Well yeah, in just a few days the iPhone 3G will come out. Of course the usual suspects already had it for a few days and weeks now to give their opinion about it.
One of the first is Steve Jobs’ personal fanboy Walt Mossberg. Although this time around he isn’t that ecstatic as usual. For starters, the battery life doesn’t really do it for him. He got 4.5 hours of talk time from the new iPhone. The main reasons for him to buy it are the increased data speeds with 3G (say what?) and the lower entry price although the AT&T prices are more expensive than before. At least the T-Mobile prices over here in Germany stayed the same. The phone itself got cheaper of course.
Then there’s David Pogue’s review for the New York Times and Ed Baig of USA Today.
The latter says he’s having problems with connecting to the 3G network. An AT&T problem? Probably. This is one point most of the US reviewers are forgetting. There are other countries around the globe where 3G isn’t an issue anymore. Take Germany for example: you get 3G/UMTS basically everywhere. People are used to it. If you’re near a reasonable big city you can be sure there’s 3G at least from the two big providers, Vodafone and T-Mobile.
The US providers have to spend money on newer technology if they want to keep up with the rest of the world. I was surprised how bad the reception and quality of the network was, when I travelled to San Francisco in April.
Back to iPhone 3G. All three reviewers noticed an improvement in audio quality when compared to the first gen iPhone. On the other hand the GPS seems to be a let down, at least for David Pogue. Using it in a car in Manhattan seems to be too much for the device. If it’s just the buildings or really the GPS receiver, we don’t know yet. Ed Baig didn’t seem to have a problem. Turn-by-turn directions aren’t available yet, but there’s probably someone working on that to fill the void.
For me, personally, the iPhone software 2.0 is more of a highlight than the new 3G device itself. If I was using T-Mobile I’d probably get the 3G too, but since I’m not, I’ll stick to the old iPhone and welcome the new features that come with the updated software. If only they could find a way to include copy-and-paste and video recording (which basically works, like in the Qik beta version and other software you can get through Installer.app).