My review of my iPhone 3G

Thanks Viewfly.

AT&T claims up to 1.4mbps to avoid criticism. But it has been rumored that the device is HSDPA 3.6, so theoretically it can do more than 1.4mbps. It's more dependent on network conditions. You should do a test during the middle of the day, like in the afternoon when the network is crowded. I'll be surprised if you reach 1mbps.

Personally, I've achieved 1.7mbps in my laptop while stationary and about 600kbps while driving. This is using a Sierra HSDPA card. The reason for the drop in speed is because when you're moving signal conditions change a lot and very quickly so both the network and the card have to adjust for those varying conditions and that causes a lot of overhead which causes dramatic speed drops. Perhaps if we had a single tower that blankets an entire city (like WiMAX wants to do) maybe the variations won't be so great and speeds won't drop as much when driving.

 

It is only 9:37 am and my results went down. The speed now is at 956 on 3G.

 

Try it again this afternoon like around 5PM.

 

Engadget has a report on the battery life:

iPhone 3G review supplemental: battery life and MobileMe tests
by Ryan Block, posted Jul 16th 2008 at 1:03PM

We spent most of the weekend putting the iPhone 3G's battery life (and to a lesser extent, MobileMe implementation) to the test, and we've got far more encouraging results to report back than we had on day one. Pretty much everything we've found thus far jibes with Apple's claims, if not exceeds them. (Our video results early on skewed low because we had mistakenly left on push and fetch data, which dropped the battery life by almost 25%. After re-testing, they're back up to spec.)

All tested with 3G on, WiFi on (not connected), Bluetooth off, no data fetching enabled (unless specified otherwise). Media tested with stock headphones, medium volume, and medium screen brightness, auto-brightness disabled.

Music (continuous playback, large library, occasionally turning on screen): 31h 23m
Video (continuous playback, no push/fetch data): 7h 5m
Video (continuous playback, with push and 15 minute fetch data): 5h 24m
Daily data use (browsing, email, and GPS / maps): ~6h 30m
Those numbers definitely are not bad, but if you're anything like us and you kill time on your phone reading feeds and checking email like a fiend, by 3 or 4pm you'll likely be wondering if you'll even make it home with any power left -- especially if you leave on the 3G. Just be warned, the kind of prolonged usage on the original iPhone you used to get away with probably isn't possible with the iPhone 3G. For some, this may be an issue, while others may never notice. Click on for more on our MobileMe testing and enterprise stuff, and, of course, check out the full iPhone 3G review.

MobileMe
After nearly a week, we still haven't really had a positive experience with MobileMe among our editorial team. One editor, who had fewer issues than anyone else, still had difficulty syncing his 1,300+ contacts. MobileMe would choke on sync and require disabling / re-enabling to keep that sync moving. Another problem we saw was that email deletes weren't synced to other devices, requiring the same message be deleted in multiple locations. In some cases, a deleted email that wasn't properly synced would actually repropagate to back out other devices. Nothing better than zombie email.

Another thing we (and a lot of people noticed) is that MobileMe on the desktop is faux-push -- it only gets updates every 15 minutes because it's actually pulling them, unlike the iPhone's proper push. (We're, like, totally sure someone's going to sue.) You can edit a certain .pref file (details here) to make it fetch every minute -- but fetching every minute isn't push, now is it? Apple has since acknowledged this issue (among others).

We also noticed on the phone that if you have synced MobileMe calendars, your calendar subscriptions (like, say, shared iCal or Gcal or what have you) are disabled. Super lame that you keep having to choose between one thing or the other when syncing your data. Can't all our calendars and contact lists just play together on the same device? We think so.

All in all, right now our feeling is that MobileMe still feels like it's in beta -- when it's up -- and is generally falling way short of what was promised by Apple. We believe they're earnest when they say they're trying to get it all up and running to fulfill their commitments, but for the time being we think it's best to steer clear until they work out the kinks.

Some other enterprise bits
We came across a list of ActiveSync features not supported, many of which we already know. To recap, here are a few:
Folder management
Opening links in email to documents stored on Sharepoint
Task sync
Setting an out of office autoreply
Creating meeting invitations
Flagging messages for followup
We did also did get a chance to test WPA Enterprise / 802.1x with PEAP, and it works well.

