iPhone 3GS
If there are 2 words can I use to describe the iPhone 3G, namely: “smart” and “sexy”. Maybe I was impressed too much to give this title, but in my opinion, sophisticated devices made by Apple this is truly revolutionary and remodel the concept of smart phones significantly. OK, following my discussion about the advantages and disadvantages of the iPhone 3G from various viewpoints.
Specification
For those of you who follow the development of the iPhone, of course you already know that the iPhone 3G is the third generation iPhone series, after the iPhone first (often referred to as the iPhone 2G) and iPhone 3G. Compared with the iPhone 3G, the additional letter “S” on the iPhone 3G means speed or velocity. Yes, with a faster processor (833 MHz, underclock to 600 MHz) and the amount of RAM is 2-fold of the iPhone 3G (256MB vs. 128MB), you will rarely experience the “lag” when using it.
Here are the specifications (fairly) complete from iPhone 3G:
* Processor: 600 MHz (underclock of 833 MHz)
* RAM: 256MB
* Screen: 3.5 inch display with a resolution of 320 x 480 and multi-touch support
* Internal Storage: 16GB/32GB
* Network support:
o 3G/HSDPA
o WiFi 802.11b / g
o Bluetooth 2.1 EDR
* Camera: 3.2 MP camera with autofocus and geo-tagging
* Other Features: A-GPS, digital compass, accelerometer
* Operating system: Mac OS X
* Dimensions: 4.5 x 2.4 x 0.48 inches
* Weight: 135 grams
Just like other Apple products, the iPhone 3G also has an elegant and attractive design. In addition to premium impressed, its size also fits in the palm of the hand and I was quite comfortable when using it to write messages, make calls, and surfing the web.
But there is one thing that was quite disturbing, namely the location of the camera lens. Yes, the camera lens is placed in the top right corner on the back, and my finger often “cover up” lens when I used it to take photos or record video.
Telephone and Voice Quality
As a PHONE smart, certainly the first feature to be seen is a function of the phone. The network is supported by the iPhone 3G is quite common, namely: GSM / EDGE (2G) and UMTS / HSDPA (3G), so you should be able to use any GSM provider (provided you’ve unlocked 3G iPhone ^ ^). I myself use a provider whose ads use the J-rock song “Dream On.” ^ ^
When making and receiving calls, sound quality is pretty good by me. The voices of those around the speaker was not so heard by me. Conversely, when I talk, sometimes listener asked me to repeat my words because my voice is not heard clearly. I do not know whether it was caused by the volume of my voice is too small, or there is noise around the listener, or indeed the iPhone 3G can not “deliver” my voice well. What is clear, in my opinion there is nothing special about the phone features on the iPhone 3G.
Data Synchronization
There are 2 kinds of synchronization of data that you can use, namely: online synchronization (through a data synchronization service on the Internet) and local synchronization (to a PC or Mac). To synchronize online, I use Google Sync, which supports the synchronization of contacts, e-mail, calendar, and features “Push” for notification e-mail and other applications. With “save” my data online, so I have backups of data the iPhone that I can access from anywhere. There is no such thing as “mobile phone is broken, missing data.”
As for local synchronization, the only application that can do it perfectly is-maybe you’ve guessed it, iTunes. With the latest version of iTunes, you can synchronize all your data: e-mail, contacts, calendar, notes, applications purchased from the App Store, song, video, dial tone, and others. Even you also can adjust the placement of icons your iPhone directly from iTunes!
Management E-mail and SMS
In my opinion, this is one excellent features the iPhone. Read, send, and write a message-either an e-mail or SMS on the iPhone is a very pleasant experience for me. You can read / write messages in vertical mode (normal) or horizontally thanks to the help of “accelerometer”. Display a virtual keyboard that is included as well as the current message you write will be adjusted automatically. To e-mail management on the iPhone, Apple include Mail. Yes, for those of you Mac users of course quite familiar with Mail, e-mail management application standard on the Mac, and you know its quality.
In addition to e-mail management, the iPhone also provides specialized applications for handling short messages (SMS), which can be accessed through the Messages. In this application, the SMS you send and receive will be grouped by sender / recipient. What is interesting: if you select one of the contacts there, then the SMS you send / receive from that person will be displayed as a conversation. Just like the Mail, here you can also read and write messages horizontally and vertically.
Internet Surfing
iPhone brings the browser application (browser) Safari to surf the Internet. In Safari, you can zoom in and out (zoom) by touching the screen with 2 fingers and do the pinch. Process zoom in or zoom out by a beautiful animation. Also, Safari on iPhone It also supports multi-windows (or tabs?), So you can unlock some site once. If you use iTunes, Safari bookmarks on your PC / Mac you can sync it on Safari on the iPhone.
You also can run many Web-based applications (known as a Web App) via Safari on the iPhone is, and will then be your bookmarks into the Springboard (place put an application icon on the iPhone) to your applications run as “native”. I myself have tried Google’s Buzz and Google Reader as a Web App and both are running smoothly.
Camera, Video Recorder, and Photo Management
OK, the iPhone 3G camera resolution is not very nice-only 3.2-megapixel camera, but it does not mean do not have the advantage. In addition to auto focus, on the iPhone 3G camera is you can specify which parts should be focused on the object image, with a touch (tap-to-focus). Yes, let’s say you’re pointing the camera at your pet dog in the park, you just touch the screen that displays your dog, and the camera will be focused there. To my knowledge only a few camera phones that include this function. For the quality of the photos, please check this picture.
