iPhone 3GS Review, "S" Means Speed
And speedy it is. iPhone 3GS is Apples new and improved phone. With no visible exterior changes most of the important changes have been made under the hood. This is no bad thing, in fact I really like it.
It feels a lot quicker
A friend of mine have the previous generation. For fun we started comparing the general speed and feel of our phones. Almost everything was faster with my phone when we compared. Opening and viewing contacts was faster, starting and playing certain games was faster. Opening images was faster and so on. We both used the same OS3 version. The only application that did open at the same time when we did some testing was Safari.
Just playing around in the interface feels more responsive and this makes the general user experience better in my opinion.
Battery consumption
I have the phone fully charged at night when I go to bed. When I get home from work the next day (7 - 9 hours at work) the remaining battery capacity is around 50%. At work I use the phone to make calls, receive e-mail when I am out of office and some texting. E-mail is delivered with push and 3G is turned on. I feel the need to charge the phone every day and frankly I would have liked to see better battery time. Maybe it will be improved with another software update but in the mean time this is OK for me.
Microsoft Exchange
I work in a IT company where we sell solutions and products mostly based on Microsoft software. At work we are using Microsoft Exchange 2008 servers. This phone have no apparent problems at all syncing with it. I get the e-mails, my appointments in the calendar syncs fine and also the reminders work. It just works! The only thing I miss is to customize the home screen. So I can see what appointments I have without having to open up the calendar application. This is something Apple need to work on in my opinion.
Camera and video Quality
Compared to the previous phone the camera have some improvements. It is not great but it is better. When you start the camera application you can now tap in the viewfinder on where you want to focus. This works okay with stationary objects. Just tap, and take the picture. I have some pictures showing below taken with the phone. These haven't been processed in any way, they are straight from the phone. Click the pictures for the full - size version. You can look at the pictures I took with the older phone in my iPhone 3G Review (look at the bottom of this page for link), if you want to compare them.
We have better camera phones out there, thats for sure. However when I take pictures with my phone it is usually used for MMS or to just document something, thus the quality is not that important. If I want to take real photographs I have another camera for that purpose. If one of your top priority is the camera when you want to buy a phone the iPhone 3GS might not be suited for you.
The iPhone 3GS Screen
The screen haven't been updated, it is the same as the previous generation. An extra oleophobic plastic coating have been added however. This coating makes the screen more resistant to fingerprints and oil from your skin. Just wipe the iPhone 3GS on your shirt and it will be clean.
PS. If you want to see how the phone looks like, and how it is packaged you can read the iPhone 3G Review I made a year ago.
Conclusion
I wont go so far to say that current iPhone 3G users have to upgrade. Many of the changes have been made in the new operating system: Iphone OS3, and current iPhone users can take advantage of that. But if you really want more speed you might consider upgrading, because this phone is faster, thats for sure.
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