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We’ll get right to the chase. Apple’s iPhone 3G is very similar to the original iPhone. In fact, first-generation iPhones can be updated to use the iPhone 2.0 software, which will give a lot of the software capabilities of iPhone 3G to its predecessor. However, that doesn’t mean that iPhone 3G isn’t worth the upgrade. If you were holding out on the original iPhone in hopes of iPhone 3G, this is your chance to grab one, assuming can get past the strict requirements of activating the phone in AT&T or Apple Stores. That’s of course to prevent a lot of folks from unlocking their iPhones.

Apple iPhone 3G

(Review) – We’ll get right to the chase. Apple’s iPhone 3G is very similar to the original iPhone. In fact, first-generation iPhones can be updated to use the iPhone 2.0 software, which will give a lot of the software capabilities of iPhone 3G to its predecessor. However, that doesn’t mean that iPhone 3G isn’t worth the upgrade. If you were holding out on the original iPhone in hopes of iPhone 3G, this is your chance to grab one, assuming can get past the strict requirements of activating the phone in AT&T or Apple Stores. That’s of course to prevent a lot of folks from unlocking their iPhones.

In this review, we’ll touch on the new features that are available with the second-generation iPhone, instead of discussing every feature there is, even if it’s ported from the 2.5G iPhone. That’s to keep things interesting and upbeat around here. For our original iPhone review, please click here.

Perhaps the first thing you’ll notice is the updated looks. Amazing is all we have to say for it. In our opinion, it’s sleeker than the original iPhone with glossy black and white distinct color schemes. The body is curved slightly around the back with metallic buttons to give the phone a new aura of high-ended-ness. And it works. The curved body was a bit annoying, since the phone wobbled when we put it on a flat surface. It was amusing in the beginning, but it quickly lost its humor factor. The camera lens on the back, volume rocker and ringer on/off switch on the left spine, a 3.5mm headphones and standby button on the top and a charging dock at the bottom are all in their respective positions. All in all, a very similar physical design.

Features are where the new iPhone 3G shines. To start off with, as the moniker suggests, it supports 3G, unlike a lot of other smartphones. 3G is equivalent to broadband speeds on a mobile device, and needless to say, it’s fast. Very fast. We managed to secure speeds of 500kbps and beyond. Now, of course, speeds fluctuated here and there, but for the most part, Web pages loaded amazingly fast and the performance was excellent. Sites that would normally take upwards of 30 seconds to load on EDGE took 12-15 seconds over 3G. A boost of 50 percent. Downloads also took a considerably short time. In other words, 3G is certainly a better option compared to EDGE, but you might want to check the performance in your area by walking into an AT&T or Apple Store and trying the device out for yourself.

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One of the key reasons why a lot of corporate users stuck with their smartphone of choice, BlackBerry, was because of the lack of support for Microsoft Exchange, the corporate e-mail client. The wait is over, as Apple has added additional support to have corporate users switch over to the technology fad of today. It’s super easy to get connected with your office back-end in only a few minutes. However, there are a number of caveats to note. You can only connect to one Exchange server on iPhone 3G. This isn’t a problem for many users, but it’s something to keep in mind when making up your mind about the new iPhone. Moreover, there’s only one calendar and contacts list to sync. Try syncing your personal and work calendars and one of them will be overwritten. Syncing was superb, but there were hiccups and delays here and there when we switched connections from Wi-Fi to 3G or vice versa. When the iPhone reestablished a connection, messages came in bulk.

Folder structuring is also supported naturally and the iPhone did a great job of managing that. And obviously support for MobileMe and the App Store is there as well.

Continuing on with the additional feature set, the iPhone 3G is equipped with an actual GPS chip on the phone for real-time driving directions and for finding point-of-interests. Of course, the directions aren’t turn-by-turn, but you can’t expect much from a mobile device. However, thanks to satellite pinpointing, a blue dot follows your location on the integrated map to give you a sense of where you are. It’s very accurate as long as you are connected to the satellite. Lose your satellite connection and you’ll be relying on cell phone towers to triangulate your position. We could never make that work, and it’s not accurate at all.

The iPod and video player integration are magnificent, just like they were back with the original iPhone. There’s no improvement with the camera either. A pity, really!

With iPhone 3G, the features list continues with Contacts search. You can enter the first few letters of the contact you are trying to find, and the results are real-time. Good! You can now view iWork documents and PowerPoint right on the phone; however, you can’t edit them. There’s a Scientific Calculator in portrait mode. When you turn the phone sideways, it adds additional keys and functions to the calculator, a nice bonus with use for a Scientific Calculator. At last, you can remotely wipe your iPhone’s data incase you lose it or it’s stolen, and capture screenshots from a Web page by tapping on the image and directly saving it in the phone’s Photos folder.

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While the new iPhone packs a lot of new, robust features, it still lacks a number of things that we had hoped Apple would add in this model. These include the lack of copy-and-paste functionality, lack of stereo Bluetooth, video recording, multimedia messaging and Flash support for Web sites. We suppose you can’t have it all, despite the product coming from one of the greatest companies of all time.

Moving on to perhaps the most critical aspect of mobile handsets – call quality. It’s comparatively better than the first-generation iPhone. It’s loud enough and much clearer than previously. We loved it. Speakerphone wasn’t quite as great as we had hoped, but that’s attributed to the poor speaker quality, in our opinion. We experienced a substandard performance after pulling out our earphones and listened to music or watched a video through the speakers. It continues to disappoint us.

Battery life will be all over the map depending on the combination of usage. Rated for 5 hours of talk time with 3G and 10 hours for a regular cell tower; 6 hours of Internet time for Wi-Fi and 5 hours for 3G; 7 hours of video playback; 12.5 days of standby time and 24 hours of music playback. For all of our tests, we can confirm Apple’s specified battery life. They all fell in the range, give or take 5 percent.

All in all, Apple’s iPhone 3G is a great successor to the original iPhone, and it’s certainly worth the investment if you’ve been eyeing this particular mobile handset for a while. Although it’s still not quite perfect, it’s well on its way to be. With a 2-year AT&T contract, 8GB and 16GB models are available for $199 and $299, respectively. Without the contract, you are looking at $399 for 8GB and $499 for 16GB.

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