iPhone 3G S

After owning a Blackberry Storm since November, I am more than happy I switched to the iPhone!
This phone is an absolute beast! Kudos to Apple!

I have had my new 16 3Gs phone for a couple of weeks ago. So given that I have had the phone/computer for a couple weeks I figured it was time to put on here what I think of it.

Display: the size is really nice and large. I went from a Motorola Q. It is easily double the size. I have found myself reading newspapers and webpages with no trouble. The enlargement "pinching" is quick and simple to do. The large display has actually made it easy to even check out my checking account activity. The touch screen makes it incredibly nice to move around quickly.

Applications: I have downloaded several. Lemonade stand, White pages, Mapquest, Accuweather, Sudako, flashlight, WSJ, Gas Cubby, Bible reading software, iBomber, and Flashlight. Most of those were free. I really love the active GPS function. More than once I have used it to find my way. The dang thing is a little gameboy too. I love the fact that I can quickly update my schedule on MS Outlook and then synch to update it. I am a shift worker so that is important. Plus it is an iPod.

Battery life: sucks! I am amazed at how pathetic the battery life is on this thing. If I have alot of usage on this phone it is dead in 8 hours. so if you get one then get extra chargers.

Internet: FASSSTT!! It is just as quick as my household wifi. It is amazingly fast!!!

Apple: ok, I was put off at first by the propriatary protections that Apple has put up. Here is an example: ringtones. The only ringtones you can put on the phone are from songs you BOUGHT from Apple. but a little research on the net and I was able to put my Sanford and Son ringtone on the phone for free. I don't know who to blame, but I still ticked I can't send/receive pics through text messages (MMS).

Camera/Video: the camera has a auto focus function. it is nice. what else is there to say? I haven't taken a ton of pics with it yet.

if you only use a cellphone as a phone then you don't need this. but if you like the games, mapquest, GPS, touch screen, and basically a tiny computer then it is well worth the $$. I am glad I got it.

And for $32 a year I am insuring it through my insurance agent. This is not a phone. this is a small computer that also makes phone calls.

Best phone by far ive ever owned, internet is blazing fast compared to what ive used in the past. Plenty of space, interface is amazing and the camera is great as well. A++ fantastic product.

I'm new to the iPhone and so far I'm blown away by the 3GS. It has everything I really use and need. As a matter of fact, I find it is now so much easier to manage my emails from the iPhone. The speed of opening applications to surfing the web over wifi is incredible. I find the GPS to be very accurate (I use the Motionx GPS app). The video and camera features are really nice. Yes, it would be nice to have zoom but then that would require a whole new camera lens and more bulk. I really appreciate the beautiful screen with landscape keyboard. Spotlight feature is also very convenient. The main thing I would like to see in the future is multi-tasking and programs running in the background. I'm sure that will happen with the next generation iPhone. I honestly don't see anything that would merit a downgrade to 4 stars. Perhaps the fact that this is my first smartphone might make me even more biased towards the iPhone 3GS.

Overall, the setup and activation was so smooth and trouble free. I'm extremely pleased. As with Apple everything works so seamless and intuitive. That was my deciding factor in going with the iPhone.

The 3GS is definitely faster than its predecessors in every respect. The new camera (and video!) capabilities are great and, along with the copy & paste functionality added in OS 3.0, add much needed features to the iPhone experience.

My early impression is that battery life has been improved, though not as much as Apple would like us to believe. That's obviously anecdotal and a statistically insignificant sample of one, but it is my current impression. FWIW.

I'm annoyed that MMS wasn't up and running from 3GS Day One, and that I still don't have at least the option of a unified Inbox. Other than my general dissatisfaction with AT&T's call quality and network stability, I don't have any other substantive complaints.

This is my third iPhone in two years (like most everyone else) and I love it. While I loved my previous models, the 3GS is the first one I can unreservedly recommend to folks who aren't Apple diehards. The 3GS will be the gateway drug for lots of new Apple customers.

For my part, I'm loving my 3GS, but already looking forward the the 4G (OK, actually LTE) model we'll undoubtedly see next year, along with OS 4.0... :-)

I bought the 32G iPhone 3Gs. I walked into AT&T late in the day Friday expecting them to be sold out. To my surprise they had a couple left and I decided to go ahead and get mine before they sold out. I did not want to wait for a restock in the event they sold out. The guy at AT&T suggested a car charger, screen protectors, and a case, but I informed him that I had all of the accessories in advance. He then wanted to give me an intro into the iPhone. After he went through all the cool things about the iPhone, he asked me what kind of phone I was coming from. He seemed kind of befuddled when I said I had an iPhone already. After he learned of that he asked for the sim and I was on my way. When he handed me the phone the first thing I did was opened the camera and took a short video clip. I wanted to see the quality of the video from the device. The video quality was great, it played clear and smooth. After I took the video I put the phone in my pocket and finished up with the AT&T guy. Total time spent in the AT&T store was around 25 minutes at the most. It could have been faster if he would have asked me if I had questions instead of just giving me information I was already aware of. AT&T could have also saved me some time if they didn't make their clerks try to upgrade texting plans. Neither of those issues were a big deal, but we did spend around five minutes trying to get me to upgrade my texting plan.

