I have to say, it’s really fast. The apps are much more responsive. It really helps the UI. The only problem I saw was when I was exiting from the video camera application, it took a few seconds from pressing the home button to getting it to the home screen.

From the outside it looks every bit the same as the iPhone 3G. For the untrained eye, it’s almost indistinguishable. There’s a subtle difference as to how the text on the back is treated/rendered but it’s hardly noticeable if you don’t really compare it. Is having the same design good or bad? Well Apple really evolves their products rather than changing them drastically. A product goes through several cycles and improvements before a major design change is actually done. Even with the 1st gen iPhone, compared to the 3G and 3GS it is different but you can see the evolution of the design. I like the design of the 3G/3GS so I’m not complaining that they look similar. It’s what’s under the hood that’s important.

I can give you the specs but why waste my blog entry on that. You can just click here to see the full specs as well as a comparison to the 3G.

I love the new camera application. The 3MP camera isn’t the best in class, it’s so so but the ease of use of the application plus the tap to focus makes it an excellent app. I also love the video camera. The editing feature as simple as it may be is great. I’m amazed at how easy Apple makes it. It’s also a great space saver since you can trim video straight from the iPhone.

The compass is a nice feature but I don’t think I’ll have much use for it yet. However that being said, when developers start rolling out augmented reality applications such as this one (via AppleInsider), things will get pretty interesting.

The iPhone 3GS, like it’s predecessor is a solid phone. The 3.0 version of the software makes it even better with copy and paste, MMS support, landscape keyboard and a whole lot of other features. However it’s not with out flaws.

The biggest complain I have is it’s crappy battery life. At least for some people, my brother included the iPhone 3GS has dismal battery life. Now whether it’s a hardware flaw or software, the jury is still out on that one. That being said a phone that can’t hold a charge for one day of use is severely lacking in my book. Good thing the 3GS has a lot of great features that just slightly edges out this problem.

Another is what some people report as excessive heating. I haven’t seen this in the brief time I spent with the 3GS. So this might be dependent on use and the unit. The jury is also still out on that one.

Summing it up, I like the 3GS. If Apple comes up with software or hardware fixes to improve the battery life, I’m getting one. I think I’ve reached a point wherein an iPhone makes sense to me. This coming from an Apple fan boy. I’ve loved the iPhone before but not enough to ditch my iPod Touch/Nokia e71 combo. I think I’m ready to ditch the touch and most likely use the e71 as a backup once Apple addresses the battery issues.

Post from: EveryJoe

iPhone 3GS Impressions

Build Quality

Easily this is the most well built (from structural standpoint) computer I’ve ever owned. Nothing about this says it a cheap ass computer. It shouldn’t! As prices of computers plummet Macs have dropped slower than others. It’s still quite expensive. That being said, it’s worth the money.

I love the engineering on this thing. It’s sleek and it’s sexy.

Glossy Screen

I really thought this might be an issue but it’s not. I’m loving the screen on this baby. I work mostly in a controlled environment so I can minimize the glare, so it doesn’t really bother me. Colors are vivid, the LED screen makes the whole display even. Colors on the edge of the screen don’t get darker unlike my previous MacBook Pro.

Keyboard

Some people like the previous keyboard, I like this one. Plus, the keys are inset on the body itself, leaving less room for dirt to go into. The black keys also hide dirt better so the keys don’t look as dirty as they really are when you’ve been typing on them a lot.

Battery Life

This one sucks. At least from my experience. I thought I’d be getting decent battery life on this but I don’t. I barely get 2 hours on this machine.

Although I’m not sure if there’s something wrong with my machine because other people get 3 to 4 hours on theirs. Although most of those who get that long a battery life use the 2.4 ghz version.

I’ve tried using both the integrated video card and the dedicated one and offer only a slight improvement.

Here’s some comments at the Apple support thread.

Performance

One thing I truly, truly love about this is the performance. It’s a step up from my 2.33 Ghz 17″ MBP. The one I’m using right now is the 2.53 Ghz. The .20 Ghz addition plus the 4GB Ram and the 512MB video card really bumps up the performance.

I’m now able to run Parallels without really having to worry about if I have other applications running and it doesn’t take much of a performance hit.

All-in-all

With the exception of the dismal battery performance, I’m quite happy with the Unibody MacBook Pro. It’s a worthy successor to the previous MacBook Pro. In terms of design, performance, etc..

It’s a good evolution of the previous design which I thought was really hard to top.

It’s only been a month so we’ll see how well it holds up.

Post from: EveryJoe

My MacBook Pro, A Month After