Yamaha Home Theater
- Average user rating: 3.0 stars out of 581 reviews Back to product review
- My rating: 0 stars
Full user review
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53 out of 68 people found this review helpful
1.0 stars
"Crappy 3G reception, no bluetooth data, disappointing"
Pros: Cool gadget, slick interface, good sound.
Cons: Worst 3G reception I have ever seen, crippled bluetooth, severely lacking core phone functions
Summary: I loved the innovative UI and the the design of the iPhone. I also liked the iPod part of it with cover flow and surfing the web on the wide screen. It really is one cool gadget. So much for the good part.
Unfortunately, as a European user I find it severely lacking in the core phone functionality compared to what we've become used over the past years from modern mobile phones.
3G reception is the worst I have ever seen of any 3G phone I have tried. The iPhone never got past two bars while my work phone (on the same 3G network) always showed maximum signal strength. Frequently the IPhone had not enough signal to receive or place calls (1 bar) while the Nokia worked fine.
The iPhone is also very reluctant to step down to 2G when 3G reception is bad. When 3G reception is below 2 bars, my Nokia immediately goes 2G while the iPhone can show no (zero) bars for five minutes or more before finally stepping down to 2G.
The fact that bluetooth is severely crippled on the iPhone, only allowing mono headsets and worst of all, no BT data pass through from navigation systems that get traffic info via the phone or the special PDA that I use for work actually would make it necessary for me to carry a second phone.
The SMS "Text message" application is very inadequate and limited compared to the capabilities of even low end phones. No templates, no delivery receipts.
MMS (Multimedia messaging) is completely absent. Very disappointing.
Further, selective divert to voicemail is not possible. I always have VM disabled when busy or when I am not picking up, only dumping callers to VM when I have no reception or the phone is off. That is not possible with iPhone.
Also I have several profiles with different ringtones, vibra on or off ringer on or off, auto-answer for different occasions, which is another thin iPhone does not allow.
Also missing is voice dialing, voice call accept or reject, which is something I expect in this price range in the 21st century.
So the reception issues, bluetooth woes and IMHO severly limited, even dated core functionality make the iPhone 3G a huge disappointment for me, I reset and returned it after trying to use it for 4 hours.
I hope Apple beefs up the phone part and un-cripples bluetooth in a future iteration of the iPhone. Until then I'll be using a "real" mobile phone and a separate iPod.
- 14 replies to this review
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Your review is spot on. I read the replies of iphone fanboys and they're ridiculous. they don't use too many phone features and they say it's simple. The truth is it lacks a lot of standard smart phone features and they are already happy with just the phone and basic internet and whatever mediocre just eye candy stuff it offers. Welcome to the hightech world where I use a smartphone to take quality videos and post them on the net, browse desktop quality internet, take quality photos and send them, use it as a modem. All these are not present in iphone at this day and age. For a basic phone it's overpriced bec it's just a basic phone and doesn't even multitask! So much for being hightech! It's lowtech! Just touch not good enough!
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You must be kidding!! I have owned my iPhone for over 6 months and find that is truly awesome!!! The phone has almost every feature that one needs on a PDA. I have owned many phones, including the Blackberry and the Treo. But this phone is by far the best I have ever owned. That means that you probably don't even have the iPhone or are crazy. I can understand that you might not give the iPhone 5 stars. But, 1 star. This can't be a serious review.
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Couldn't agree more. Here is my post (which was removed from the Apple forum within 5 minutes):
If having a ?phone? is part of your reason for getting an iPhone, don?t do it?the phone is terrible. Don?t get me wrong, the iPod portion of this device is great. 3G speeds for apps and browsing are awful, email is not true push and the phone is a total POS (calls fail, dropped calls, poor voice quality and, of course, no dialing without looking at the device because of lack of tactile response or functional voice recognition?which has been widely available in excellent implementation for more than 5 years). My opinion is based on 7 months usage (mainly in the LA area but I travel every week for work across the US) and I?ve dumped my contract, returned to Verizon, and have an expensive, white iPod touch. Save yourself the headache (and money); buy an iPod touch and keep whatever cell phone you?re happy with. This H/W is way over-hyped (and I am an all Apple kinda guy). -
Hmmm a friend took a photo of me with the lastest iPhone so it does have a built in camera. I was pretty impressed by the ease of typing on it, the ability to find us several Thai restaurants in our driving area (and the GPS guided us there). I've been wanting an iPod. Looks like this may keep me from having to carry around both a phone and an iPod and and a calendar. But I would miss the special ringtones/ID photos I have for my peeps.
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everyone is missing the point. Apple doesn't care what each individual wants and loading millions of (many times useless) features. What Apple cares about is what Apple does best...making things simple and doing it in the best way. If all you need to do is make calls, surf the web, text, and use email (on an occassional level without writing 10 paragraph emails), then hands down...the iPhone is the best. If you want to copy and paste on a phone, send MMS (even though you can email), etc. and take 10 steps to do most of these things...then the iPhone is not for you. Quite frankly, and having gone through 10+ phones that do these things, I honestly used those "extra" features seldomly. The ease and quickness of the iPhone does not make me think twice about sending emails, text, surfing web, etc. I would pay $600 for the phone and use every bit of it. When was the last time you bought a phone and used all those features it came with!?!?!?
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Thank you for pointing out the very obvious flaws with the iPhone. Not to mention that you yourself cannot replace the battery. You have to send it in to Apple or go to an Apple store and pay a lot of money to have it done, should the battery go bad. Let's face it, batteries over time do go bad. It doesn't even have a camera, which the most basic cell phones have. If you ask me it is all hyperboll, and I think it is sad that so many people compare anything with a touch screen to this device. I know I will get flamed or called a troll, but I don't care. This is not the best thing since sliced bread.
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another thing is that you cannot download anything to your iphone from safari, and landscape typing only while browsing the web
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Your review is spot on.
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Well would you mind selling me your iphone if you dont like so much? e-mail phatcity187@Hotmail.com get in contact
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okay i need help because im getting my first cell phone this weekend and i seriously wanted the new iphone. but i dont know if it is smart to get that i mean all i really care about is the texting and calls, not all this business crap. since you are the biggest critic i have seen so far i need to know all the bad sides. p.s. im only a highschool student so i dont care about meetings or emails.
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Can anybody really --I mean REALLY-- tell me that this guy's made a mistake by saying that the iPhones does NOT have bluetooth data transfer, or voice dialing? or voice reception? What about MMS? Copy and paste? Decent battery life? C'mon, even my humble Sony cellphone (from 2006) is capable of this. And you pay BIG $$$ for this? Why? Because it looks so cute? And I am NOT a Mac hater, quite the contrary. I LOVE Mac platform, but let's face it, guys: even my 2006 Sony cellphone (yes, again) delivers better sound than the latest iPod Touch. If you buy the gadget because you like mere appearances or just wanna be trendy, be sincere. You're not fooling anybody anyway.
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A LOW rating spells DISASTER for the iPHONE 3G.....if this is whats its like now imagine the RAVAGING it will get when Apple PR HYPE + HYPERBOLE concentrate of their next major rip off.......
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Geat job for pointing out many of the flaws.
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Cheers! Keep up the good work and put holes in those dum Apple apologists SLY DECITS and manipulations of the truth!!
Where to buy
Apple iPhone 3G - 16GB, black (AT&T):
$149.99
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