Phone Review: IPhone

Showing posts with label IPhone. Show all posts

iPhone 3G Review

Posted quangtao Monday, February 1, 2010 0 Comment

Editor's note June 2009: Check out the iPhone 3GS, the newest iPhone!
Reviewed July 14, 2008 by Lisa Gade, Editor in Chief

The original iPhone's launch 1 year ago was likely the hottest consumer electronics event of 2007. Even grandmothers and technophobes knew about Apple's cool new phone thanks to long lines at the mall and a barrage of major news coverage. The iPhone 3G boasts a few additions while keeping virtually the same form-- it adds 3G HSDPA for much faster wireless data and a GPS. Smaller but important improvements include better speaker sound, a more hand-friendly curved back and a non-recessed headphone jack that doesn't require and adapter for larger headphone plugs. That's all quite nice, but nothing so revolutionary that a million folks would snarf up the new iPhone in the first weekend, right? Wrong. The iPhone 3G, this time sold around the world and not just in the US, brought out buyers in droves. Lines at the US AT&T and Apple stores were longer for the 3G than the original iPhone.

What's so special about the iPhone? It's that Apple voodoo of great looks, extreme ease of use, fun-factor and now, business savvy. As Steve Jobs said at the original iPhone's announcement, "it's the best iPod we've ever made". The iPhone does everything an iPod does and boasts a 3.5" 480 x 320 pixel display (huge by phone standards) for extremely watchable video playback. It syncs easily to desktop PIM applications (Outlook in Windows, the Mac OS Address Book and iCal in Mac OS X). Loading music and videos is just as brain-dead easy on the iPhone as an iPod. It has WiFi, the best web browser on a mobile phone, plays youtube mobile videos. . . and gee, it makes phone calls. It's available in 8 and 16 gig capacities and the 8 gig comes in black while the 16 gig is available in black or white.

Business Touches and MobileMe

What about business users? The original iPhone couldn't handle MS Exchange sync and push email, while the new 2.0 OS does an admirable job with Exchange push email. One less barrier to entry for corporate users wishing to shed their BlackBerry handhelds. In fact, the original iPhone can now do this since Apple made the 2.0 firmware update available for free in iTunes on the iPhone 3G's July 11th launch date. Exchange calendaring isn't as full-featured as Windows Mobile and the BlackBerry though-- you can't send meeting invites and there are some limitations to creating recurring events. There are no tasks (the iPhone doesn't have a tasks app) or notes sync either.

The email application is much improved and IMAP is no longer doggedly slow and you can select multiple messages to delete at once. But there's still no copy and paste- what's up with that? The mail program handles attachments using a viewer that approaches desktop good looks. It handles .jpg, .tiff, .gif, .doc and .docx, .htm and .html. .key (Keynote); .numbers (Numbers); .pages (Pages); .pdf, .ppt and .pptx ; .txt (text); .vcf; .xls and .xlsx. In English that means web pages, Acrobat files, MS Word, Excel and PowerPoint files, images and the Apple Office suite of apps. But no, there's still no document editing.

The iPhone also works with MobileMe, Apple's reincarnation of the $99/year .Mac service. MobileMe is MS Exchange for regular folks and it supports both Mac OS X and Windows. You can sync PIM data (calendar, contacts) from your desktop to the iPhone and other computers you own as well. It can push email to the iPhone along with that PIM data, and Apple has added a Push data on/off switch in settings for MobileMe push. There's also 20 gigs of "iDisk" storage that you can use as your own personal file server and access from any computer running MobileMe (data is private and requires your login except the Public folder where you can share files with anyone). There's a photo gallery for photo sharing and a web interface to access MobileMe using a web browser. Important note: if you set the iPhone to sync with MobileMe, it will not sync contacts and calendar items from your desktop machine and any data you've previously synced from the desktop will be erased.

Software Junky Heaven

Speaking of the 2.0 OS, it adds perhaps the most important feature of all: 3rd party application support. The iPhone has gone from a closed system to one with a rich set of applications available. Again, this is available for all iPhones, not just the new model, all 7 million of them as of this writing. Just update your old phone in iTunes and you're ready to go shopping for free and pay-for applications in iTunes on the desktop or via the iPhone itself. Like music, video and TV shows, it's extremely easy to peruse, buy, download and install applications. Prices are reasonable so far,with tier 1 games selling for $9.99 and a variety of useful utilities selling for $5.99. While the majority of smartphone users never download and install 3rd party applications because there's no clear, safe and easy way to do so, iPhone owners downloaded 10 million applications the first weekend the app store opened! That's a big deal.

The app store in iTunes desktop.

Applications appear in the left hand navigation in iTunes, just like music, TV shows, podcasts, audio books and the rest. You can see all the apps you've downloaded under Applications and set iTunes to automatically install all applications or just the ones you've checked. Unlike music purchased from the iTunes store, you can't share purchased applications with other authorized iTunes accounts. That means you can share songs with your spouse, best buddy or kid, but not applications you've purchased. You can share free apps without restriction. The good news is that apps are tied to your iTunes account and not a device, so you can install the app to all iPhone and iPod Touch devices that you sync to your iTunes account. If your iPhone is toasted or replaced with an upgraded model in the future, you can re-install the app to the new device (as long as it syncs to your iTunes account).

You can purchase and download applications over WiFi or 3G/EDGE directly to the phone using the App Store application. There's a 10 meg limit for EDGE/3G after which you'll need to use WiFi, so keep that in mind if you want to download a large application directly to the phone. So far, high end games and iPhone Baseball are the only over-10 meg apps we've found. But we're sure there are more to come.

Some of our favorite apps include:

Games: Cro-Mag Rally, Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 3D and Moto Racer for driving games that use the accelerometer (each cost $9.99). JirboBreak (a free breakout game). Here's a short YouTube video of me playing Cro-Mag Rally to give you a taste of a high-end game on the iPhone (the game isn't that hard, I just did poorly

Utilities: File Magnet, a bargain at $4.99, this app allows you to transfer images, office docs and PDFs among other things to the iPhone using a Mac over WiFi (no more emailing yourself documents!). Sketches ($5.99) lets you draw with your finger and you can even write or draw on photos stored on the phone or a map of your current location, then sync them to the desktop via iPhoto.

