iPhone 3GS from AT&T. Free Shipping
- Average user rating: 3.5 stars out of 80 reviews Back to product review
- My rating: 0 stars
Full user review
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20 out of 21 people found this review helpful
3.5 stars
"Great Video, Some BAD calling characteristics"
Pros: The 480x640/640x40 resolution is great!
With the opera internet client you can actually read real websites without a great deal of frustration!
There are some very nice add-in programs that ship with it.
The Touch Flo is OK, but has problems.Cons: If you don't have headphones on dealing with voice mail systems is almost impossible!
Summary: If you don't have headphones on dealing with voice mail systems is almost impossible! When a call starts it blanks the screen. So, to press 9, 5, 3 0 You need to press power/Show Keyboard/digit FOR EACH KEY. You can slide the keyboard out, but that makes the phone awkward to hold. You still can't see what you are pressing on the screen. If you have a headset on it does not blank the screen and you can press the 9 keys required to get to a live human.
Reception is good, not great.
Sucks batter like a starved vampire if you are actively using the device.
The screen resolution combined with the Opera client makes this a very practical way to use the internet for moderately long browsing. The zoom circle (whatever they call it) is very useful for zooming in and out on a web page.
The touch flow interface has good and bad points. It is nice for things not too touchy (like the bottom menu slider). However, for going through your contacts it is very difficult. You can flick through the contacts, but if you don't handle this just right it ends up calling/selecting someone you didn't want to call. On my contacts list (yes, I'm just starting using this, but...) it can take 3 or 4 tries to scroll down to the person I want without it selecting someone I hadn't intended to select.
The included Sprite backup program is very useful. I've had to pay for that in the past, and its very nice to have it included.
The Text Messaging screen is ... wierd. If you have a MM message and you click on the message to see it, it doesn't go to that message, it brings up a list of every message you have from that person and then you can view the media file.
Unless you plan on using PTT, the PTT button is a real pain. Every time you turn around you've accidentally pressed the thing. There doesn't appear to be an easy way to disable it either. Maybe there is, but I didn't see it. Finally I did a registry hack to disable the thing. I guarantee that if you don't want PTT you'll want to do that too.
The Sling Media player works great on this phone! The video is very clear and smooth as long as you're in a 3G area.
The WiFi is OK, but 3 feet from a router is still only shows 60% signal strength. This is strange, but it shows the receive bandwidth at 1M, but the transmit rate at 54M. You'd think it would be the other way around if anything. Why I can't get more than 1M down at 3 feet I don't know.
This did not ship with the FM radio application, but you can easily find it on the web. However, using it requires a wired headphone since they use the headphone wires as an antenna. To do that you need to plug in the ExtUSB adapter (included, but a pain to keep track of).
I don't want to sound too negative, because overall I like the phone! I might not like it as much without the 480x640 screen, but with that I'd recommend it. I may get used to the the annoying things, but at least I have another 22 days to find out.
Updated on Nov 18, 2008I forgot to mention that this phone is slippery! Get a case for it and/or absolutely, definitely get the $5.00/month insurance. You WILL drop it 3 times in the first day, guaranteed! I've already seen people on various sites requesting an aftermarket back plate. The all gloss black body looks nice, but a somewhat rubberized/textured, less slick feel to the back would be very helpful in keeping the thing in your hands.
- 2 replies to this review
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I have found that if you dump the AT&T bloatware, this unit works very well! The battery life greatly improves as well as the overall speed! There are several websites that will instruct you on how to do this, and there are already several custom roms to make it even better!!
Once you do this, you will have a whole new opinion of this unit!! -
thanks for the sling media player info. I gotta be able sling!
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