Why I returned my iPhone 3G: Here it is - slowly doing it’s secure erase, ready to return to its home, apple store. I had a first gen iPhone, from the US at launch - jailbroken and sim free. It was a joy and delight to use. So a week before 3G fever hit I sold it on ebay, and waited for the queue to get manageable before purchasing one. After the initial wave of negative feedback I decided to hold off altogether, but my lust of all things white and shiny got the better of me and I jumped in last week.
Twenty minutes wait and it as mine. I also purchased a dock (included with the first gen) and was slightly disapointed that for my £19 they didn’t include a sync cable. So begins a weary couple of days where I constantly had edge only or barely one bar of 3G - and this in central london. So “O2’s 3G network must suck” I presumed. So I tested the iPhone vs the N95 - both using o2 sims, to shocking result.
Full signal on the N95 one blip on the iPhone - which shortly after dropped back to edge. I had noticed the demo phones in carphonewarehouse on oxford street were also permantly on edge too. In practice when i tried any web connection it would always drop back to edge unless i was in a rare 3+ bars 3G reception. I noticed no noticable speed improvement on the first gen model.
Next up the battery life - which is bad bad bad. Now I half expected this, but really half a day! even the N95 makes it to a day and a half with some hammering.
As well as the fear I got from app stores crashing apps an the general sluggish behaviour of the 2.0 software, I decided I didn’t want to pay £30 a month for 18 months to beta test for apple. Now many of my issues would probably be fixed with firmware updates, though I’m not so sure about how much of a fix.
So back to apple it went - beware if you are returning - you need a iPod bar appointment to return one - they booked me in on standby and I had about 15 minutes wait for the appointment. Here’s hoping for 3rd time lucky with iPhone.