Social networking: AIM and Facebook (both free).

Reference: Lonely Planet Mandarin (phrase book that speaks Mandarin Chinese for you), iPhone Baseball (incredibly comprehensive baseball player stats), Local Trips by Trip Advisor uses the GPS to find your location then provide nearby restaurant listings with ratings, address and phone number, Box Office (find movies and theaters in your area). All these are free!

News: AP Mobile News, NetNews Wire (NewsGator RSS client), NY Times reader. All these are free.

Music: Guitar Toolkit ($9.99) is a digital tuner that works better than my dedicated Korg unit, chord library, metronome and note player (plays notes using a recorded guitar so no timbre issues).

Same looks from the front, but a shiny new rear

From the front, there's almost no difference between the original and 3G iPhone-- only the earpiece speaker grille has changed. The back and sides have undergone a transformation from metal / black plastic to all plastic. Apple says this improves reception. While metal speaks of quality, it does hinder RF and add weight (0.1 ounces in the iPhone's case). We'll take the shiny plastic iPhone 3G any day because it not only looks even better but feels better in hand. The original iPhone's flat slab design wasn't terribly comfy to hold while the curved back on the new model fits in the palm more naturally. The downside is that the curvy, shiny plastic is like a bar of soap in the tub-- it has a tendency to squirt out of your hand. The 8 gig model is currently available in black and the 16 gig is available in black and white. Both are high gloss, but only the black model shows fingerprints like mad.

Black and white 16 gig iPhone 3G phones and the original iPhone.

The iPhone 3G at the left, and original iPhone, right.

The tempered glass front is extremely scratch resistant, just as with the iPhone 2G. But the plastic back obviously isn't as durable as the aluminum-backed iPhone 2G. While ours didn't pick up scratches easily like the infamous iPod Video 5th gen., it can be intentionally marred with keys or a table knife. Now, most of us try not to subject our phones to intentional damage, so don't get too worried about your new baby scarring easily, but it probably will pick up a few over time. I'd say the risk of damage from dropping the slippery phone are much greater than scratching the heck out of it if you're a careful person.

3G: a Primer for those who are new to it and a comparative measure of reception in -db

First lesson for those new to AT&T and/or new to 3G. You will not necessarily see the same number of bars on 2G (EDGE) as 3G. Why? They are served by different cell tower panels on very different frequencies throughout most of the US. This is also true of Verizon, who serves 1x and EVDO on separate bands and whose signal indicators show two different levels. AT&T serves GSM and EDGE primarily on the 850MHz band which has shorter range but greater building penetration (that's how AT&T gets you full bars of EDGE inside your house or a building). 3G is currently mostly on the 1900MHz band, which travels farther but isn't as good at penetrating buildings. AT&T will eventually migrate 3G to their 850MHz band, but they have to do this slowly because there are still plenty of EDGE phones in customers' hands. So 2G and 3G are two separate signals, and in fact use 2 different radios inside the phone. What does this mean to you? If you had an iPhone 2G that got full bars and now your iPhone 3G shows fewer bars when on 3G, it doesn't mean the iPhone 3G has weaker reception, it means that AT&T's 3G signal isn't as strong as their 2G EDGE signal. In our experience traveling with and reviewing 3G phones in the past 2 years, we can say that AT&T's 3G signal is weaker than 2G. It's still usable and works fine for both voice and data. You don't have to see full bars to make calls and use data. But if you're down to 1 bar, data transfer speeds will be slower and calls may warble. AT&T has stated they'll be expanding and improving their 3G network aggressively thanks to iPhone 3G adoption and their overall transition to 3G handsets.

Lesson 2: Bars mean less than we'd all like. Cell phone signals are measured in decibels as negative numbers, with lower numbers being better. A -80db signal is very good, -70 is super-excellent and rare unless you're standing beside the tower. Anything over -110 borders on no reception. Decibels are the only true way to compare reception on phones, but phones don't display this info; instead they show bars. It's up the manufacturer to equate bars to signal level in -db, and they all do it differently. Nokia shows more bars relative to a given signal than do Apple or LG for example. There are utilities, sometimes pre-installed on the phone (field test) but hidden, or available for download for smartphones like Nokia S60. We compared the iPhone 3G and Nokia N95-3 US 3G edition (a phone with excellent reception and voice quality) side-by-side in a 3G coverage area and here's what we found:

* Indoors: Nokia N95 shows nearly full bars on 3G. iPhone shows 2 bars. As measured in -db, the Nokia was pulling -94 to -101db (those bars aren't very accurate!). iPhone shows 2 bars and was pulling -95 to -101db.
* Outdoors Nokia N95 shows full bars, iPhone shows 1 bar short of full bars. Nokia signal -85 to -91db. iPhone: -81 to -88db.
* Though Nokia phones are much more optimistic in terms of bars shown, the actual signal measured in -db is nearly identical between the 2 phones. Apple might want to increase the bars shown relative to -db so folks don't feel like their phone is weak on RF.

Further comparison to the LG Vu (also 3G phone): The Vu is many things, but it's no RF demon. In the same location for indoors tests (not running a field test) it does worse that the iPhone and Nokia. It shows the same bars as the iPhone, but hold it in your hand and it drops to EDGE. If it rains, it drops to EDGE. Voice quality suffers when 3G is at 1-2 bars. In comparison, the iPhone has yet to drop to EDGE/drop a call/have poor voice quality.

You can run field test on your iPhone by opening the keypad screen, then entering *3001#12345#* and hitting the talk button. Look at the top left corner to see the signal in -db. Remember, compare 3G to 3G and 2G to 2G. For example, the BlackBerry Pearl 8120 is an EDGE phone and isn't good for 3G signal comparison, but is fine comparing 2G. Note that you can turn off 3G and use only EDGE if you wish (in settings).

