Menu toggle

3G iphone Just how good are they?

peanut

peanut

Active member
I have held off this long because of all the early teething problems and lack of 3g but now I'm seriously thinking of taking the plunge.
How many of you have or have had iphones and whats your view of using them for everyday communications.

As a Surveyor I would tend to use it for arranging appointments , keeping in touch with the office and taking snapshot pictures of the odd defect to save carrying a camera. Rarely text but like to send the odd multimedia message.
Might use the MP3 player and I'm sure i'd love the video capability .

 
i have one of the first iphones and it will cover all the things u mentioned brilliantly and more. i certainly dont use it to its fullest and it has more functions than im ever going to use but in terms of essy with music and pictures it couldt be easier. only thing with the camera is that u cant zoom in or out. Friend just got the 3g and said inernet connection is slightly faster but not much.
 
I would say that the clever stuff - the syncing of diary and contacts - is only of use if you have a Mac to pair it with. Plus the camera is pretty pants, as is the battery life (especially if you leave wireless and the positioning stuff on all the time) and the Bluetooth functionality is deliberately nobbled by Apple, presumably to make you want to upgrade to the next version. And when you say I'm sure i'd love the video capability - note that it can't actually shoot video unless you hack it - and then obviously Apple's updates won't work and you've probably invalidated the contract warranty too!
 
I just upgraded to the iphone 3G
I think its a great product but it does have its faults SMS messages can not be forward to another recipient and having had the XDA exec which would do pretty much the same you could also Highlight copy and paste almost anything. I also used windows mobile activesync whch copied all my contacts messages and information I wanted from the phone to the computer .

The Iphone still requires some upgrades via apple which I am sure over tme they should be able to do.

Other than this I would apparantley recommend it

Wil
 
I had one from 4 hours after launch (and being ahead of the rest of the world that was before they were available to most people by, ooh, minutes...