Link: iPhone 3G review supplemental: battery life and MobileMe tests - Engadget

 

One good way to get push email that many people overlook is to use the filters feature in either your Yahoo or Gmail account and have it send a copy of all emails to your phone as SMS. Sure, its not the same, but the whole point of push email is to get notified of emails as soon as they arrive and this does just that. After you get notified, just open your email app and the new messages will be downloaded, and you don't have to worry about extra tax on your battery life or the iPhone going to sleep.

The only problem is that if you have a 200 messages package it will get used up pretty quick.

 

Just for info and I am not copyng the whole thread but here is a report by BoyGenious comapring the two:

BlackBerry Bold vs. iPhone 3G: yeah, we definitely went there : Boy Genius Report
And here is the Final summation by him:

"Personal Opinion:

Here’s where we’re going to voice our opinions of both devices as we kept the head-to-head review completely unbiased. True BlackBerry fans will want the Bold. It honestly is the best BlackBerry ever. There is no other choice — it’s the Bold. Plus the Bold spoils you. We cringe at the sight of our friends using Curves now. From the screen, to the keyboard, to the OS, which hate it or love it is pretty darn solid, the Bold is fantastic. But when you throw the iPhone 3G in the mix, it’s gets pretty difficult. A lot of early criticisms surrounding the original iPhone have been addressed. Corporate email, 3G, GPS, price, 3rd party applications, and so on. The honest truth is that if we had to use only one of the two devices, we’d be happy enough with whichever one you gave us. We could deal with the email shortcomings on the iPhone, and we could deal with the improved but not incredible browser on the Bold. It really comes down to what you need more in a phone. While the Bold certainly has improved media and other consumer features, it really is a business device at the end of the day. The iPhone 3G is a consumer device that happens to play nice with a lot of corporations, and we honestly think you won’t find many people dropping their BlackBerrys for an iPhone. They’ll carry both as long as they can afford it."

 

viewfly, first of all thank you for a great and comprehensive review,.

The two most unlikely forumites got the IPhone imo, you and Steven 2420. You are not known to get a popular phone and Steven I don't believe, has ever signed a 2 year contract. This and combined with the fact I would like to learn more about it, here are some questions/comments for you and any other iPhone owner that wants to jump in.

Please keep in mind, I am a Palm and Windows OS person and do not have any experiernce with "Apple" products. Some of the questions are Palm specific and some for WM devices. So here goes:

1. Does it synch to do/task list, notes, favorites, files?
2. How is SMS handled - threaded?
3. Is it possible to save a document that comes as an E-Mail attachment, if so what format/s?
4. How is dialing handled - on my Treo, I can start typing in the numbers or letters from the Today screen and my phone book comes up with the names/s from which I can choose and call.
5. How is web search handled?
6. Given that it does not edit/paste/copy documents, what if any program can handle jotting down information on the fly, like for an expense report for example?
7.Synching over BT - you have already established that it is not possible, thank you very much for doing that.
8.Yes, you are right I do love the basic calculator turning into the scientific one , how do you activate RPN?
9. What in your opinion would make a business person switch from the BB to the iPhone?

I am glad the audio quality is much improved over the first generation iPhone, and it sounds like you are happy with, I am glad you found a keeper.

Looking forward to more information from you.

Sorry to bombard you with questions.

Thanks much

PS: happy Birthday, even though I am a day late. Hope you had a great day, and played with your birthday present all day.

 

where do you guys live? maybe it is the new iphone, but personally on my 3G devices (currently an 8525) ive yet to see less than 600kbits, and that was with 1 bar 3G

 

I think the iPhone GPS will probably do fine if you've got it dash mounted with a clear view of the sky. Handling it in the back seat, you may get some drop outs.

For battery issues, I'm going to grab one of these: Kensington Mini Battery Extender and Charger for iPod and iPhone
It charges with the same mini-USB that my wife's Wing and Moto BT headset uses.

Charlyee: that's a lot of questions!

 

That's crazy! I live in my own house too!

I think Eric lives in Columbus, GA where they've rolled out 3G and there's only 2 guys using it: Eric and AT&T's field tester.