Beyond a much faster Internet experience (assuming moderate or better 3G coverage) and better voice quality, 3G allows you to use the Internet while talking on the iPhone. That means calls won't get sent directly to voicemail when you're surfing or downloading applications.

The iPhone 3G and the LG Vu.

Call quality and the Web

The original iPhone has just OK call quality and average volume. The iPhone 3G has excellent voice quality on 3G and very good quality on 2G GSM (3G's voice quality is inherently better because it uses a higher quality, higher bandwidth voice codec). Volume is louder, though it's still by no means a very loud phone. The speakerphone is noticeably improved and it's both louder and fuller. Voice quality with Bluetooth headsets is also improved and we had excellent call quality with the Jawbone, Plantronics Discovery 655 and Jawbone 2 (the iPhone 3G sounds better with the new Jawbone model than any other phone we've tested). Alas, there's still no A2DP Bluetooth stereo support, a most glaring omission for an iPod-phone hybrid. There's still only support for Bluetooth headsets and car kits-- no tethering for use as a modem and no using external Bluetooth keyboards. And yes, there's still no voice dialing, though it looks like 3rd party companies are working on voice dialing solutions.

The power button, SIM card slot and 3.5mm headset connector are up top.
The headset jack isn't recessed, so there's no need for an adapter when using your favorite headphones.

The web is as luxurious as ever thanks to Safari. Nothing looks as good or works as well on a mobile device. With a fair to good 3G signal (2-3 bars) in the DFW area, we managed 365k on average using DSL Reports mobile speed test, which lags behind some of the faster Windows Mobile devices like the HTC Touch Dual and the Nokia N95. With a 5 bar signal we got an excellent 780k average download speed that's as good as it gets on any phone in our area. When AT&T's 3G network bogged down the weekend of the iPhone launch, we switched to WiFi with a NetGear 802.11n router using WPA2 security and got better range than with the original iPhone (that plastic back helps).

GPS

One of the most exciting new features is the integrated GPS. The GPS works with a customized version of Google Maps, and the software is very similar to that found on the 1.x original iPhone firmware. Maps now uses the GPS, and it asks your permission to access the GPS each time you launch it. The GPS uses cell tower triangulation to speed up location, and in our tests it was one of the fastest we've used on a phone or PDA. It managed to accurately locate us in 10 seconds near a window inside and outdoors, and map downloads took only 5 seconds over 3G. This isn't a full-fledged navigation solution; maps can locate you, provide traffic info, track your progress on the map and provide on-screen directions to a location you enter or pull up from your address book but it doesn't have spoken turn-by-turn directions (a must when driving). TeleNav and Tom Tom are working on full-fledged navigation packages for the iPhone 3G, and we'll review those once they're available.

Here's a 2 minute walkthrough of the Maps application's features in action:

And here's our GPS driving test: www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxlsLX90jOU.

Compatibility with 1st Gen iPhone and iPod Accessories

The 30 pin iPod connector looks the same as the last gen iPhone and we had no problems using a several year old EDGE iPod dock, XtremeMac Luna clock radio and Griffin PowerDock. It doesn't fit in the JBL On Stage II nor the Altec Lansing inMotion 7. It fits in the Klipsch iGroove and i.Sound MAX speaker systems and plays music fine but doesn't charge. The new iPhone doesn't physically fit in the old iPhone's tiny dock so you can't use the old dock with the new iPhone. The new model comes with a USB cable and charger, but no dock (Apple sells a dock separately).

The original iPhone didn't play nicely with iPod speaker systems and generated interference (buzzing emitted through the speakers). This wasn't the iPhone's fault but rather 850MHz GSM, used by AT&T throughout much of the US, interferes with unshielded speakers. If you're in a 3G 'hood, you'll no longer hear that buzzing or need to turn off the iPhone's cell radio to use speakers because AT&T's HSDPA is largely on the 1900MHz band which doesn't affect unshielded speakers.

iPod features and display

The iPhone 3G is a fantastic mobile video and music player. That much was established with the launch of the original iPhone. We won't go over old features but we will say that audio quality from the speaker and through headphones in improved. And we're happy that the headphone jack is no longer recessed, making it easier to use any 3.5mm jack headphones. The new display is warmer, described by some folks as yellow, and this isn't a defect. Apple changed the color temperature of the display to achieve more natural and rich colors. We like it just fine, and wouldn't have noticed the change until we played our old iPhone 2G beside the new model. Like the iPhone 2G, the 3G iPhone's display is viewable outdoors even in direct sunlight.

The iPhone 3G's screen on the left is warmer and more yellow than the 2G iPhone on the right.

Battery Life

Like the iPhone 2G, the new iPhone's battery is sealed inside its pretty casing. You can't open a battery door (there is none) and swap in a new battery. Why? Battery compartments add significant thickness, and Apple thought it worth the risk to pursue thinness rather than practicality. Now, if you're the average person who's at a desk or near an outlet during part of your workday and overnight, you may not care. Most phone users don't own 2 batteries for their phone. But business travels and others on the go all day long who use the phone heavily won't be thrilled.

The new charger design is incredibly compact.

Not that the iPhone has poor talk times by 3G standards. Apple claims 5 hours of talk time and in our tests, we got 5 hours and 41 minutes-- better than most 3G phones we've reviewed. 2G talk time is 10 hours according to Apple and we saw nearly that. Video playback and 3D gaming will eat the battery faster than talking, as will web browsing over 3G or WiFi. In our tests, we got 4 hours and 43 minutes of continuous video playback watching movies downloaded from iTunes (push on) and 6 hours 17 minutes (push off). These are high quality VGA movies that work the processor harder than homebrew mobile encoded QVGA video or saved YouTube video, and we expect longer playback times watching those. Web surfing over 3G with brightness set to auto and push on but WiFi off lasted us 3 hours and 37 minutes, which is shorter than the iPhone 2G's EDGE surfing time. 30 minutes of Moto Racer ate 20% of the charge. Graphically simpler games like JirboBreak didn't consume nearly as much power.