Anyway the key points:
  • It's a nice size and not too heavy, and you don't feel like a idiot using it (I had an XDA Exec also and I needed a second phone as it was crashy, cumbersome and embarrassing to hold to my ear).
  • I leave bluetooth, GPS and wireless on all the time and battery life is OK. If I use it a lot it might need a boost in the middle of the day, but normally it's fine. I charge it every night as I always have with my phones. Typically I'll play an hour+ of Solitaire on it on the train, listening to the iPod function for at least that long, send 2 or 3 texts and use it to read email and check my calendar on a typical day. I don't honestly talk on it a massive amount though an hour of talk wouldn't be unheard of. Doing all that the battery lasts until bedtime absolutely fine. I also carry a cheapo retractable iPod cable so I can give it a shot from any handy USB port in case I get really stuck.
  • It synchronises fine with a Microsoft Exchange server for mail, calendar and contacts - I trust it more than I did my XDA Exec in that regard. It also supports Gmail, Yahoo Mail, AOL and Apple's MobileMe service, plus you can manually configure an email client. My one grumble here is that I would like to sync 2 Exchange accounts and it doesn't support that (a limitation of ActiveSync I believe, and that's a Microsoft tool shared with Windows Mobile smartphones). I use IMAP for mail from the second server but it doesn't support IMAP push so I have had to settle for polling, and the most frequently it can do that is every 15 minutes. My Sony Ericsson W880i was far, far better in terms of IMAP support.
  • There is no flash player for the Safari browser it uses, so a few rich content websites just don't work. To be fair a lot more have a mobile or even iPhone optimised version. Overall the browser is the best I've used on a phone.
  • Google Maps is brilliant. I use it all the time to find cafes etc. that I haven't been to before. It even supports street level in the latest software release. It doesn't do turn by turn navigation however (it's rumoured it will come).
  • As Will said you can't forward text messages. That's a pain to me as I typically send my wife the same message every day to confirm I am on the train and in which carriage so she can join me when she gets on, and I have to write it each time. I believe there is no group text option also. That said the format of text the message viewer (like iChat I believe) is pretty nice.
  • The keyboard is pretty good within the limitations of being a virtual one. It's not tactile but it clicks. I heard a rumour they may add a slight vibration to give it pseudo tactility.
  • The camera is fine in my view. I'm into cameras and have a reasonably expensive Nikon DSLR, and I know what makes a good camera and what doesn't. This however is a phone, not a camera, and the camera it has is perfectly good for taking a snap of a whiteboard after a meeting or documenting something. A bigger issue is that it tends to display photos a bit darker than they appear on other screens (mine does anyway) and there is no setting to adjust the brightness. It still makes a good photo viewer however.
  • There is no video recording functionality and no forward facing camera for video calling (the one potential drawback that can't be fixed in software should Apple choose to do so). I don't care never having used the ones my previous 3G phones have had, but one guy at work video calls his wife in the evening as he spends 3 or 4 nights away from home so it's the killer reason for him to keep his N95.
  • A key weakness is that it doesn't support copy and paste. I imagine Apple are working on that, as is rumoured.
  • It doesn't support Bluetooth audio for the iPod part which as someone said is hobbled in software (it can be tricked into playing music over BT and it works fine with my Sony Ericsson stereo BT headset for calls). I doubt it's a trick to encourage buying the third generation however as the hardware is definitely capable and the first gen iPhone can run the current version 2.2 software and get all the features of the newer hardware that it's capable of supporting. I think Apple have some weird view of Bluetooth as I'd have thought by now the iPod should have it and be able to share a library over it like you can do with iTunes over a LAN. I think it would be a big new feature if you could browse and listen to the music of other iPod users on the bus or train for example. Bluetooth works seamlessly with my Parrot kit in the car and with a Jabra visor-mount speakerphone I have.
  • It can only view Office files, and only if they are sent as email attachments. There are apps to allow you to save files directly to the phone that get around it, but I don't know of any that let you edit Word or Excel for example. I thought that was a big negative, but in truth I just use third party apps for things like expense tracking rather than my own spreadsheet.
  • It's great for video and games. Loads of people on my train get laptops out to watch DVDs or play Solitaire etc. on, but I can happily use my iPhone instead which is a lot more convenient.
  • There is currently no way to use it as a 3G modem for a laptop. Someone launched software to allow it to support a tethered device but it was finally removed from the app store after being in and out many times. It was rumoured at the time that AT&T in the US had it removed as they don't allow tethering on their "all you can eat" contracts, but I didn't buy that as the app store is part of the iTunes music store which is regionalised. More likely is the subsequent rumour that Apple are going to release an app to do it instead. I bought a 3G USB dongle for my laptop as this was a big issue for me.
  • The app store is pretty good. There are loads of apps, many free and almost all very cheap. I don't like the sense that Apple still manage the device, however.
  • It doesn't work with lots of iPod accessories such as chargers, the Apple iPod FM radio unit and the Alpine iPod interface unit. It does work with any iPod Touch accessories, but the phone radio interferes with most dock units unless they are specifically shielded for iPhone use.
  • I prefer the click-wheel of my iPod Classic to the on-screen iPod interface, but short of having the physical buttons it's unavoidable. It does have physical volume controls which are good and missing from the click-wheel iPods.
  • There seems to be a bug in either the current iTunes or iPhone 2.2 software as my phone insists on syncing all my podcasts even though it's told only to sync unplayed, new or the x number of most recent. It used to work so I imagine it will be fixed in the next release. Usually new releases are enhancements rather than bug-fixes, however.
Overall I'm pretty happy with it. Turn by turn navigation would be nice as it would make what I use the maps for even more useful and I'd like to be able to forward texts. Copy and paste might be nice as well, but currently I'd use it mainly to copy from a text message into a new one and forwarding the original text would be better. Lastly I'd ike to be able to listen to music on my Bluetooth headset. Otherwise it does everything I need and it's without a doubt the best phone I have ever had.
 
I want one of these so much but my company provides me with my phone and are good enough to allow me to use it as my personal phone as well as long as I don't take the P with the number of phone calls, so I just can't justify the expense of having an iPhone as a second phone. Shame you can't get phones that can take two SIM cards these days. I think i'll end up with an iTouch which appears to have most of the iPhone functionality apart from the phone and camera, but even the 32Gb one is far too small for my needs - I just can't bring myself to compress music - it's a real step backwards, i'd sooner wait till memory minaturises further.

Just a question - is the satalite navigation on the iPhone good enough to be used in a car as a proper fully functioning sat nav?
 
ORIGINAL: peanut
As a Surveyor I would tend to use it for arranging appointments , keeping in touch with the office and taking snapshot pictures of the odd defect to save carrying a camera.
Click to expand...

