Apple iPhone 3GS 32GB SIM Free
Product Description
The first thing youll notice about the iPhone 3GS is how quickly you can launch applications. Web pages render in a fraction of the time and you can view email attachments faster. Improved performance and updated 3D graphics deliver an incredible gaming experience too. In fact everything you do on iPhone 3GS is up to 2x faster and more responsive than iPhone 3G.—-Features:—– Improved performance— 3-megapixel autofocus camera— Video recording— Voice Control— Digital compass— Cut Copy & Paste— MMS— Spotlight Search— Landscape keyboard— Voice Memos——Specifications:—-Capacity: 32GB–Display: 3.5-inch (diagonal) widescreen Multi-Touch display–Support for display of multiple languages and characters simultaneously–Mobile and wireless: UMTS/HSDPA (850 1900 2100 MHz) GSM/EDGE (850 900 1800 1900 MHz) Wi-Fi (802.11b/g) Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR–Power and battery: Built-in rechargeable lithium-ion battery Charging via USB to computer system or power adapter–Talk time: Up to 12 hours on 2G Up to 5 hours on 3G–Standby time: Up to 300 hours–Internet use: Up to 5 hours on 3G Up to 9 hours on Wi-Fi–Video playback: Up to 10 hours–Audio playback: Up to 30 hours–Camera photos and video: 3 megapixels Autofocus–Video recording: VGA up to 30 fps with audio–Photo and video geotagging–iPhone and third-party application integration–Language support: English (U.S) English (UK) French (France) German Traditional Chinese Simplified Chinese Dutch Italian Spanish Portuguese (Brazil) Portuguese (Portugal) Danish Swedish Finnish Norwegian Korean Japanese Russian Polish Turkish Ukrainian Arabic Thai Czech Greek Hebrew Indonesian Malaysian Romanian Slovak and Croatian–Keyboard support: English (U.S.) English (UK) French (France) French (Canadian) French (Switzerland)….
- 32 GB Internal Memory
- 3MP Camera With Video
- A-GPS, Wi-Fi,Digital Compass, Bluetooth
- 3.5-inch (diagonal) widescreen Multi-Touch display
- 480-by-320-pixel resolution at 163 ppi
I have been using one of these for about two weeks as of writing. So far, I am really impressed with it. I spent afew years (2003-2005) working on development of early touch screen products, mainly on UI (user interface) graphics, so was able to see the potential of the touch screen long before the technology reached the mass market. At that time, the best screens were about £600 each – that’s just the screen component, not the electronics and software needed to drive it. How things have changed!
Anyway, if you are new to touch screens then iPhone is quite different to handle. The screen is remarkably responsive and sensitive and, so far, seems resistant to scratches. The UI is intuitive, colourful and generally logical, requiring very little manual-reading to understand and use. The main feature – the phone – is pretty good. I’m not convinced that the sound quality is that brilliant, though I have no particular problem with it. As with most mobiles, the phone uses a contacts list, from which you may select the person to call and the number to use. It’s all easy enough. To get it working optimally, it is worth taking time to edit the contact fields properly – putting forename in the forename field, surname in the surname field, etc, and categorizing each number correctly. This just makes it easier to find and call people. Also, it is worth telling it if a contact is using an iPhone, as certain iPhone-to-iPhone call features then become available.
(1 March 2010 update:) The text messages feature is very nice. It presents exchanges of messages as coloure-coded talk bubbles, one after another, so you can easily follow and review the conversation.
Web browsing with Safari is very nice, though Apple’s continued refusal to enable Flash in Safari means that most online video won’t display on iPhone. Obviously, apple wants the world to use its own format rather than Adobe’s. Too bad.
As a corporate user working from a home office, my iPhone is linked to my wireless hub, and to Outlook (on Windows not Mac!) This works really well, with email being pushed to iPhone automatically. iPhone picks up wireless networks as you travel. Just select an unencrypted one to stay connected online. (Push-mail should work no matter which wireless network you connect to.)
The iPod feature is pretty good – especially as iPhone has tiny stereo speakers built-in, which give sound plenty loud enough for around the house, though sound quality can be a bit fluffy at high volume. However, playlist support in iTunes is a bit limited compared to iPod (I have an iPod Classic). Also, play counts don’t seem to be added up always when I connect to iTunes. My iPod play counts always update correctly. In other words, songs I play On iPhone don’t seem to count in the song popularity stakes.