In addition, the excellent features of this 3G iPhone camera is the ability to record video at 30 frames per second (fps), or roughly equivalent to DVD movie framerate. Apple even provides a function for editing video, namely trimming to cut the video clip which will be “thrown away”. Display video editing is somewhat similar to iMovie, with functions that are much less of course. ^ ^
Management of photo / video on the iPhone can be done easily with Photos application. You can browse, zoom in and out images with a “pinch”, send photos via e-mail, or run a slideshow from your photo collection. Unfortunately there is no feature to send pictures via Bluetooth (I’ll discuss more about this later).
GPS, Digital Compass, and Voice Control
iPhone also provides features for accessing location-based services via GPS and (Google) Maps. Through its Maps application, you can see the map around you and “ask for” directions from one place to another. Yes, if you frequently use Google Maps, of course you are not familiar with the features available on the Maps.
In addition, there is also a digital compass, which can be accessed via the Compass application. With the help of this digital compass you can minimize the possibility of getting lost when you venture into remote areas or forests.
By pressing the “Home” for a few seconds, we will go into mode Control Voice (voice control). As you probably guessed from its name, you can perform various functions of the iPhone through voice commands. For example we say “call John on mobile” to make phone calls to John, or “what song is this?” To know the title of the song currently playing. When I tried it, it turns out voice recognition function is not too good. Introduction to sound pretty accurate when I try to make calls, but I was quite frustrated when trying to use voice control to play certain songs. Hopefully, improved voice recognition accuracy on the next firmware update.
Multimedia, Entertainment, and the App Store
Many say that the iPhone = iPod functions of the phone. The presumption is not wrong, because the iPhone provides the functions of the iPod in full. Management of songs and videos that we do through iTunes can be easily synchronized to the iPhone. After that we can access our collection of songs and videos through the iPod.
If you are not satisfied with the video collections you have, you can also access the YouTube application to enjoy the streaming video. It looks quite similar to the web version of it and we can browse and search for videos of interest here. When I tried it, streaming speed and quality of the video display is also quite good.
One advantage the iPhone is a collection of applications that are available through the App Store. There we can find a variety of applications, ranging from productivity applications to games available there. For those of you who are reluctant to “buy” applications, do not worry because many applications are also available for free with a pretty good quality too. Some game applications also provide a version of “Lite” or “Demo” which you can download for free to test a particular game.
There are also applications for Facebook and Yahoo Messenger iPhone special for you who like to access social networking site or chat with your friends via YM. Besides it looks quite interesting, there are also features “Push Notification”, which you can use to notify you (via an alarm) if there is notification on your FB account or there is a call you via YM.
Other applications that I recommend is Evernote and WordPress Mobile (I’ve been talking about this). Evernote is a cloud-based records management application. With this application, we can keep a record (in the form of text, images, or video) to the Evernote server which then can we access from a web browser, desktop, and iPhone. I used to use this application to manage business cards. Yes, I just take a photo of a business card, and Evernote automatically perform a kind of text recognition function for “record” the information on the business card.
In addition to applications from the App Store, you can also access various web-based application dedicated to the iPhone. Several collections of web application you can access via Safari on http://www.apple.com/webapps, select the application you want, and then bookmark the applications to the Springboard for later you can run fast.
Battery Life
To be honest, before buying the iPhone 3G, I had confused the choice between the Google Android-based devices (Nexus One, HTC Hero, etc.) and iPhone 3G. In the end, the factor of battery life to be one “rating minus” I’m on Android phones. I have read some reviews from users on internet forums, and most of them complained about the battery resistance is very wasteful. The case also vary: from the software or firmware is less than perfect, until the various anomalies that have not been clear why. Impact, most users have to recharge the battery up to 2 times a day!
For iPhone 3G battery life, Apple claims:
* Talk time: ~ 12 hours (2G) or ~ 5 hours (3G)
* Internet access: ~ 5 hours (3G) or ~ 9 hours (WiFi)
* Multimedia: ~ 10 hours (video) or ~ 30 hours (audio)
* Standby: ~ 300 hours
I myself used to recharge my iPhone 3G battery between 2-3 days, with the use of “mixture” between making calls, sending SMS, browsing with WiFi, read e-mail, play music, take photos or record video, and occasionally play games .
Disadvantages / Weaknesses
In my opinion, there are 2 disadvantages of this 3G iPhone, namely: Bluetooth and iTunes. Yes, the Bluetooth feature on the iPhone 3G is indeed very, very alarming. Bluetooth on the iPhone 3G can only detect the audio devices, such as headset, hands-free or bluetooth speakers. We can not send and receive files from / to other devices via Bluetooth. Hopefully this Bluetooth feature fixed again on the next firmware update.
The second drawback is iTunes. Application management and standards and complete synchronization to the iPhone is only available for Mac and Windows operating systems. I often hassles when trying to enter a song or video to iPhone, because I have to boot into Windows first (I usually use Ubuntu) and run iTunes from there. Hopefully Apple “open” management systems / data synchronization in iTunes so the iPhone can be synchronized to perfection in the operating systems besides Mac and Windows. ^ ^
UPDATE: One more weakness of the iPhone is Apple’s development environment is closed. Yes, it’s no secret if you have to select “jailbreak” to maximize the potential of the iPhone. If you liked , you may be more appropriate to choose Android-based devices.
Conclusion
I have reviewed the advantages and disadvantages of the iPhone 3G and in general I am quite satisfied with all the features offered by this device. Predicate as one of the smartphone (smart phone) deserves the best of the phone Apple (without Bluetooth). Surf the web, read e-mail, listen to songs, watch videos, write blog posts you can do with ease and fun thanks to multitouch technology in the iPhone. But unfortunately Apple is less “open” in developing the iPhone and this system may be less suitable for those of you who like modify the phone.