How on earth can you afford a 3G with the RICS sub. to pay next month? :ROFLMAO:

There must be more work going in Somerset right now than there is in Devon ! [&:]

Good luck with the phone. I can just about manage to make a call on my mobile! [:eek:]

Regards,

Clive (FRICS)

 
No. The GPS functionality purely tracks your position and overlays it on a map which is dynamically downloaded from Google. That means that it needs an active data connection to work (and that it's using bandwidth the whole time), and more importantly that if you go out of signal (GPRS is fine) then you have no map.

If you got an unlocked iPhone you could put your work SIM card in it, couldn't you? I don't know if they are locked in the UK or not, but I know for sure the NZ ones are unlocked.

With the biggest iPhone being 16GB you'd have to compress all the more if you had one though. Having said that though I reckon for listeing in a noisy environment using compromised ear-buds (or even my big noise cancelling cans) it doesn't matter much that it's compressed.
 
To pick up another couple of related points:

The media here went mad on the cost when the iPhone launched, but really it wasn't that dear. As an example a colleague was spending $120 per month on his mobile bill with Telecom. He decided he wanted to replace his old monochrome click-wheel iPod with a Touch, but when he did the sums it was cheaper for him to take a 16GB iPhone through Vodafone than buy a 16GB Touch, and he gets more data and text messages for his monthly fee than he used to get.

Several people in my office have Gen 1 or Gen 2 iPod Touches and they do most of the things the iPhone does (especially the Gen 2 ones), but part of the beauty for me is that regardless of what my iPod does I carry a phone anyway, and with the iPhone I really only need one device.
 
ORIGINAL: Fen
A key weakness is that it doesn't support copy and paste.
Click to expand...
I don't think that's ever going to be easy with the jesture interface - same issue with the iPod Touch.
 
Ahh, well that blows my case for getting a pay as you go one past the wife on the basis that for £400 you'll not only be getting a decent phone, but an iTouch, a net book and a Sat Nav.

I thought about getting an unlocked one but am not sure how it all works in terms of getting internet access, and all the other functionality because my company makes the concept of Big Brother look like a Hippy's convention in that they have restricted my normal phones functionality via the SIM so I can't access the internet/WAP, have limited BT functionality (i.e. can only pair with audio devices but can't transfer files or data via BT) and other things. It's pretty pathetic really but would probably mean I wouldn't be able to use any of the functionality of the iPhone other than the basic phone.
 
ORIGINAL: Lancerlot

ORIGINAL: peanut
As a Surveyor I would tend to use it for arranging appointments , keeping in touch with the office and taking snapshot pictures of the odd defect to save carrying a camera.
Click to expand...

How on earth can you afford a 3G with the RICS sub. to pay next month? :ROFLMAO:

There must be more work going in Somerset right now than there is in Devon ! [&:]

Good luck with the phone. I can just about manage to make a call on my mobile! [:eek:]

Regards,

Clive (FRICS)
Click to expand...

ha ha Hi Clive
go temp young man!,...

Its tough out there at the moment isn't it. I can give you a few intros if you are looking for something immediate. send me a pm
 
ORIGINAL: Fen

I had one from 4 hours after launch (and being ahead of the rest of the world that was before they were available to most people by, ooh, minutes...

Anyway the key points:
Click to expand...

wow thats some review Fen. Guess you prepared that earlier huh!

I finally read it through and dispite the drawbacks mentioned it still sounds like a great fone.

I am usually an early adopter of new technology and had the first 3g Nokia 6600 and the first available 02 Mini S but I held back on the iphone for some reason. I suppose because initially despite the fancy interface the iphone didn't have a fraction of the features of the mini S

I have waited hoping that someone would bring out a UK friendly contender but it just hasn't happened really. Guess I'll probably sign up for a 3G after christmas.
Thank you everyone that answered
 
If you want the best camera phone check out the new Sony Ericson C905. I bought an unlocked one for Stephanie for Christmas but it hasn't turned up yet [:(]

Still though this wee box of tricks does all the other stuff but is in a more conventional case, which I/we prefer.
 
Just a quiet day at the office, Nick [:D]

Actually I sit with a team of developers and one in particular is full of "Apple news" every day. He really wants an iPhone but can't quite make the leap (he's the N95 user who will miss video calling). As a result however we have lengthy conversations in a group of 6 or 7 people about the pros and cons. Currently there are 2 iPhone (both of us project managers) and 3 iPod Touch users, with one more swaying toward an iPhone and the one I mentioned who really wants one but can't bring himself to get one.