Apple claims that the iPhone can play music for 24 hours, and our tests show that's accurate. No fears of running out of juice after listening to tunes throughout a trans-atlantic flight.

Conclusion: is the iPhone 3G worth it?

The iPhone 3G is certainly the most fun and easy to use phone available today and for the foreseeable future. Yet it brings smartphone features to the table and a very powerful Internet experience-- two things not usually associated with fun and easy. If AT&T has good service in your area and you like touch screens, the iPhone is certainly worth the $199 (8 gig) to $299 (16 gig) price of admission. The cost doesn't end there since AT&T requires a data plan, so the base cost is $70/month for service with 450 minutes of prime time talk time and unlimited data with 5,000 weekend minutes (text messages are extra).

If you're a hardcore BlackBerry or Windows Mobile user who needs all the Exchange features those phones offer, including expedient folder management, tasks and notes syncing, the iPhone's current software doesn't measure up. But if you just want calendar and contacts syncing with Exchange along with push email, the iPhone does a fine job.

If you've little need for business tasks other than syncing to your desktop and want to have a fantastic media player experience and the best touch screen experience, the iPhone is the way to go. Likewise, if you're into gaming, the first iPhone games in the app store tell us this is going to be a fantastic platform that far exceeds other phones (even Nokia's N-Gage 2.0).

If you've already got an iPhone 2G on AT&T, the iPhone 3G is worth it if you're in a good 3G coverage area or if you need the GPS. But keep in mind that spoken turn-by-turn navigation isn't here yet. That may take a few months. The camera quality and iPod features remain the same.

Pro: Fast, fantastic touch screen experience, easy to use yet powerful enough to handle syncing, Exchange and other business tasks. The 3.5" display is one of the best we've seen on a mobile device. Great music and video playback, as you'd expect from an iPod family product. Good 3G speeds and very good voice quality. One of the prettiest consumer electronics devices on the market if not the sexiest. Apple store staff and support folks are generally more helpful and knowledgeable than most high tech sales and support staff. WiFi and GPS put the iPhone on par with other high end feature phones and smartphones. Can easily turn off 3G and switch to EDGE via settings to save battery power or if you're located in a non-3G coverage area.

Con: Still no user replaceable battery (a bigger hurt thanks to 3G's power consumption), MMS, video shooting or copy and paste. The 2 megapixel camera isn't exactly cutting edge. No tasks or notes syncing.

Price: $199 for the 8 gig and $299 for the 16 gig with a 2 year contract.

Web sites: www.apple.com, wireless.att.com

Warranty: 1 year.

Specs:

Display: 3.5" color display, 480 x 320 pixels, 163 ppi. Touch screen, gesture-aware and multi-touch aware. Your finger must contact the glass, a stylus won't work and you can't use a screen protector.
Battery: Lithium Ion rechargeable. Battery is NOT user replaceable. It must be sent to Apple for replacement or taken to an Apple store. Estimated battery life according to Apple: 300 to 400 full charge cycles. Claimed talk time: up to 5 hours in 3G mode, 10 hours in GSM mode. Claimed standby: 300 hours. Claimed Internet use time on 3G is 5 hours (6 hours on WiFi), claimed video playback is 7 hours and claimed music playback is 24 hours. Supports USB charging.
Performance: CPU and RAM not disclosed. 8 and 16 gig capacities available, of which approx. 800 megs are used to store the OS. Has flash memory, not a hard disk.
Size: 4.5 x 2.4 x 0.48 inches. Weight: 4.7 ounces.
Phone: GSM quad band 850/900/1800/1900MHz world phone with EDGE for data. Triband 3G HSDPA 850/1900/2100MHz. Locked to AT&T, you can't use other carriers SIM cards with the iPhone unless someone finds a way to unlock it.
GPS: Yes, integrated GPS with a customized version of Google Maps.
Camera: 2.0 MP camera for still photos, no video capture. Supports geotagging (GPS location is embedded in photo data).
Audio: Built in speaker, mic and 3.5mm standard stereo headphone jack. Stereo earbud headset with inline mic included (frequency response 20Hz-20KHz, 32 ohms impedance). Full iPod capabilities, including video playback. Audio specs for iPhone: frequency response: 20Hz to 20,000Hz. Audio formats supported: AAC, Protected AAC, MP3, MP3 VBR, Audible (formats 1, 2, and 3), Apple Lossless, AIFF, and WAV.
Video: Plays all iTunes videos (TV shows, movies and etc.). Video formats supported: H.264 video, up to 1.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Low-Complexity version of the H.264 Baseline Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; H.264 video, up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Baseline Profile up to Level 3.0 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; MPEG-4 video, up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats.
Networking: Integrated WiFi 802.11b/g and Bluetooth 2.0 +EDR.
Software: iPhone OS 2.0 (customized version of Mac OS X operating system). Safari web browser, e-mail client, RSS reader, calendar, contacts, Google Maps, iPod music and video player, calculator, alarm clock, timer and more. Compatible with Mac OS X computers running 10.4.10 and later as well as Windows XP and Vista. Uses iTunes 7.7 or later to sync music and PIM information.
Memory Expansion Slot: None.
Connector: 30 pin iPod dock connector.
In the box: iPhone, USB cable, charger, stereo headset, documentation, cleaning cloth, SIM eject tool.
( Author : Lisa Gade, Source : mobiletechreview )

Full Story

Apple iPhone Review

Posted quangtao 0 Comment

Review posted July 1, 2007 by Lisa Gade, Editor in Chief

Phones 2007

Editor's note: In August 2007 Apple lowered the price of the 8 gig iPhone to $399 and discontinued the 4 gig model.

Editor's note: In January 2008, Apple and AT&T introduced a 16 gig iPhone.

Editor's note June 2009: the new iPhone 3GS is out. Read our iPhone 3GS review.

