iScored – Part 2

I completely forgot to mention in the last post that those events took place about two months ago. Now that I’ve had plenty of time to play around with the iPhone 3G, here’s what I think about it:

Overall I am very pleased with the iPhone. Aside from making phone calls and text messaging, I’ve been using  it to keep track of my calendar, contacts, email, and notes. That’s something I’ve been trying to do for years with planners and other electronic devices (i.e. Palm Pilots and iPaqs) to no avail. Currently my iPhone syncs with my Google Calendar, Google email accounts, and Outlook contacts. I’ve purposely chosen not to have my iPhone sync with my work contacts/email/contacts over Microsoft Exchange because I’d rather leave work at work. I’ve been tethered to work 24/7 before by a Black(crack)berry and pager and I’d rather not experience anything like that again.

In addition to the standard iPhone apps, I can also download additional user-made apps from Apple’s App Store directly to my phone. These apps allow the iPhone to do anything from unit conversions to playing games to telling you the name of the song playing your radio to performing Google searches by voice.  While most of the apps run in the $.99 to $1.99 range, there’s typically a free app out there that does something similar. With new apps coming out every week and regular firmware updates, the iPhone is constantly getting better.

Here’s a few things I didn’t like about the iPhone 3G (or I thought could be better):

• 3G Network – While it seems to be faster than AT&T’s EDGE network, it does so it a significant impact to battery life. I normally leave it turned off. Plus the 3G area coverage is a bit limited.
• Camera – The camera (or software) doesn’t have the ability to zoom or change the brightness level. That’s probably one of the biggest features I miss from my RAZR.
• MMS – For some unknown reason, the iPhone doesn’t support sending multimedia messages.
• Customization – Not really a big gripe, but if I can change my ringtone and wall paper, why can’t I change the new text message or voicemail notification?
• GPS – It is OK. It seems a bit slow in determining the location and sometimes it only provides an area guesstimate. I’ll know more in a few weeks as I travel over the holidays.

Speaking of battery life, some people have complained about it being rather short. For me, I find the standby time lasting about 3.5 days on average with about 2 hours of usage during that time. The longest I’ve ever gone was about 5 days. To conserve battery life, I keep 3G and WIFI turned off. I also set the screen brightness to less than half and auto-off to about 2 minutes. Seems to work quite well.

If you’re in the market for a new cellphone with lots of features and can afford an iPhone, I highly recommend one.

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