The bottom line is that it isn't the phone for everyone and it has some compromises, but for me it's less compromised than any of my previous phones. I thought I'd try to list all of those compromises so you can get a fair idea from someone who has been using one for 5 months.

The one negative I forgot is that while the front is pretty scratch resistant the back is fragile (and the front always looks manky with fingerprints). I bought an Incase Slider case for mine which I have to say is superb, protects the fragile part and doesn't make it bulky.
 
the features that first attracted me are the interactive touchscreen and finger control of images and data .Not sure what it is called . I am amazed the software has not been seen on a mini notebook yet.
I would love to have a video conferencing feature but have managed without it thus far.
I wouldn't make much use of the email and net browsing features as I am never far from a PC or notebook with wi-fi.

All in all I will probably sign up for one in the new year as it doesn't look like anything better is on the horizon.

Thanks for the review its the best I've read yet. no hype just a users feedback .



 
I just looked at a picture of the C905. First reaction is that it's got a smaller (and presumably non-touch-sensitive) screen and that it's a slide phone. Personally I prefer candybar as the flip and slide models I have had I find are prone to hanging up on callers if you don't quite open them properly to answer a call. I didn't look at the features in depth however.
 
not at all keen on the 905. It has a small screen and frankly I think the camera spec is a bit overblown considering the small size of viewing screen no zoom and other limitations . If i wanted a good image I'd use my trusty Fuiji S5600
It seems to have little else going for it
 
I had a C902 (music version of the C905) for 5 days...the design of the phone means the battery cover is slightly loose - very annoying!

I decided against an iphone for 2 reasons - no modem capability, and too big & heavy. The browser is very impressive though, and the general UI is very slick. Most people I know who have one are every happy with them.

I also couldn't bring myself to use a Windows phone - I want it to be reliable!

I'm using the Sony 890i - about as small as you can get, broadband modem at 460k, imap push email, excellent music player. Browsing is a bit limited, although better with Opera. If you want a big screen though, don't buy it. Battery lasts 2 days with push email turned on.
 
Hi Guys

Just to throw a spanner in here - I did a little research into the iPhone other phones that reckoned to be of similar working functionality.

I looked at the iPhone, the HTC Touch Diamond and also the Samsung i900.

I finally settled for the Samsung (8GB) and have been over the moon with it. It's got more functions than the iPhone, and not only does it have a better quality camera but it also has video capability which the iPhone hasn't. What really sold the Samsung for me was the Windows mobile 6.1 that has all the office packages too!

I have installed TomTom on it now and that works superbly too. It's more accurate than the dynamically loaded GPS system too as the maps are preloaded.

It took some getting used to I admit and like all touch screens they can be a bit flaky but overall it's a neat piece of kit. I have a screen protector on it and the rear is pretty robust

The only downside for me is that the stylus is separate and not internally stored. But I am used to that now and a pen or pencil is just as good!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Posts made and opinions expressed are those of the individual forum members

Use of the Forum is subject to the Terms and Conditions

Disclaimer

The opinions expressed on this site are not necessarily those of the Club, who shall have no liability in respect of them or the accuracy of the content. The Club assumes no responsibility for any effects arising from errors or omissions.

Porsche Club Great Britain gives no warranties, guarantees or assurances and makes no representations or recommendations regarding any goods or services advertised on this site. It is the responsibility of visitors to satisfy themselves that goods and/or services supplied by any advertiser are bona fide and in no instance can the Porsche Club Great Britain be held responsible.

When responding to advertisements please ensure that you satisfy yourself of any applicable call charges on numbers not prefixed by usual "landline" STD Codes. Information can be obtained from the operator or the white pages. Before giving out ANY information regarding cars, or any other items for sale, please satisfy yourself that any potential purchaser is bona fide.

Directors of the Board of Porsche Club GB, Club Office Staff, Register Secretaries and Regional Organisers are often requested by Club members to provide information on matters connected with their cars and other matters referred to in the Club Rules. Such information, advice and assistance provided by such persons is given in good faith and is based on the personal experience and knowledge of the individual concerned.

Neither Porsche Club GB, nor any of the aforementioned, shall be under any liability in respect of any such information, advice or assistance given to members. Members are advised to consult qualified specialists for information, advice and assistance on matters connected with their cars at all times.

Porsche
Lockton
Pirelli
Officially approved
Oracle Finance
WEX Esso
Collecting Cars
Archant Dialogue
Back
Top