That most hyped piece of personal electronics is finally here: the iPhone. Announced in January 2007 at Mac World San Francisco by an incredibly enthusiastic Steve Jobs (yes, he's always enthusiastic-- so much so that he could sell lipstick to chickens, but this time he was over the top). The iPhone released June 29 at 6pm across America. It's hard to be unfamiliar with this smartphone (a name Apple avoids using because the iPhone is supposed to be more cool, better at multimedia and more friendly than other smartphones). It's been on TV, radio, in newspapers, and on this and every other tech web site for months. So we assume you know this is a unique touch screen phone with few buttons and a built-in iPod music and video player. Not your average iPod Video, but a wide screen, higher resolution variety with an even more luscious screen. Capacity-wise, we're in iPod nano territory: the iPhone comes in 8 and 16 gig varieties. The customized version of Mac OS X takes up 700 megs of that capacity and the iPhone uses flash memory rather than a tiny hard disc. That's good for battery life and durability, but not capacity as flash memory is pricier than miniaturized hard disc platters.

The iPhone has a full-fledged iPod built-in that plays both music and video (all the same formats supported by the iPod Video 5G and 5.5G, except video coverted with iSquint doesn't play). It's gorgeous looking, as you'd expect from Apple, and unlike the iPod Video, we didn't feel the iPhone's display was too small to watch lots of video. The 3.5" glass display dominates the front face (yes it shows fingerprints but they're easily wiped off), the silver back which matches the MacBook Pro has an Apple logo and the antennas are located at the bottom rear area under a black plastic cap (plastic doesn't block radio signals). The phone is very thin, and measures 4.5 x 2.4 x 0.46 inches. It's similar in size to the BlackBerry 8800, but a tad narrower and a few hundredths of an ounce heavier. The only physical controls are the sleep/wake button (also powers the phone on and off), a ring silencer switch, volume buttons, a Home button that takes you to the main display view shown above. The only ports are the SIM card slot, standard 30 pin iPod connector and a 3.5mm stereo headset jack. The tiny camera lens is on the back.

The Moto RAZR V3m, Samsung BlackJack, iPhone and the BlackBerry 8800.

Top to bottom: BlackBerry 8800, iPhone, BlackJack and Moto RAZR V3m.

It sells for $499 for the 16 gig model and $399 for an 8 gig model. There are no discounts or subsidies. Yes, this is an expensive product, but Apple and AT&T remind us that it's a phone, an iPod and a PDA in one. Is it worth it? We think so. If you're an existing customer, you'll need to extend your contract 2 years to buy this phone. The nice part is you'll still be eligible for a discounted (subsidized) phone at your original contract's end date, since you won't be getting that discount on the iPhone. Contracts are not additive, so your new contract will begin the day you purchase an iPhone and end 2 years from that date. Both new and existing customers must activate the phone using a Mac or PC running iTunes 7.3 (or newer) and Apple released 7.3 on the day of the iPhone's release. You'll need to have an Internet connection to activate the phone, and you'll need to sign up for an Apple iTunes account, even if you don't plan on purchasing music or videos from Apple's online store. Voice plans remain unchanged from AT&T's current plans and both single line and family plans are available. You must sign up for the iPhone unlimited data plan which is $20/month and includes 200 SMS (packages with more SMS are available at a higher price).

Apple has had more control over the iPhone's release and marketing than any other phone manufacturer. This is both good and bad: you choose your plan at home without any pressure from sales staff. However, once you open the box, you'll have to pay a hefty 10% re-stocking fee to return it, which is Apple's standard policy for their computer and consumer electronics products. If the phone is defective, you can't bring it to your neighborhood AT&T store to swap it (but you have better luck at an Apple store). You must ship it to Apple for repair, and Apple says repairs will take 3 business days. This is also Apple's standard consumer electronics policy, and it doesn't work well with phones, as they may quickly learn. Customers are used being able to return a phone to the carrier within 14 days without a financial penalty if it didn't suit them. And one can live without their iPod for 3 business days, but few of us can live without our cell phones. You'll have to have a backup phone if your iPhone needs repair. Not good. Note that any Apple branded accessories, such as Apple's Bluetooth headset are also subject to the same return policy.

Phone and Reception

AT&T has a 5 year exclusive on the iPhone in the US. While their coverage is generally very strong and broad, only you know if their service is available and adequate in your area. The iPhone is a quad band GSM world phone supporting the 850/900/1800/1900MHz bands, and it will work anywhere in the world GSM service is available. The phone is sold locked to AT&T however, which means you can't pop another GSM carrier's SIM in the phone. The SIM card is located at the top edge of the phone, and you must stick a paper clip in the tiny hole to eject the SIM card tray. You can use the SIM in other AT&T phones and both voice and data will work (it will use MEdiaNet and the WAP.CINGULAR APN). But you'll have to use normal voice mail rather than the iPhone's visual voice mail while that SIM is in another phone.

There is no voice dialing, period. Will that come later? Our crystal ball declines to answer. But there is something unique to the iPhone: Visual Voicemail. Tap on the voicemail button and you'll see an email style list of new voicemail messages, complete with the caller's name if they're in your address book. This means you can quickly select among voicemails to listen to important messages first.

Our iPhone's voice quality was good and volume was average. We've seen some reports in other reviews of problems with these, but we absolutely had no problems with either. Voice isn't as crystal clear as on 3G AT&T phones like the BlackJack and 8525 which use a higher quality voice codec (thanks to the greater bandwidth on 3G) but we heard no discernable difference in voice quality or volume when switching between our BlackBerry Curve, 8800 and iPhone. Likewise, call quality and volume are fine through the included stereo headset which plays voice in two channels of mono. Should a call come in while you're listening to music through the headset, the music fades and you can pinch the inline mic to pause to take the call (on-screen answer or reject with caller ID info appear on screen as well). Reception has been excellent on our unit.

The SIM card tray is located on the phone's upper edge. Push a paper clip into the tiny hole (it takes some force) to eject the tray and SIM card.

