Review: iPhone deals

It might be best to stay on hold for an iPhone deal, reports Adam Turner.

Apple's iPhone 3G has finally landed in Australia, but choosing which telco to buy it from can be a challenge.

Telstra, Optus and Vodafone are all selling the iPhone 3G. You can buy them from other stores, but you must sign up to one of these three networks. The 3 network is expected to offer the iPhone 3G in August. iPhone 3Gs are generally sold with a 12 or 24-month plan, although it is possible to buy a pre-paid iPhone 3G. It is, however, still locked to that network unless you download a hack from the internet or pay the telco yet another fee to have the phone "unlocked".

Like all smartphones, the iPhone 3G isn't cheap. Unfortunately the plans from the three networks are complicated, making it difficult to make direct comparisons. The iPhone is available with a choice of 8GB or 16GB of onboard storage.

While you're likely to have an idea of the monthly call and SMS allowance you require, choosing a data plan is more difficult. The data plan determines how much you can use the phone for checking email or surfing the web via the mobile phone network. If you go over your monthly allowance you'll get slugged with hefty excess data charges. Telstra and Vodafone didn't release full details of their iPhone 3G plans until less than a day before they went on sale.

The iPhone 3G's ease of use means you're more like to use the advanced features and chew through more data - especially because of the fast data speeds. The Google Maps feature is great for figuring out where you are, but downloading the maps uses data. It's also very easy to configure the iPhone 3G to check your email. The big screen and great web browser means you're more likely to use the internet while you're on the road. There's also a YouTube link on the iPhone's home screen, which can be a real data trap.

Even light users will struggle to keep their usage under 100MB a month. The iPhone offers the option of push email, which automatically forwards your email to the phone rather than waiting for you to check your inbox.

The iPhone 3G lets you connect to the internet via wifi, rather than the phone network, which is great when you're at home or near a public wifi hotspot as it doesn't count towards your monthly data limit. Unfortunately when the phone goes to sleep it disables its wifi adaptor to save power, which means it switches back to the expensive mobile phone network.

The iPhone 3G would chew through at least 5MB of data a month in the background, even before you use email or the web.

iPhone 3G owners using Optus and Vodafone won't get full 3G data speeds outside the cities.

The most dangerous thing about the iPhone 3G is that you can't disable the mobile data services. You can disable 3G, but this drops you back to 2G speeds rather than disabling mobile data completely.

If your phone is unlocked from your carrier, you might be able to disable data access in the advanced settings. If you change the APN setting to gibberish, you can still make calls and send SMS, but the phone can't access mobile data services. It's not elegant, but it works.

If your iPhone 3G is hacked to run applications that do not have Apple's blessing, a more elegant solution is to add a "DATA off" button to the menus. This can be done with applications such as services.app, iToggle and BossPrefs and - on our hacked first-generation iPhone - we got the best results from BossPrefs.

source : http://www.smh.com.au/

The Apple iPhone 3G: The Second Coming

The temptation, when sitting down to write this review, was simply to dust off the piece I wrote to mark the launch of the first iPhone last November.

That's because in many ways the new 3G device is a case of same old, same old: same disappointing two-megapixel camera; same size, more or less, albeit with a new glossy black back; same lack of support for Flash-based online videos, used all across the web. And like its predecessor, the touchscreen iPhone 3G - which combines a mobile phone with an iPod music player and a mobile web browser - remains supremely easy to use.

But to simply rehash that old article would be to do the iPhone 3G a great disservice: because, yes, while cosmetically and in broad hardware terms it differs little from its predecessor, the new handset boasts more than 100 new features and countless more uses.

The launch of the iPhone 3G - so called because it finally allows users to surf the internet at fast speeds using the 3G mobile phone network, rather than relying on the excruciatingly slow Edge network used by its predecessor - also marks the launch of iPhone 2.0. This is a complete overhaul of the software that powers the device. But it's not exclusive to the iPhone 3G - it will be available for free to all existing owners of the first-generation iPhone, and to owners of the iPod touch for a small, as yet unknown, fee.

It is this software change that will finally see the iPhone shake off its "luxury gadget" reputation and instead become a mainstream device.

Central to this ambition is the launch of the Application Store, an online marketplace accessed via iTunes that allows iPhone users to download extra software for their handset. You might, for instance, be addicted to eBay; download and install the eBay application, and you will have live auction information on your screen. People who enjoying playing computer games on the move will love the iPhone - you move the phone itself to control the on-screen action.

Make no mistake - this is a software revolution for mobile phones. While phone owners have long been able to add extra software to their handsets, it's hard to find anyone who went to the considerable time and effort of doing so. The iPhone, by contrast, is an exercise in simplicity; people will use the Application Store. Its potential is limited only by the imagination of the developers busily creating new programs for the iPhone.

This "blank canvas" is bolstered by the inclusion of global-positioning technology in the iPhone 3G, similar to the kind used by satellite navigation systems. Not only does it mean we'll start to see location-specific software cropping up - delivering, for example, reviews of restaurants in your vicinity - but it may also spell the end of the traditional map. There's no need to take an A-Z with you when the iPhone provides such an easy-to-use way of plotting your location on Google Maps, and of guiding you to your destination.

Push email, another new feature of the iPhone 2.0 software, means that work and personal emails are delivered straight to the phone as soon as they drop into your computer's inbox. It's incredibly straightforward to set up, and should appeal to the "BlackBerry crowd" of business users who want their email on the go.

Of course, the iPhone has its downsides. The camera - at just two megapixels, exactly the same as the original iPhone - is awful when you consider that most decent phones have four- or five-megapixel cameras as standard. It remains a mystery as to why Apple did not improve the quality of the camera between models.

Battery life, too, may be a little patchy for some people's liking. Many of the iPhone's best features - like 3G web browsing, or watching videos - are a power drain, so don't stray too far from a plug point. There's still no video-recording camcorder feature either. Heavy iPhone owners will be disappointed that there isn't a way to copy and paste text between programs. And there's still no picture-messaging either - a standard feature on European phones for years, but unpopular in Apple's US home market.

Nevertheless, this is the iPhone British consumers have been holding out for. Elegant, easy to use and powerful, the iPhone, perhaps more so than any other mobile device on the market, is what you choose to make it. That's an incredibly attractive proposition for today's fickle public, especially when combined with a substantial price drop on the cost of the device. Whereas the first iPhone cost £269, plus a minimum monthly contract of £35, the new iPhone 3G is free on some contracts and as little as £99 on others, with tariffs starting at £30 per month.

If you're an existing iPhone owner thinking about upgrading, perhaps hold off for at least a week while you give the free iPhone 2.0 software update a try, as you may decide it is sufficient for your needs. But for new customers? Well, at this price - and with this potential - the iPhone 3G is hard to resist.

source : http://www.telegraph.co.uk/