3GWeek - Asia’s Mobile News

Yeah I know, one day before the launch of 3G iPhone, what people really want to understand is not only about those confusing mobile carriers’ 3G iPhone price and price plan but also about the device itself.

How good is the sound quality? How far it can go with its 2 MP camera? Is it comfortable in your hand? Does its GPS will do its job correctly or not? What about the transfer rate, will it running just like what Steve Jobs had promised himself in WWDC 2008? And bla .. bla … bla …

I don’t know yet about such good gadget reviewer out side USA looks like. But as we might witness our self, there are three journalists in US right now whose reviews are surely worth to read … and re-review. So here they are.

Walt Mossberg from The Wall Street Journal

In particular, I found that doing email and surfing the Internet typically was between three and five times as fast using AT&T’s 3G network as it was with the older AT&T network to which the first iPhone was limited.

the iPhone 3G’s battery was drained much more quickly in a typical day of use than the battery on the original iPhone, due to the higher power demands of 3G networks. This is an especially significant problem because, unlike most other smart phones, the iPhone has a sealed battery that can’t be replaced with a spare.

While I find the virtual keyboard easy and accurate, not everyone does.

The camera, however, is still bare-bones. It can’t record video and has a resolution of just two megapixels. The power adapter is now tiny, at least in the U.S., but Apple no longer includes a dock for charging, just a cable.

In my tests, I was able to connect the iPhone 3G to my company’s Exchange servers in a few minutes, and my corporate email, calendar and contacts were replicated on the phone.

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David Pogue from The New York Times

The new name hints at the biggest change: this iPhone can bring you the Internet much faster. It can exploit AT&T’s third-generation (3G) cellular network, which brings you Web pages in less than half the time as the old iPhone.

But the iPhone 3G is not really, as Apple’s Web site puts it, “half the price.” The basic AT&T plan — unlimited Internet and 450 minutes of calling — now costs $70 a month instead of $60 (plus taxes and fees), and comes with no text messages instead of 200. (Adding text messaging costs at least $5 a month more.)

True, iPhone 3G service now matches the plans for AT&T’s other 3G phones; still, by the end of your two-year contract, the iPhone 3G will have cost you more than the old iPhone, not less.

The third improvement is audio quality, which has taken a gigantic step forward. You sound crystal clear to your callers, and they sound crystal clear to you.

The new iPhone feels even better in your hand, thanks to a gracefully curved, shiny plastic back.

It also has a standard headphone jack so no clunky adapter is required for your favorite non-Apple headphones.

Unfortunately, there’s not much you can do with the G.P.S. According to Apple, the iPhone’s G.P.S. antenna is much too small to emulate the turn-by-turn navigation of a G.P.S. unit for a vehicle, for example.

There are lots of small software improvements. The four-function calculator now turns into a scientific calculator when you rotate the phone 90 degrees. There’s an address book search box, parental controls and instant language switching.

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Edward Baig from USA Today (I just took it at iPhone Atlas)

“No equal among consumer-oriented smartphones.”
Claims that it was a “relative cinch” to setup access to Exchange and works well.

Mentions issues where even in New Jersey 3G coverage is not available or spotty.

Popular Web sites take 10 to 30 seconds to load through 3G, which is a lot faster than on EDGE.

The iPhone 3G feels “perfectly comfortable” in the hand because of the plastic back.

The plastic backing should improve reception versus the original’s aluminum backing.

“Pretty impressed” by the GPS accuracy, but wants the phone to have voice turn-by-turn directions.

Audio quality is better overall, particularly the speakerphone.
Parental controls not only block access but remove icons from the home screen.

Daily charging of the phone will be required if used regularly.
Conclusion: an “enthusiastic thumbs up.”

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So who’s the best reviewer up there … You may have your own answer right now. Anyway, according to Google, I think 3GWeek has a better position in term of SEO. Go try yourself to look up 3G iPhone review in Google with the same query. Ha ….. ha … ha …. oh my lord please forgive me. My 3G iPhone review is actually not a truly review. It is just a compilation of a lot of data out there. Visitors please forgive me okay?

Oh yeah, before you leave this page, perhaps you want to take a look to my new web app, Blog League. Website where those yellow widgets are coming from.

Source: inspired by iPhone Atlas