Web, email and Networking

Unfortunately, the iPhone doesn't have 3G, which is a shame given the fantastic Safari web browser that provides a true desktop view of web pages. Instead, the iPhone has EDGE (also referred to as 2.5G) which averages 90 - 150k. The bright spot is WiFi: the iPhone has 802.11b/g for much faster web browsing and email downloads. Of course you need to be in range of a home, work or public hotspot to use WiFi, unlike EDGE which is available anywhere you can get a GSM signal. The iPhone prompts you to connect to WiFi networks it finds when you launch the web browser. You can turn this off if it bugs you, and you can turn WiFi off when not needed. When setting up a WiFi network connection, the WEP password entry defaults to Apple friendly style and not HEX/ASCII. Unless you use an Apple Airport, be sure to change this option when entering the WEP key for a WiFi access point.

Safari looks just as good in real life as it does in Apple's demos. Of course, pages won't load as fast as their demos unless you use WiFi. It looks just like Safari on the desktop and it supports QuickTime, but not Java or Flash (we hope that comes soon, the web without Flash isn't quite the same). No surprise that it doesn't support Windows Media Player videos either. To scroll a page, simply drag your finger in the desired direction. To zoom, double-tap on the area of the web page you wish to view. Double-tap again to zoom out. Since you must use your finger and not a fingernail or stylus, selecting hyperlinks takes some patience (they're small targets for fleshy fingertips). Safari supports multiple windows, SSL, Javascript, CSS, frames tables, dHTML and pretty much everything else Safari on the desktop handles.

The email client is slick and pretty. It looks much like the Mac OS X mail program and even uses Mail's sounds. The iPhone supports an unlimited number of POP3 and IMAP accounts along with Gmail (as POP3), Yahoo push, AOL mail and .Mac mail. Jobs indicated that full Exchange support is in testing now and will follow, though you can currently setup an Exchange account if the mail server is set to use IMAP. Visto has announced that they'll offer an Exchange solution for the iPhone in Q3 of 2007 and will offer a 60 day trial-- we're not sure if this is what Jobs was referring to or if Visto's will be an alternate solution). Other than Yahoo's push email, the iPhone does not currently support push email. It can however check on a schedule (i.e.: every 15 minutes, every 30 minutes) or manually.

This is a rich HTML email client-- if you get a fancy formatted HTML newsletter, it looks the same as it would in your desktop email client. It supports attachments and supported file types include text, Word, Excel, images and PDF (.c, .cpp, .diff, .doc, .docx, .h, .hpp, .htm, .html, .m, .mm, .patch, .pdf, .txt, .xls, .xlsx). Though the iPhone does not come with an Office suite, it can display Word and Excel files in-line in the body of the message, but not PowerPoint. There's no editing and no saving of documents by themselves. Our test Word and Excel files looked like the originals with formatting and colors preserved, though our Excel chart didn't render. We hope Apple ports a version of their iWork (Office compatible apps) soon.

The Safari web browser viewing our home page.

Display and Getting Touchy

The iPhone has a very high resolution display by phone and iPod standards: 480 x 320 pixels at 160 dpi. That means video looks great, text is super-sharp and you can see quite a bit of a web page using Apple's excellent Safari web browser built into the phone. The display isn't just for looking it: it's a touch screen, and not the garden variety PDA touch screen but rather one that's gesture-aware and multi-touch aware. Just about everything is accomplished using fingers on the sturdy glass: selecting applications, dialing phone numbers, scrolling through emails and moving through music and video selections. It's very easy to use and we got the hang of it immediately. Swipe your finger up to scroll, pinch two fingers outward to zoom a photo and pinch inward to zoom out. Lists have a mini-alphabet on the right so you can move quickly through long lists.

Turn the iPhone to landscape orientation and the display automatically rotates to landscape when in an application that supports it such as iPod, Safari, YouTube and Photos. It can rotate in either direction for landscape mode, making it leftie friendly and rotation is near-instant. Wow. The screen turns off when the phone is next to your face (this only happens in the phone app). A proximity sensor handles this-- very sci-fi! That way you don't accidentally press an on-screen button.

In the three days we've had the phone, it hasn't suffered a scratch when in pocket or purse. The phone goes to sleep automatically and wakes up when you press the power or Home button. You'll then swipe your finger to right to unlock the phone. The phone sleep/lock duration is adjustable, as is display brightness, though we found the auto brightness setting worked well.

Since there's no hardware keypad or number pad, you'll tap on the glass to enter numbers on the large on-screen dial pad, and likewise on the on-screen keyboard when you need to enter text. Dialing is easy, though with no tactile feedback, we don't recommend doing this while driving (the iPhone makes a key-click sound but it's quiet enough to miss in a moving car). Note that there is no voice dialing and no smart dial (enter a few letters to bring up a list of matching contacts) but there is a speed dial list, or favorites. The iPhone is best used with full attention when it comes to phone use: not when driving, jogging or running to catch a plane.

The keyboard works best when we kept typing without worrying about mistakes. The auto-correct feature works quite well. It definitely will take a few days practice to get good at one-fingered typing. In one day we've gotten quite fast at that, but not at two-thumb typing. We'll update the review to indicate our progress. At the moment, I wouldn't say it competes with the Treo 750 and BlackBerry Curve, but who knows what can happen with a few days practice?

Applications and Syncing

The iPhone syncs to Macs and PCs using iTunes. On the Mac you can sync calendar and contacts (Mail, Entourage and iCal are supported), email (just account settings or mail too), and of course your iTunes music and video library. The iPhone can sync playlists or selected songs/videos using the "only sync checked items" method. Windows users can sync to Outlook, Outlook Express and Vista's new mail program for calendars, contacts and email info. Syncing 214 songs (1 gig's worth) took 3 minutes over the USB 2.0 connection. The iPhone charges while connected to the sync cable. ITunes automatically backs up the iPhone when it syncs (we didn't know it was happening, it was so fast).

Top: Creative Zen Vision W. Bottom: iPod Video, iPhone and Zune.