The camera is nice, especially the video and auto-focus. However, as with most phones, the camera isn’t that great compared to a “proper” camera, so I don’t really bother using it. In low light conditions the pictures are inevitably very dark, so its lack of flash is quite evident.
Battery life is reasonable, I suppose. Some apps use a lot of power, but that’s to be expected. Downloadable apps are a big feature these days. I have to say that, in my view, most of them are pretty awful… badly written code, and cheap conversions of old games from other platforms. The backgammon game is terrible – it plays poorly and it cheats. Compact backgammon neural network software has been around for years and years, and yet we still have these trashy old versions floating around. It’s not really good enough. Most of the apps seem to be aimed at kids, and are of the “fun” variety. Of the free apps, I recommend the infamous spirit level, TV guide, battery life tool, and the Amazon app. Of the free games, I recommend “Space Buster” if only for its 1980s electronic musical score.
Voice activation is very nice indeed, even if only from a technological point of view. It recognises what you say WITHOUT needing to be “trained” to understand your voice. So, say to it “play songs by John Lennon” and it will tell you what it is doing, then find and play all songs by John Lennon (if you have them available). Say “call Julie” and it will do so. Very nice. It does get it wrong occassionally, and does mispronounce some words – it says “Bash hunter” instead of “Bass Hunter” for example, but generally it’s a pretty impressive bit of software.
After having had one expensive Nokia smart phone stolen (by a light-fingered not-not at Ikea Nottingham, for the record) I am pleaqsed to see that this phone has better security features. There’s the option to track its location (for a fee) and the option to wipe its content if you get the password wrong many times. This is no problem for the legal owner, who will (if sensible) have backed up the phone’s contents to the PC anyway. Personally, I think it should stop working altogether, and require the user/villain to visit an Apple shop to check their ownership credentials and, if all is correct, re-activate the phone.
Overall, it’s a really nice phone and I like it a lot. It certainly has the cool factor, and some significant advantages over the previous model. I am keeping one eye on Google’s Nexus but for now I am happy to stick with this phone.
Rating: 4 / 5
This is my third iPhone, and they just get better. But going iPhone is as much a lifestyle choice as about obtaining a piece of technology, and it’s worth considering if this is really what you want to do before you do it.
Before the original iPhone came out, it was thought to be an iPod which also did phone calls. Interest hotted up when it was announced that it would come with free web-surfing. On launch, the interface was found to be smooth and intuitive, despite the relatively lowly specs for the camera, internet connection (just Edge, back then) and omission of expected features such a tethering, video recording and cut&paste.
The version 2 software changed all that, with the introduction of the App Store. Although it was released at the same time as the iPhone 3G, with its faster network coverage, it was really the App Store that changed the game. Apps, at an average of 59p, range from the simply bonkers to the business critical. On my phone I have an audio spectrum analyser, a pro-audio recorder, a document scanner, Facebook, Twitter, Le Monde, the Bible and a load of games that rarely get played. Plus one or two that get played a lot. This isn’t just a mobile computer — the access to audio, web, wifi, motion and tilt sensors, along with the famous swipe and pinch controls, makes it a unique hand-held environment for doing basically anything an app programmer can imagine.
So, if the 3G, with the version 2 software, was so good, what has the 3Gs got?
First, the version 3 software plugs the holes left by version 2. We now have a really useful copy and paste, the option for landscape keyboards in any application, a search function across the entire system, calendar subscriptions, voice memos, multi-media messaging, sync-able notes, and a load of other tweaks. Some of these things could be had with 3rd party apps before, but now they are built into the system. Version 3 is a free upgrade to any 3G or original iPhone user, so don’t imagine you have to buy the 3Gs to get it.
The hardware itself has got five things going for it: video, voice control, compass, better camera, but, above all, speed. The speed hike doesn’t seem like a killer feature, until you actually start using it. It’s about twice as fast as the iPhone 3G, which, for demanding apps, especially games, really starts to make a difference. Oh, one more thing: up to 32 GB of memory. Suddenly watching video on the go is a serious possibility, you can really store your entire CD collection, and there’s loads of space for promised big apps like the TomTom for iPhone.
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So, to what extent is it worth going iPhone? Essentially, it seems to me that there are three kinds of users out there.
