iPhone 3G — not worth it

You heard me right. I, renown Gadget Slut and Mac aficionado, am disappointed in the iPhone 3G.

It's prettier than my old iPhone. More streamlined, even. I know — hard to believe, right?

But the battery life is awful. I put it on my nightstand with a full charge, and it's half or more gone 7 hours later. I've dialed down the brightness, turned off location features, turned off push everything, and avoided playing games. Still, the charge dwindles rapidly.

After a few short days, I find myself hesitating to use it, questioning myself — wondering if whatever I wanted to do is important enough to justify the painful battery drain.

This has never been my experience of my iPhone in the past.

Now, with all the new features turned off (I might as well turn off 3G too, since coverage in Austin is spotty at best) I have a new iPhone that... is a little thinner, and has a white back.

I'm considering migrating back to my old iPhone. At least I could use it all day without worrying about running out of juice.

Comments

[Steve Odom]

the battery problem might be a 2.0 problem. I didn't upgrade to 3G but did upgrade to 2.0 and now my battery doesn't make it through the day.

[Julie Gomoll]

I read somewhere (probably a blog, heh) it was a chip problem, but of course now I can't find that reference.

Either way. My iPhone 3G is significantly less useful than my "old" iPhone.

And IMO, while the speaker does seem clearer, it doesn't seem to be any louder.

[Manton Reece]

I haven't upgraded to the 3G model yet either for mostly the same reason. My old iPhone works fine. But having said that, if you aren't using a bunch of new apps, I'm sure it's the 3G. Try turning that off until you need it.

Now I'll go back to draining my battery the old-fashioned way, by playing new iPhone games. :-)