 

I responded in red and hope I understood your questions right and that I did reply with what you needed

 

I always figured I'd be the most unlikely one...

-Jay

 

hf1khal,viewfly, fIrst of all thank you very much for taking the time and answering all my questions so patiently. Another forumite friend had said "if you presented me with a list of questions like that, you would not hear from me for a week". I am very glad that you two did not follow that principle. .

I have just two more follow up questions (atleast this time around).

1. To-Do list not synching with Outlook: I guess I am not understanding this one. Every PDA and SmartPhone I have had in the recent past have had this, many S40 Nokias, like the 6131 do also. I don't see the iPhone not having this, is there a different way to accomplish this maybe? I live by this, the top two items on my list for today is 1)Backup hubby's Desktop to J, 2) Yell at my brother for not calling Dad often enough (I kid you not)); where would I enter this on the iPhone & have it synch with my laptop?

2. If I get a spreadsheet as an E-Mail attachment, can I save it easily enough to refer to it later or forward it another person. I know I cannot edit it in any way.


viewfly, my PEBL used to charge while synching via USB and I never cared for the idea of it charging intermittently like that, you seem to like it, to each his/her own I guess.

I am rather surprised at the variation in speed you are getting during the course of the day. My 3G speed at the very most has dropped by 200kbits/sec and has never been lower than 500 kbps. Ofcourse it is just me and the horses & the cows on the network. :lmao:

Thanks again for putting up with me.

 

Well as to the files attchament, The file can not be saved. The only option is to save the email into a special folder (that is if one exists as the iphne email app seems to pcik up all the folders set in the email program. So lets say you created a Saved folder and then moved it to the save, it will then move it on the iphone and it also seems to move it to the right folder on the email program. I need to do more testing on the web app for work email to see if that works and I have no idea how it works on MS Exchange. I will report back later once I am by my work PC.

 

I'll give you a good run for your money

 

Wirelessly posted (Treo 750: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows CE; IEMobile 7.6) UP.Link/6.3.1.17.06.3.1.17.0)

I don't doubt that .

hf1khal & viewfly, thanks for your continued help. .

I don't think the iPhone is for me, but my interest in it is not totally academic either.

viewfly, I get the most consistent results with www.dslreports.com & 1M file transfer. I also use speedtest sometimes, not sure if dslreports has a iPhone link.

 

Certainly for as much as they are going for on Ebay, if one of my lines was up for an upgrade I'd buy one, play with it for a week, then dump it on Ebay for a tidy profit.

-Jay

 

Still learning about it. Also looking at the itunes store as more apps are beig added as we go. Right now there is a to do app that emails it where one wants it. I am hoping that one day soon they will include teh tasks and to do will in the synch process. However, for me I depend a lot n my calander and its reminders. Tasks, well that I depends on another program as my task are set for projects which I look at daily. You can say that the to do and tasks on outlook are used at minimum by me but I would like to have them for the few times that I need them for.

 

ViewFly, nice review :cheers: very detailed. After reading all the reviews on almost every cell phone forum on the internet, I decided to switch to an iPhone 3G.

But I just have one question (or two),

I already have a FamilyTalk 1400min per month plan with 4 lines. Do I just need the $30.00 per month data package for all the iPhone features?? Because on the at&t website I read somewhere that iPhone plans start at $59.99, but I'm guessing that this is a voice/text/data combo plan. I also intend to keep unlimited texting because on average I do about 5,000 per month....lol

I know this is a stupid question, but does the visual voicemail come with the data package? Or do you have to pay extra?

Thanks for your help.

Alien.

 

hope you don't mind me ansewring. Yes it will go on your family plan but with a 2 yer ext for your line. You will have to add the data plan for $30 and yes visual voice mail is part of it. For SMS, at teh Appple store they make you take it again and I think at teh store they will only add the data without touching your SMS plan. One thing, I looked over my OLAM and the SMS plan that I have say iphone SMS so may be you have to change but the unlimited is at $20. Hope that helps.

 

Thanks ViewFly and everyone else for your review and listing of features for the new iPhone. I'm still seriously consdering whether or not to get one. I read a lot of emails and don't surf the internet a lot. So I'll wait a little bit longer before I go ahead and choose which phone to get.