Introduction
One has to be very cautious when writing an article like this. The old iPhone too is such a handset that is rated very differently by people, some are fond of it, some hate it and both sides have a grain of truth. Of course it’s hard to stay objective as one can react in two ways to such hype. One could say that hmm, this can be really good if so many people like it or one could also think that oh my god, yet another fashion device with just too much marketing and hype with fanboys all around.
Both are true in a way.
When it turned out that the new iPhone will be available at us too, the home telecommunication community got overly excited. How much will it cost, when it is coming, in what kind of package, will it be available network-free? Currently there are only rumors spreading around, we have heard that the T-Mobile edition is coming in August and the SIM-free edition is already available… for more than €865 EUR.
This iPhone 3G has been offered by HGyu, who is dealing with the phone anyway. The small white box had an absolutely original phone inside that has been bought abroad, was already activated, had a warranty and thus it is not network-independent. That’s because our current article is rather a preview, we will be posting a full and complete review when we’ll have the normally functioning one in our hands.
Exterior
They are sure good in packaging. The Apple phone is inside a small, white, elegant box, with the phone’s logo on top and apples on the sides, along with some discrete labels. Under the iPhone there is a USB cable-charger combo and a white headset. Yep, that’s the end of the accessories, no CD, no manual. The dear user will download it from the net.
If someone knows the predecessor, then the design won’t be a striking one. The front is still one large touchscreen with the familiar button on the bottom, which takes us to the main menu, wherever we would be. There is no secondary camera so it’s bye-bye to video calls. The screen is theoretically still scratch-resistant, but I didn’t start testing this feature with a crowbar and a pack of car keys.
The phone with a white back has a longish volume control key on the left with a small button above it that makes the handset go mute. Unfortunately there are no environmental profiles, but we should note that most users use only two profiles: normal and silent. On top there is the power button which can also be used for activating standby mode. Near this button we can discover the headset connector: I couldn’t cram any jack plug into this connector, only iPhone’s own headset fits. Between these two (on/off button and headset connector) there is the SIM card slot and we’ll still need some pointed thing to open it.
The back is porcelain white; I can’t say anything yet about its scratch-resistance, although I’m a bit skeptic. Below the large Apple logo and the iPhone label we can read that our subject has a storage capacity of 16 GB, has been designed in California, but assembled in China.
Interior
At first glance there’s no big difference between the old and the new iPhone. Most of my acquaintances are still amazed by the multitouch display; it’s really spectacular when you “do magic” with your fingers, it’s just like Harry Potter. No complaints about image quality either and although some sources say that the new iPhone’s display is not bright enough, I didn’t notice anything like that, I was very satisfied. It’s easy to read in sunlight too, it’s crystal clear, sharp and cool.
The system is version 2.0 and there are some changes you can observe at first glance. The order of menu items can be varied to our taste, the default toolbar fills out all available space. This default quick-launch bar has the phone screen, SMS and iPod features on it, but these can be taken off or we can put anything near them from the icons above. If we long-press an icon then all icons start moving and then we can pull them anywhere we want to, if we pull one to the screen edge then the icon can be moved to the next screen, as we can have more main screens.
This is absolutely okay, as now there really are applications that can be officially installed on the handset. We can download (usually for a sum) and install only software that has been verified by Apple. Symbian and Windows Mobile users will probably have a hard time getting used to this, but the fruity company is not alone with such limitations. BlackBerry OS, for example, can be expanded in a similar way. This of course narrows down expansion possibilities a lot, but probably there still will be many to develop software for the iPhone even if Apple wants a share from download incomes. This method has the advantage that we theoretically cannot install any kind of software that has some shady, unknown sources.
Operation is still flawless, incredibly fast, damn easy and spectacular. These are practically the four attributes that made the iPhone have so many fans, but then we have the fact Apple OS is an inaccessible program code for hardcore users, so they can’t add to it, nor take away from it. Theoretically. That’s because the new model, just like the old iPhone, will possibly not avoid being hacked, as according to news many people have already managed to hack the system.
Missed opportunities
We are very curious if the Hungarian iPhone 3G will also miss MMS support. It is quite probable that the Bluetooth limitation won’t change; meaning that this protocol can only be used for voice transfer, there is no chance for sharing files.
It’s a pity that we cannot switch to landscape view when typing SMS messages, even though there’s no problem doing this during browsing. This makes typing done through a somewhat crammed up QWERRTY layout which makes mistypes happen more frequently. Another problem is that there still is no copy-paste feature.
The Safari browser’s interface, however, is really one of the best in the world. It has intelligent zoom, it’s fast, breaks pages logically, but in a completely unintelligible way, it has no Flash support. Until now one could say that neither could the other manufacturers implement it, but since then Nokia E66 and E71 have been released, which all display fullscreen Flash animations without a problem. No matter that iPhone 3G has HSDPA support; it doesn’t work as a modem.
The camera on the back is the same, its 2 megapixel resolution doesn’t make it a world’s first and, moreover, and we practically have zero possible settings: this is it, you must like it and don’t even think about tampering with it. It still can’t record videos (by default), it reacts to darkness by increasing exposure time, which results in blurred images, even more since there’s no flash.
The musical part didn’t change much; the software part is still outstanding. We can only set Apple-approved music as ringtone (yep, go over to iTunes) and the total number of sound effects we can use for text messages is seven and there are no visible signs in the software that would say that this is going to be extended.
Let’s sum it up!
There is some kind of battery under the hood. Without a SIM, after lots of tampering, it went offline after 3-4 hours. Of course the phone was brand new; this will surely improve after a couple of charges. But we shouldn’t try changing the battery at home, as this requires the phone to be taken apart, screws need to be unscrewed and all that stuff.
Let’s try to give some kind of objective summary based on everything we’ve seen. iPhone 3G is fine stuff. There are still dozens of small things missing from it, although some of these can be replaced with external software in the future. We will of course be interested in the Hungarian version, as that can be tested completely with a SIM card and we’ll see what kind of differences there are in software features.
Apple’s marketing strategy disturbs lots of people. The phone of “mosts”, everyone wants this, this is the coolest, the best, the most wanted, the most beautiful, the most innovative, revolutionary, genial, fantastic. One can only talk in superlatives about it. There is a need to own it in many users; they just simply forget its flaws, although it has a lot. It will be sold in an incredibly large quantity, it will probably have a reasonable price with subscription, and it will bring a huge amount of profit for sure. Apple makes a great use of its image, built up over the decades. It’s not doubtful that this is deliberate. They have deliberately based on Apple fans, they have deliberately built on trends, on snobbism, on the fact that having an iPhone is a lifestyle; you can be part of a club, so when two Apple users meet they greet each other like trams. It’s a feeling of being together, of being different; of being separate from the masses… this whole thing has lots of psychology behind it.
And yeah, iPhone 3G is usable stuff, it’s quite good. But not for everyone and it’s not necessarily the best. One could like brands, can be fan of products and go on flaming in forums like a maniac… but seriously: isn’t this a bit sick? It’s just a phone like any other. A consumer good, a communication device. Let’s consider it like one.
Bog
Translated by Szaszati