Unlike the iPod, the iPhone does not support hard disk mode. This means you can't mount it like a portable hard drive and use it to transfer files between home and office, nor can you copy Office files or PDFs. But multimedia file transfer support via iTunes is excellent. It's easy to move photos to and from the iPhone and both tunes and video transfer as simply as they do with an iPod.

The iPhone comes with YouTube and this plays the approximately 10,000 videos that YouTube has converted to H.264 format. YouTube will continue to convert files to this format, so the selection will grow. Videos look better on the iPhone than they do in their Flash iteration on the desktop, and the player has a variety of options including bookmarking. YouTube is watchable over EDGE but it's really best for WiFi use.

Google Maps has been completely iPhone-ized to support finger scrolling, pinch-zooming and tapping. There isn't enough space here to describe all it can do: watch one of the demos on Apple's web site. There are map and satellite views, list view, POIs, directions, traffic and more. Satellite imagery looks great, and loads quickly even over EDGE. We quickly found our location on the map, saved it as a favorite then typed in "movie theater" plus our zip code to see a map with pinpoint markings of all the theaters in our area. Tap on it to see the address and double-tap to get more info about that theater including a web page with show times (if the theater has one).

Apple includes two Widgets: one that tracks stocks via Yahoo (you can add and remove stocks) and weather (you can have several cities tracked, and flip between them with a finger). These work quickly over EDGE. The clock is a world clock (again, you can track several cities), alarm clock, timer and stopwatch. There's also a basic calculator, a capable threaded SMS app that integrates with the address book and a photo viewer that can handle JPEG, GIF, BMP and TIFF files. The contacts application has every field one would ever need, including a caller ID photo and you can dial from the address book. You can set favorites (a speed dial list) and this is accessible from the phone screen, as is contact, call history, a voicemail shortcut and the keypad. The calendar has list, month and year views but no week view (odd). It supports repeating events, multi-day events and more. The Notes application is a text-based notepad and you can save and email notes but not sync them.

Two things take getting used to: application settings aren't accessible inside the application. You'll need to go to the Settings icon on the Home screen and scroll through the list of applications to get to their settings. The good part is complete standardization of the interface: you never have to wonder where an application has hidden that setting you were looking for. The drawback is you must leave the application to change its settings. The other odd thing is that there is no exit application function. Granted Windows Mobile doesn't have this either, but Windows Mobile devices have a habit of becoming unstable due to memory management issues as a result. Palm OS doesn't have this because Palm OS doesn't support multi-tasking. Nokia S60 apps do have both close (minimize in Windows Mobile lingo) and exit options. Given that most of the competition doesn't give you an exit option, what's the worry? So far none since the phone has been stable, even with every app launched repeatedly over several days. You can force quit a misbehaving application by pressing the sleep/power button for more than 6 seconds.

Camera

This is a bit strange, but there are absolutely no camera settings whatsoever. There's an on-screen shutter button and that's it. No resolution setting, no white balance and no color effects. The 2 megapixel takes 1600 x 1200 pixel images of excellent image quality given the tiny fixed focus lens. Colors are saturated and accurate, noise is kept to a minimum and shots are sharp with plenty of detail. There is no flash, no self-portrait mirror (that would mess with the iPhone's pretty design, we assume) and the camera cannot shoot video. Nor can the iPhone send or receive MMS. If you wish to send a photo, you'll have to use email.

Accessory Compatibility

Docks, cables and chargers with iPod 30 pin connectors worked fine in our tests. Speakers such as the Altec Lansing iM7, Xtreme Mac Luna and JBL On Stage II worked but the iPhone gave a warning that they weren't certified to work with iPhone and gave an option to turn on flight mode which you don't have to do. But speakers aren't always shielded against 850MHz cellular interference and you might hear some buzzing in the speakers. None of our speakers were able to control the volume however, nor did changing volume on the iPhone have any effect-- and that's a problem.

Battery Life

The iPhone has a Lithium

Ion battery that's not user replaceable as we mentioned. Shame on you Apple. After 300 to 400 full charges, you'll have to send it to Apple for an $86 (including shipping) battery replacement that takes 3 business days. The only saving grace is the iPhone has phenomenal battery life, and unlike many Windows Mobile and even some S60 Nokia smartphones, it doesn't require daily charging with moderate to even heavy use. We don't know how Apple has done this: a large bright display, powerful CPU and lots of flash memory should eat lots of power. Even WiFi lasts way beyond the 2 to 3 hours we get with most PDA phones. And it plays video twice as long as my iPod Video 5G: just a bit above 6 hours in our tests so far. Music playback is close to the claimed 24 hours and an hour long phone call dropped the battery about 11% (Bluetooth and WiFi were on).

The iPhone has flight mode, so you can use it as a multimedia player on a plane, and you can turn Bluetooth and WiFi on/off to conserve battery power if needed. Though Bluetooth had no impact on battery life in our tests.

Bluetooth

Not many profiles here: handsfree and headset. No A2DP (that's not in regular Mac OS X Tiger either, *sigh*), no file transfer, no HID for Bluetooth keyboards. The iPhone doesn't beg for file transfer because it's so easy to get content onto the iPhone and camera photos off via iTunes syncing. But still, there's no way to Bluetooth a camera photo to your buddie's phone or PC or share an unprotected music or video file.

The iPhone has good but not top-notch voice quality when working with Bluetooth headsets. We tested the iPhone with the Jawbone Bluetooth headset, the Plantronics Explorer 330 and the Plantronics Discovery 655 Bluetooth headsets. Apple's own Bluetooth headset was not available at the iPhone launch, but we'll test and review it when it is available. The iPhone paired with all headsets with ease, and it can only pair with one headset at a time (it unpairs the last one before pairing with a new one). To pair the iPhone with a Bluetooth headset or a car kit, go to Settings/General/Bluetooth and turn Bluetooth on. The iPhone will start searching for Bluetooth devices automatically once you've turned on Bluetooth. After the iPhone pairs with a Bluetooth headset, it will add that headset as an audio source (along with speakerphone and iPhone).

