: Camera There’s still no flash and iPhone 3GS photographic capabilities are controlled by the phone rather than the photographer user even though it’s now boasting 3 megapixel resolution and a ‘Tap to Focus’ aspect for automatic focus with adjustment of white balance, exposure, contrast and colour which worked well for close-up shots but not such a marked improvement or great difference that you’d notice for other photos. Video recording This is the very first of the iPhones with a facility for video recording that is easy to operate and it offers an option to edit there on the phone. Well done. Movement handling is reasonably better than other cell phone cameras and once you’ve finished recording, iPhone 3GS allows you to upload the video to a YouTube account or send it in your e-mail. The video-editing tool has to be the winning feature of the iPhone 3GS. It’s instinctive and entertaining; you’ll soon discover creativity you didn’t know you had. Having loaded your previously shot video, it’ll be displayed in linear format, frame by frame, across the top of your touch screen. Then, you can glide the cursor to wherever you like in the video to begin playing it from there. For editing, all you need to do is touch either of the ends of the border surrounding your video and when it turns yellow, shorten the clip simply by dragging either of the ends to your required cut-off point then hit ‘trim’. This is limiting in that you can’t snip out middle pieces only ends. Voice Control To activate this, keep the home button held down until the feature appears. Voice control is really handy for controlling the iPod player as well as making calls. There can be some mistakes in understanding similarly sounding names so it might be best to make calls by using number rather than names to avoid this. It also prompts whether you want ‘home’, ‘mobile’ etc if you call up a contact with several numbers if you didn’t state a preference and also prompts for choice if you happen to have several people sharing the same name in your phone address book. The interaction with iPhone’s iPod player as well as its iTunes Genius list means you can make a request for a song by selected artist’s name and album or even an entire playlist. Use your voice to control pause, skip or previous once the music is playing or say ’shuffle’ for a random track. It offers audio confirmation of what is playing and by whom if you ask, “What song is this?” State the command. “Play more songs like this,” for iTunes Genius list to play (in their estimation!) a related song. Compass It’s got one – but it doesn’t like any interference so it can be limiting. It will show your location and the interaction it has with Google maps should get you pointed the right way for where you want to go. Accessibility Offering a complete range of accessibility features the visually impaired can effect Apple’s Voice Over for navigating handset menus and typing messages and e-mails. It also reads descriptions of buttons tapped, text from dialogue boxes, detail information like battery level, network signal and Wi-Fi as well as time of day, and display status and orientation. For typing messages it will speak each character and suggest autocorrection choices too. Voice Over is capable of reading e-mails, text messages and Web pages. To employ Voice Over you must double-tap in order to open items – but the feature does provide audible instruction. Voice Over is fine for all the native applications; however third-party apps support is varied. You can’t use the improved zoom function simultaneously with Voice Over. On the headphones there are controls for your Voice Control feature so you can adjust the volume, answer calls, and control music and video playbacks. It’s also possible to reverse the contrast on the display for easier reading for some people to white text on black background. Nike + iPod The iPhone 3GS can integrate an iPod with a compatible sensor inside Nike’s running shoes for use as a pedometer; an icon for the app will appear in the settings menu on your Home screen. Landscape style keyboard Featuring a wider keyboard with larger buttons now that it’s in landscape format once you get used to it, it’s actually much quicker to use and compose messages or email with and reading information is much simpler and requires less scrolling. Spotlight This feature makes finding information and navigation much easier as results appear in categorised groupings. Turn-by-turn directions iPhone OS 3.0 supports turn-by-turn directions (provided by third party apps) so that it becomes a completely functional GPS device. TomTom will present a car kit to secure the iPhone on your dashboard or windshield that will charge it at the same time, especially welcome for such a juice sucker. How much it will cost is not clear nor is the issue of how much memory will be needed for the maps and as the iPhone isn’t capable of multitasking there is the problem of the GPS feature being suspended if you receive a call whilst operating it. Finding My iPhone Prone to losing phones? If your expensive handset disappears there is a little peace of mind when you know you can use your computer to locate it on a map. Simply send the phone a message, which will instruct anyone who finds it to call you. A tone is played to attract attention from a passer-by, even if the sound is turned off. [Not sure if you're functional if the phone itself is off.] Find My iPhone though, is offered only to MobileMe users and unfortunately, it can also be disabled. You’d also need someone responsible enough at the other end to notify you your phone had been found. However, if you don’t get a call or you don’t trust humanity there’s always the remote wipe option (available for the first time outside an enterprise setting to consumers) to clean your iPhone of data. Voice recorder The voice-recording app has an icon on the Home screen; the interface is unfussy and simple to use – to start just tap the record button and to end just tap it again. Even while you’re busy with other applications such as the Web browser you can still continue recording. Voice clips can be trimmed in the same way as videos and they can be e-mailed when you’re finished. Stocks Those of you who use your phone for work involving stock prices can see news headlines for the company tickers saved in your Stocks application and a landscape mode chart from which to get a stock price at any point on it. Other additions Due to iPhone OS 3.0 push notifications, expansion of parental controls, iPod player shake-to-shuffle feature and capability for forwarding meeting invitations and contacts are all additions in place. The capability to sync notes for Macs and PCs, auto filling function for Web fields and automatic log-ins for Wi-Fi are there too as is an option for changing the default destination of the home button, and – if you fancied it – additional wallpaper. Finally, by tapping and holding on Web links in the Safari browser, there appears a new menu with choices for opening the link, opening it in another page, saving an image, or copying the link. Internal performance The iPhone 3GS ‘S’ refers to speed promising twofold means of pace: a new processor enabling it faster loading of apps and utilising an advanced AT&T 3G network that allows speedier Web browsing. Apparently iPhone 3GS possesses a 600MHz processor–similar to the Pre’s–and 256MB RAM. To compare, the previous iPhone 3G possessed a 412MHz processor and 128MB RAM. The following may not be scientific but to demonstrate – the iPhone 3GS was able to open the iPod player some 5 seconds faster, was much speedier at loading some particularly slow apps like Bejewled 2, ordinarily taking up to 12 seconds to load on the iPhone 3G, started in just 5 seconds on the 3GS and impressively Pocket God, that usually takes 30 seconds started in just 11. The iPhone 3GS compared favourably to the iPhone 3G – good to go in 26 seconds rather than 50 seconds. Quality of Audio and Video Your experience will range widely depending on the stereo headset you have chosen. Battery life It should offer: Wi-Fi 9 hours, video playback10 hours, 30 audio playback 30 hours, 2G talk time 12 hours, and 3G talk time 5 hours. At last – you can see a Home screen display of the amount of battery remaining. Beware though, the large amount of colour display, frequent switching between different apps, and heavy 3G usages will drain a battery quicker than ordinary call making. |
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Apple iPhone 3G S (Speed) Quadband 3G HSDPA GPS Unlocked Phone (SIM Free)
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