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iPhone 3G -- Latest News and Reviews

by Tim Stevens on July 11, 2008 at 01:02 PM

iPhone 3G D-Day Roundup
Yes folks, the dearly anticipated iPhone 3G is here, released this morning at Apple and AT&T stores around the country (and around the world yesterday). It's faster, it's cheaper, it does more cool things, and while the fanfare leading up to this launch hasn't quite resulted in the same level of obsession that we had this time last year for the iPhone 1.0 launch, it's safe to say that Apple fans are excited, lining up in droves around the globe for their local Apple Stores to unlock the door and spread the love, and then overloading Apple's iPhone mobile syncing service when they got home (and, more recently, Apple's activation servers, though this may have been resolved by the time you read this).

And why not? Engadget's comprehensive hands-on review reads like a wish-list for iPhone 1.0 users, including much improved call quality over the original, location tracking via GPS (but no turn-by-turn directions, check the vid after the break), and a standard headphone jack that doesn't require an adapter.

Not all is positive, though, as you still can't replace the battery, which is frustrating as connecting via 3G halves battery life to 5 hours of talk time. The much-anticipated full interaction with Exchange -- for syncing with your work e-mail -- will purge your device of any personal e-mail and calendar appointments, meaning this thing is strictly business or pleasure, but not both.

So it's not all positive, echoing the earlier pre-release reviews, and it's still not exactly an ideal corporate smartphone, not least because of the touch-sensitive keypad. Maybe that's why many more casual users are going to wait until the holidays.

All that said, whether you dive in now or wait for later, the reasonable $200 price tag makes it hard to feel all that slighted -- unless you paid $599 last year for half of the same thing.




Tags: 3g, 3g iphone, 3gIphone, apple, att, breaking news, BreakingNews, iphone, iphone 3g, Iphone3g

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