There are people who want a simple device for making and receiving phone calls, and maybe texting. The iPhone makes great phone calls and great texts, but it’s a lot heavier and more cumbersome than a phone you can get free with any contract. If you just want to make calls, don’t get the iPhone.
Then there are people who insist on having the highest specced, most powerful thing which is available at any one time. These people have always been the fiercest critics of the iPhone, complaining about its camera, its network connection, the lack of a physical keyboard, lack of tight integration with Enterprise servers, and so on. If you are one of these people, you are unlikely to be happy with the iPhone for long.
The people who really benefit are people who want to bring together two or more gadgets that are either already in their pocket, or they would like to be. If you’ve got a phone and an iPod, an iPhone is more convenient. If you’ve got a paper or electronic organiser, the iPhone will do it better, and will link it to your computer. If you have a portable games console, the iPhone now beats most portable games consoles. If you want to surf the web and get email, the iPhone generally does it better than the Blackberries (unless you are on an Exchange Enterprise server, in which case the Blackberry is king).
My feeling is that, ultimately, iPhones and phones like them, and handset-only mobile phones, will drive out the middle ground of ‘smartphones’ which do many things, but all of them in a fiddly, proprietary way.
In the mean time, the iPhone is stylish, even iconic, and, at the time of writing, the most powerful thing on the market.
Rating: 5 / 5
I give the phone 5 stars, but iTunes 0 stars. And because you can’t use the phone without iTunes, that gives an average of 3 stars. I mean the phone is amazing, better than anything else out there, but it is a shame Apple forces you to use the most horrendous application with it. And I am amazed how company who comes up with iPhone can also come up with iTunes. They have nothing in common (except for the lowercase letter i).
Now this is a valid complaint since it is NOT possible to use the phone without iTunes. I mean you can’t even switch it on without connecting it to iTunes first and creating a profile into it. Any other phone you can just plug into a charger and turn on; and lo and behold, your mobile is ready to use. Not so with the iPhone, to switch it on for the first time, you have to activate it with iTunes. And this pairs it with that that itunes. And yes, you can then only sync it with that iTunes. Want to copy music over from different computer? Not a chance. Because apparently according to apple that might break the user experience (How? Don’t ask me. Ask Apple).
I already use Winamp, which works perfectly. I have no interest in moving to use an inferior product just because Apple tells me to. And this is purely Apple just trying to force more of its products on to the user. Winamp works perfectly with iPods (I love my nano), so why doesn’t it work with the iPhone (there are 3rd party plugins, but no support for the 3Gs yet).
And what’s wrong with iTunes? Well first of all, I want to have freedom of choice. Second, the user experience with iTunes in my experience is horrible. It’s sluggish. You click something, and then maybe something happens a second later; the iPhone is much more responsive. But I do use the Windows version, so Maybe it’s just Apple’s way of saying “switch over”.
So yeah, you can’t copy music into the device expect using iTunes. You can only get applications approved suitable by Apple (so applications that don’t fit into Apples view of the world obviously get rejected. So don’t expect applications that might compete with Apple). And you can only sync it with one iTunes. You can’t access (or even store your own files) on the device, since Apple is afraid this will ruin the experience again.
Now sorry if that sounds harsh, but it is really ruining the experience for me, and it is valid, since the iTunes is so tightly integrated into the iPhone. It’s a shame since the phone itself is just nothing short of amazing. I’ve owned various touch based devices including some windows based phones. And the iPhone is so far ahead of the competition that it isn’t even funny anymore. Now the Google’s offering might be ok, but I have various other issues with google (they are not an open company no matter what they say, and I’m not convinced by the “Do no evil” thing), so that is not an option.
The iPhone is stylish, that’s not even up for arguing; it is apple design that’s for sure. And I’m a sucker for design and style. Simplicity and shiny things, can’t go wrong with those. The screen is gorgeous and so responsive. And for apple it’s all about usability (maybe the iTunes group just missed that memo). Everything in the phone makes sense, it doesn’t come with a long manual, but you don’t really need one. It’s very intuitive. Sure I sort of understand the closed system to provide a common experience even with 3rd party applications, but Apple has gone overboard with their protectionism.
Still, it is a whole new level of mobility. I’ve used email on my mobiles before, but with the iPhone that has increased a lot; and I’ve started even facebooking on it. Now, do get a VERY good data contract. You will use a lot of data, because everything is online so seamlessly that you don’t often think that you’re actually getting data from the Internet.
