Wednesday, July 9, 2008 -- 12:03 a.m. -- at my desk

First the bad news ... I was not among the lucky few given access to an iPhone 3G for an early review. I already sent Apple a note asking for this privilege next time around, but I'm not holding my breath.

Now the good news ... 3 people have reviewed it and I have links right here to everything they had to say.

Here are some quick highlights:

Walt Mossberg, Wall Street Journal
-- Surfing on 3G is between 3 and 5 times the speed of iPhone originale, but battery life suffers.
-- Speaker "much louder" for music and speakerphone.
-- "While you can have both personal and Exchange email accounts on the new iPhone, if you synchronize with Exchange calendars and contacts, your personal calendar and contacts are erased."

David Pogue, New York Times
-- Audio quality "has taken a gigantic step forward. You sound crystal clear to your callers, and they sound crystal clear to you. In fact, few cellphones sound this good."
-- "Unfortunately, there’s not much you can do with the GPS. According to Apple, the iPhone’s GPS antenna is much too small to emulate the turn-by-turn navigation of a GPS unit for a vehicle, for example."
--Unfortunately, most of the standard cellphone features that were missing from the first iPhone are still missing. There’s still no voice dialing, video recording, copy-and-paste, memory-card slot, Bluetooth stereo audio or phone-to-phone photo sending (MMS)."

Edward Baig, USA Today
-- "This handheld marvel has no equal among consumer-oriented smartphones."
-- "While not everything on my wish list made it onto the new device, Apple has raised the bar with iPhone 3G. To which I offer an enthusiastic thumbs up."

I recommend, though, that you read each review and see what you think. They all pretty much say the same thing, but I think Walt Mossberg has the most in depth info -- even though he never seems to have much negative to say when it comes to Apple. He's probably afraid that they'll pull his early review unit next year and give it to me.

Thanks for calling.

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Walt sounds concerned about battery life and thinks you should take the 2.0 upgrade if you already have the 1st gen phone before deciding to buy the new one. That's exactly what I've planned on doing all along while signing up for MobileMe also. If you use wi-fi enough, 3G may not be worth the trade off for loss of battery life without being able to have a backup battery. 2.0, MobileMe & the app store may be enough and you'll have better battery life. This won't be easy!

SCOTT'S REPLY: It's tough in general, Brad, because when Steve Jobs puts a brand new Apple product in front of you and you have to decide whether or not you want it, it's torture. I agree in general that folks with the original iPhone and 2.0 software will have one heckuvan iPhone on their hands ... however, we now know that the audio on the iPhone 3G is pristine. That alone makes it worth it to me.

But if I was not an iPhone blogger, I think my decision on Friday would be much, much harder.

One can only hope the AppStore will fill the glaring gaps in the "basic cellphone features" that are still missing, copy/paste, MMS, etc. Copy/paste would seem to me to be too low-level a function for software to reproduce, but who knows.
As far as the other features, 3G isn't available in the middle of the country while wi-fi is available everywhere, GPS is not something I have to have, and I am happy with the audio quality of my current iPhone. So I can wait another generation when my 2-year contract is up and see what Apple has to offer then.

SCOTT'S REPLY: Nothing wrong with that. I do hope you are right about the app store.

It's SO tempting! Mostly because he says the call quality and reception is so much better. But I wonder if the call quality is better if you're on EDGE instead of the 3G.

Then there's that whole thing of paying at least $15. a month more when I don't live in a 3G area. I'm not too far, but have to consider if it's worth it. Plus, even when I've traveled, most places in the U.S. are EDGE.

SCOTT'S REPLY: But it's not just call quality in this case. The overall speaker is better which makes me think that you'll still get better phone clarity whether on EDGE or 3G.
Decisions, decisions!! :(

Interesting article about China,the internet and the iPhone; forget the stock prediction:

http://seekingalpha.com/article/84287-apple-s-iphone-to-capture-chinese-internet-market?source=yahoo

SCOTT'S REPLY: I did read this and I agree ... this is a decent and informative read.

At risk of being labeled a blasphemer, I am excited to hear the phone aspect is better, as I regard my iPhone to be one of the worst phones (especially speaker) I've ever had. Don't start; I love it and if I weren't so old I'd consider naming a child after it. Now, I don't know if it's all AT&T's fault, but there are times when I have little to no signal when in my house, and my RAZR never had such issues, and my wife's RAZR doesn't, either. I would welcome other people's experiences.

I'm going to wait. I can hit wireless most places I go, and as the battery isn't all that robust anyway, I am not enthused about using a feature that runs it down faster. The short antenna thing mentioned in the reviews means I still need a Garmin or TomTom in the car, so that's not a draw, either. I may regret this decision, certainly if Apple abandons we early folk I will, but for now I'm a happy guy.

SCOTT'S REPLY: There is nothing wrong with your decision at all ... it actually sounds very well thought out and logical.

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