Why the iPhone 3G is still a great buy

Following our “ Top 5 iPhone 3G killers ” and ” 7 reasons why the iPhone 3G sucks ” article and the volume of rather harsh criticism we have received, we would like to state that we are not in any way Apple haters. It is just that we prefer calling a spade a spade. We would like to point out that though the iPhone 3G does miss out on a lot of features, it’s not all bad. Some of the features that it does have, have been implemented in such a mind blowing way that they redefine the way people perceive them. They have been largely instrumental in helping it build up the very large fan following it commands.

We would try to list some of the things Apple has done incredibly right with the iPhone and why it has managed to capture a decent portion of the smartphone market despite its flaws.

1. The UI :
Apple has implemented the best touchscreen user interface ever, in the iPhone 3G. It has completely done away with the need to use a stylus to navigate around the phone. The power now lies with your fingers. The MultiTouch interface is incredibly easy to use and fun to play with. You can tap, pinch, slide your fingers around the applications in the iPhone with ease giving you the best touch experience in a smartphone. The iPhone has a very minimal interface with just one button – Home, which allows you to minimize Apps and return to the Home Screen, making it very simple to navigate around the phone features.

2. The App Store :
The App Store is the best improvement Apple has given the iPhone on the software front. It enables you to download 3rd party Apps and Games created by independent developers. The App Store completely unleashes the full power of the iPhone 3G. The Apps and Games make good use of the great hardware and the inbuilt sensors, especially the accelerometer. The App Store is brimming with cool Apps, many of them being free. You may want to check out our ” Top 12 Free iPhone 3G Apps ” article.

3. The iPod-ness :
The iPhone is an iPod after all. It absolutely lives up to it’s iPod lineage. The sound quality is great and with the new flush headphone jack, you can plug in any of your favorite earphones into your iPhone to get a great audio experience. Additionally, the iTunes online store is a great addition to the whole music experience. You can purchase music tracks online with a click or a tap for as low as $0.99.

4. The Excellent Screen :
The iPhone has a huge 3.5″ screen supporting resolutions of 480 * 320 pixels. The display is amply bright and supports 16M colors which provides awesome video playback. It natively supports H.264 and MPEG 4 codecs. Movie watching is a treat on the iPhone. It makes the iPhone a perfect candidate for a PMP. Also it has 16 GB internal storage, enough for a whole load of movies and music.

5. The Superb Internet Experience :
The iPhone 3G comes with Mobile Safari which provides a great browsing experience. It is arguably the best mobile browser competing with the likes of Opera Mobile and Nokia’s Webkit / OSS browser. Web surfing is a joy on Safari especially with MultiTouch. It opens all sorts of heavy pages with complex scripts and animations with ease. The only flaw in Safari is that it doesnt support Flash animations yet. But other than that, it provides you with the best features in mobile browsing. No page intimidates Safari like it would other mobile browsers. The built-in email client supports all kinds of attachments – Word, Excel, Powerpoint, PDF, Images and iWork documents too.

The iPhone 3G also comes with complete MobileMe integration and Microsoft ActiveSync support that make it a viable option for business minded customers.

In addition to the above features, the iPhone 3G has some really cool sensors like the Accelerometer which changes the screen layout as you tilt the iPhone, the proximity sensor which shuts off the display as you answer a call and the ambient light sensor which automatically adjusts the display brightness depending on the ambient light. All this adds up to provide you a great user experience. It also has a really cool feature called visual voicemail, which allows you to skip through your voicemail to access the important ones first. It also has a slightly improved battery life than other phones with similar features.

Note that 3G, A-GPS and other features are too commonplace to feature in this discussion. We have tried to pinpoint just the unique features of the iPhone 3G and why, despite all of its shortcomings it has managed to become so popular. However if Apple had cared to add some of the very basic features in the iPhone 3G, it would have killed all other phones with ease. We do hope that Apple takes note this time and adds those features in its next iteration.