Video: Apple iPhone 3G S smartphone review

Posted by Gareth Beavis on Thu 25 Jun 2009

Jobs a good one

The launch of Apple’s all-conquering phone was once again announced at WWDC to compete with the likes of Palm’s Pre and HTC’s Android range. But given iPhone fans will have to pay a fair whack to upgrade to the new iPhone 3G S, is it worth the money?

- Watch our video as we put the iPhone 3G S through its paces on the streets of London >>

- Watch our video to find out if Apple fans would swap their iPhone for a free Palm Pre

- Peruse our hands-on gallery with the iPhone 3G S

The first thing to note about the new phone is that it’s essentially the same handset as the iPhone 3G, with a few tweaks under the hood. When we say tweaks, we mean an upgraded processor to around 600MHz, (up from the 466MHz in the previous iteration) improved 3MP camera with autofocus, video recording and a digital compass too.

Most of the upgrades (if not all) are in some way down to Apple pushing for even more outlandish and amazing Apps, with the new tools meaning developers can dream up better add-ons for your phone.

The new 3.0 firmware update is also present, and that too brings a whole host of upgrades in the shape of copy and paste, MMS and A2DP Bluetooth stereo compatibility, although it’s also available for the legacy iPhones as well.

The new processor certainly whips things along at a fair old rate, with applications opening faster and internet sites downloading quicker in side by side comparison tests. One of the new features to come out of the 3.0 firmware update is Spotlight search (activated by swiping left on the home screen or pressing the home button when staring at your icons) which allows you to search through Apps, contacts, calendar entries and Mail.

Speed freak

This certainly works faster on the new iPhone 3G S than on the 3G, meaning that if you’re looking for a message someone sent you a while back you can call it up, and also click on their contact profile to give them a call too.

The graphical processing has also been upgraded, with the more powerful games from the App Store (we plumped for Need for Speed Underground) running as well as they would on stand alone portable gaming consoles, which impressed us even more than the first time we saw fast-moving games on the iPhone.

The camera, despite being a mere 1MP upgrade to a 3MP sensor (and still with no flash) does actually feel like an improvement, with the ‘tap to focus’ option actually working very well, with auto-exposure meaning the phone does its best to ensure you take the best snaps.

While we still feel like we’ve been short changed by Apple with a pretty poor camera on board, at least the fruity firm is trying to make amends, with their latest effort in photography taking a step in the right direction.

Video recording, at an impressive 30fps VGA resolution, is almost DVD quality, and is supplemented by video editing ability as well. The ability to trim down video is great, with a simple drag and drop bar appearing at the top of the film, so before you upload to YouTube or Facebook you can make sure nobody hears you saying ‘How do you stop the video? Is it this button?

Going in the right direction?

Google Maps has received an upgrade as well, thanks to the implementation of a digital compass meaning you can now orient yourself as well as finding you location.

This is simply turned on by double, rather than single, tapping the ‘My Location’ button, meaning should you exit a tube with no idea which way the pub is, the iPhone will stop you wandering aimlessly looking for the right street.

Battery life has also been improved, with longer web browsing and increased talk time, over 2G at least. 3G talk time is pretty much the same as it was on the iPhone 3G at around five hours, but that was plenty for us as putting the handset on charge at the end of the night is part of our normal nightly routine, so we rarely ran out of juice.

And we couldn’t help but love finally having the chance to use Bluetooth cans on our iPhone, as the lack of wires meant we could easily hold the device on the underground without having to feed the headphone jack round our fingers, leading to a slightly odd viewing angle. Battery life didn’t seem to be significantly reduced when using Bluetooth for audio, which was a nice bonus.

Apple of our eye?

Overall, the iPhone 3G S as a standalone phone is a great piece of kit. The improved processor can definitely be felt when using the internet and opening new applications, as well as helping speed things up on photography.

The new camera was pleasing, if not a killer feature, and video recording is certainly good enough for the odd candid movie here and there.

The iPhone 3G S might not be worth breaking your contract and paying many notes in order to have the latest Apple toy, but if you’re in the market for a new iPhone then it’s definitely worth the extra cash, especially if you go for the massive 32GB memory option too.

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Link: Apple

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User Comments

By tomharding

18|12|2009 15:22

@markster you cannot be serious - who cares about megapixels these days? Just a marketing ploy now as you can squeeze hundreds of them into cameras - witness how the guidelines about how many megs you need for each size of print change with each generation of camera. We should be worrying about lens quality a bit more!

-Tom
http://www.freeiphoneinitiative.co.uk

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