But the forced marriage to iTunes (and the whole closed environment), that might prevent me from getting a new iPhone. It just limits what I can and can’t do with my phone too much. So basically you can do only things Apple wants you to do. And it does limit it a LOT. I didn’t realize how much, before I got the phone. Simple thing like getting your own ring tone into your phone is just next to impossible. So the userfriendlines only applies if you dance to Apples tune (pun intended).
So if you like iTunes, and don’t care about the closed system then I highly recommend this. If you hate iTunes or object to the closed model Apple has set up, then I’m sorry to say that you are in a bit of a pickle. Either wait for a Windows 7 based mobiles (hopefully later this year, and there are hopeful signs that it would actually be good). Or get this and jail break it. Now of course Apple considers this to be illegal, because in their opinion they are really only renting the device to you. But I also consider a forced marriage illegal and immoral. So fair game, I say.
But do go try it out, it is an amazing phone; best usability you can get currently. Just a shame that Apple can’t be a nicer company.
Rating: 3 / 5
I have never previously been anything other than disappointed with any new mobile phone – they tend to sound great and then turn up plastic-y, heavy and technically disappointing. But this? A thrill from the moment you get the box (that lovely Apple packaging) – and it just keeps getting better. It looks beautiful, feels beautiful and is so damn sensible (or as Apple call it “intuitive”). Yes, it has all the sexy gizmo things that techies rave about, and hordes of apps etc etc. But the thought which has gone into making the thing easily usable is mindblowing. There are somewhat retro things like a real volume control (a whisper thin bit of chrome, that is just obviously a volume control – but only if you are looking for it) and a silence button (that has a red bit underneath which shows whether the ringer is on or off). The calls come up on screen with big easy questions like “Accept call” and End call” – you couldnt misunderstand what to do with this phone if you tried! In fact I would call it the perfect mobile phone for the technically challenged (though they might not need a lot of the other features!). Another bit I like after switching from a Samsung is that the speaker slot is a proper speaker connection not a proprietary, so you can use your lovely noise cancelling headphones or whatever.The touchscreen keyboard is fantastic – I had really not believed that it could work, but the number of false keys is really low,and the device often recognises what you are trying to say anyway.
On the slightly more “business” front I was dubious about ability to sync with outlook which is vital, but it couldnt be easier, or work better. Likewise ability to view word/excel/adobe dox – simply not a problem. In fact with the ability to switch to landscape view, I find reading adobe documents easier than ever before. In fact, having become a microsoft person simply through years of exposure which has led to a huge comfort zone with microsoft things, I am seriously considering shifting to apple next time I get a computer – or at least getting an ipad!
Rating: 5 / 5
The iPod touch, iPhone, iPhone 3G and now the iPhone 3GS, all remarkable pieces of kit getting better each time.
The 3GS is the latest iPhone to date and is easily the best. It’s a much quicker device than the previous versions and it has all the extras such as 3G, video recording and more that the previous models were lacking. OK the camera is by far nothing special, and doesn’t even have a flash but it is easily good enough to take a decent photo when in well lit areas, after all digital cameras are cheap now so who really needs a good camera on their phone anyway?
The first thing i noticed was how easy it is to use and get to grips with, so simple and user friendly, and everything looks really nice. The next thing i noticed was how clear i can hear when i call someone. It is such a good quality speaker and i can hear the voice perfectly with no distortion or interference what so ever and the loud speaker is also damn good.
The 3GS is really fast, there is a video somewhere on youtube displaying how much quicker it is, and believe me, it’s a lot.
The app store holds so many apps to keep you entertained, and so many apps that are very helpful such as a dictionary, translater, converter to name just a few of the almost 100,000 apps.
The only down side to the iPhone is the price, but the big price gets you BIG quality and i don’t know a single person who is disappointed with the iPhone. You must buy a case, preferably one that protects the chrome trim around the edge of the screen because it is so prone to scratches. The screen is scratch resistant, this doesnt mean you cant scratch it, but it will take a pretty sharp object to do any damage, and the 3GS has a coating on the screen which prevents greasey finger prints from smeering up the display.
Overall, an amazing product and probably better to just get it on contract. You will be blown away by it.
I am by no means an apple fanboy, I have always used windows or linux operating systems on my PC and have only ever owned an iPod before the iPhone, but i really do think the iPhone is amazing and truly worth owning.
Rating: 5 / 5