The Plantronics Explorer 330 had the best voice quality on the incoming end while the Discovery 655 had the best outgoing voice quality with clear voice and no digital distortion. The voice via the Jawbone was good, but sounded a little muddy to our call recipients when the headset's noise cancelling was on. The volume isn't terribly loud compared to other phones via Bluetooth headset, but it's adequate for even noisy environments. The DSP and noise blocking technologies on these headsets worked fairly effectively when making calls on the iPhone. The range between the phone and the headsets wasn't the best we've seen either but not bad either. The Jawbone reached 10-15 feet before we started hearing some breakup; the Explorer 330 isn't the best in range and only reached 8-10 feet while the Discovery 655 reached about 10-12 feet.

In the Box

Apple includes the iPhone (of course), a 3.5mm stereo headset with built-in mic, dock, USB cable with 30 pin standard dock connector, a USB power adapter, cleaning cloth and printed documentation.

Conclusion

It is indeed revolutionary, super-sexy and insanely easy to use. This is a phone you could give your multimedia-lovin' mum and she'd get the hang of everything quickly. And she'd appreciate the large icons too

. Steve Jobs wasn't exaggerating when he said this was the best iPod Apple has ever made. The fantastic wide screen display, responsive and beautiful cover flow, good audio quality and support for every file that a regular iPod should make this the darling of iPod fans. The phone works well in terms of volume, voice quality and reception. It's powerful enough to compete with smartphones but the lack of a physical keyboard and 3rd party applications (including an Office suite) mean it falls short for those with serious business needs. If you simply need excellent email, a superb web browser, RSS and attachment viewing, then it will suffice. This phone does so much so well (my word, the commercials weren't an exaggeration) and in such new and ingenious ways that it is hard to compare it to any other phone on the market. We love HTC, but it puts the HTC Touch to shame when it comes to touchiness and multimedia, and even the LG Prada can't come close to competing in terms of touch interface and functionality. The iPhone isn't perfect, but it's the most impressive first version of a new kind of device that we've seen so far. It's practical, it's really fun, it looks great and it's easy to use. No it won't replace the corporate BlackBerry, but then again, that's not the market Apple is targeting.

Pro: We have to say it: undeniable cool in owning one. Fantastically easy to use (and easy to see) interface, yet the iPhone still qualifies as a smartphone, with some caveats. Extremely fast and responsive. Display auto-rotates very quickly. Stable. Fantastic for music and video playback. Google Maps and YouTube are phenomenal additions. Extremely good battery life given the feature set and capabilities. WiFi 802.11b/g is a plus and the phone seamlessly switched between EDGE and WiFi in our tests.

Con: No user replaceable battery. Repair requires sending it off to Apple for a claimed 3 business day repair time. No MMS, no 3G. Limited Bluetooth profiles-- what about those who want to use a Stereo Bluetooth headset, Bluetooth GPS or keyboard? No Office-compatible suite and not much in the way of 3rd party programs yet.

Price: $499 for the 4 gig model and $599 for the 8 gig $399 for 8 gig model and $499 for the 16 gig model.

Web sites: www.apple.com, www.att.com

Be sure to check out our iPhone Case Review Roundup too!

Specs:

Display: 3.5" color display, 480 x 320 pixels, 160 dpi. Touch screen, gesture-aware and multi-touch aware. Your finger must contact the glass, a stylus won't work and you can't use a screen protector.
Battery: Lithium Ion rechargeable. Battery is NOT user replaceable. It must be sent to Apple for replacement. Estimated battery life according to Apple: 300 to 400 full charge cycles. Claimed talk time: up to 8 hours. Claimed standby: 250 hours. Claimed Internet use time is 6 hours, claimed video playback is 7 hours and claimed music playback is 24 hours. Supports USB charging.
Performance: CPU and RAM not disclosed (we surmise a fairly fast CPU by mobile standards and plenty of RAM to run OS X). 4 gig and 8 gig capacities available, of which approx. 700 megs are used to store the OS.
Size: 4.5 x 2.4 x 0.46 inches. Weight: 4.8 ounces.
Phone: GSM quad band 850/900/1800/1900MHz world phone with EDGE for data. Locked to AT&T, you can't use other carriers SIM cards with the iPhone unless someone finds a way to unlock it.
Camera: 2.0 MP camera for still photos, no video capture.
Audio: Built in speaker, mic and 3.5mm standard stereo headphone jack. Stereo earbud headset with inline mic included (frequency response 20Hz-20KHz, 32 ohms impedance). Full iPod capabilities, including video playback. Audio specs for iPhone: frequency response: 20Hz to 20,000Hz. Audio formats supported: AAC, Protected AAC, MP3, MP3 VBR, Audible (formats 1, 2, and 3), Apple Lossless, AIFF, and WAV.
Video: Plays all iTunes videos (TV shows, movies and etc.). Video formats supported: H.264 video, up to 1.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Low-Complexity version of the H.264 Baseline Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; H.264 video, up to 768 Kbps, 320 by 240 pixels, 30 frames per second, Baseline Profile up to Level 1.3 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; MPEG-4 video, up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats.
Networking: Integrated WiFi 802.11b/g and Bluetooth 2.0 +EDR.
Software: Customized version of Mac OS X operating system. Safari web browser, e-mail client, RSS reader, calendar, contacts, Google Maps, iPod music and video player, calculator, alarm clock, timer and more. Compatible with Mac OS X computers running 10.4.10 and later as well as Windows XP and Vista. Uses iTunes to sync music and PIM information.
Expansion slot: None.
Connector: 30 pin iPod dock connector.
( Author : Lisa Gade, Source : mobiletechreview )

Full Story

Phone Review

Smartphone reviews, phone reviews, notebook reviews, iPod reviews, game reviews and more!

Mobile Tech Review

iPhone 3G Review

Apple iPhone Review

Blog Archive

PHONE LIST

Choice Language