After leaving the store, running some errands, and picking up my daughter, I got home and played with the device a bit. I took a video clip of my daughter playing outside. I reviewed the video and it was clear and looked good. I then proceeded to send the video to YouTube. This process took around 10 minutes on 3G for a video that was around a minute and a half long. After the video was uploaded, I clicked the link to check out the video and the quality was lowered. The video was grainy and streaky, but loaded quickly. I wondered why it lost so much quality, and realized I was viewing it on 3G. Later I viewed the video while on wireless and it was good quality. The total process from recording, to being able to share on YouTube, does not take alot of effort or time. They have streamlined the process and made it easy to post videos and share them. You can also trim video clips. When you trim the clip, instead of making a new copy of the trimmed clip, it edits the original and scraps the trimmed parts. It would have been nice if they could have made a new copy of the trimmed video and left the original as it. I am sure we will be seeing new apps in the appstore for video editing soon. The camera/video recorder is a big improvement. Macro and auto-focus seem to work well, and the camera flashes open without lag.

The voice recognition on this phone works well. There is no programming, or calibrating needed. You can press the home button until you hear the beep, and say dial 987654321 and it dials it. This is right out of the box. When you get your contacts synced up you could say call (insert a contact name here), and it will call that person. I have not experienced problems with this feature in the small amount of time I have played with it. It seems to work very well.

The speed of this phone is a great improvement. It is snappy and ready to go. This upgrade is probably the best improvement to the device. The voice recorder which was added in the 3.0 upgrade works well and is pleasant to use. The compass seems to work well, but there have been a couple times where it seemed to be off. It corrected after the figure 8 calibration though. I am excited to see the MMS and new network speeds once AT&T pull it together. There is also a battery percentage meter option, which is great! All in all this new iPhone is a good improvement, I would recommend upgrades to all V1 users, and The V2 users should also consider this upgrade.

Speed is awesome. From booting up, to opening/running apps, the speed is very impressive. Camera is sweet. I uploaded 2 comparison pics in the 3GS category if anyone wants to see the difference--the huge difference. Taking and editing video is awesome! Voice control was spot on, as well, with contacts as well as ipod. I highly recommend this device!

A great improvement for me being a V1 owner. I also only had to wait 45mins but I was early at the apple store. Once the process started it was very quick. Restoring music, contacts etc took 30 mins for my 8gigs so find something to do like checking out EIC. Volume for the music is much louder which can be bonus if have no hookup in your car. Supposedly bluetooth is now in stereo which gives car owners with bluetooth head units another option. The compass is a great feature for the map. If you see the figure 8, just move the phone around in a figure 8. Keep in mind if you are in area with no service the compass will still work. For me the screen seems much smoother and does not pickup oil or finger prints making it easier to clean. I will probably still get an invisible shield for it for piece of mind (not sure about case yet).
All in all a great phone! If are a V1 user this would be a great time to upgrade.

Phone was delivered to my door early this morning at 9 AM.
By 9:30, my iPhone was working, activated and synced. +10101000843097894273 for Apple on that.

As for the Phone... I will be reviewing compared to the v1, which is my previous phone.

The phone is 5 stars, I love the design, just wish my case was here already! Obviously as we all know, Apple makes a quality phone. That covers value as well. I paid $199 for this baby and it was worth every cent.

As for the iPod, the speakers are 10x better than the v1. Not only does it play louder but the words are clearer. Great great upgrade there.
The same can be said about the speakers when on the phone, a definite increase in volume over the v1.

Video is amazing, enough said. Actually, Ill say a bit more. The quality is great and editing is easy as PIE.

Finally, voice control. It worked great for calling people, etc. but not so much for controlling the music.
I said, "play jack johnson" and it misinterpreted this 5 times in a row as "play album king" "play album charge" "play songs by john mayer" "play songs by death cab"

Everything else is great and im thoroughly enjoying my new iPhone 3GS!

Volume increase is ok.

Everything took about 45 minutes when I was about 100th person in line. Very smooth and the fastest part was actually the in-store activation when they plugged my phone in. That took about 30 seconds.

Compass works very nicely and doesn't jump all over the place. It does work horizontally and vertically oriented which even my Garming handheld had trouble doing. Haven't found out how the Compass directional field works in Maps yet.

After a restore that took about 5 minutes, every icon and setting is cloned from my 3G. The only thing is, now my 3Gs has my Lifetime usage of my 3G showing on it.

I said it before, but CRAP! This thing opens apps fast. iPod is instant on the S, takes 4 seconds on the 3G.

Camera focus and video are on par and even better than expected.

The screen is a shade darker under highest brightness. Maybe the coating has something to do with it. It's very noticeable when the screen auto dims.

Battery % indicator is under the "usage" setting. Good to have.
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