iPhone 3G S reviews are in – and so's OS 3.0

Those tech journalists blessed by Apple to have received review units of the iPhone 3G S have just released their reviews of the updated smart phone, available to mere mortals on Friday. What's the verdict? Read on!

First, a recap: The new iPhone was announced June 8 at Apple's Worldwide Developers' Conference in San Francisco. It promised faster processing, larger storage capacity, video recording, voice control, a better still camera, better battery life, and an improved fingerprint-resistant screen.

Here's how the 3G S stacks up.

Battery life

On my 3G iPhone, I usually could make it through the day, but it was often a close call, with the battery indicator winding up in the red. By contrast, the new model did much better, never hitting the red zone and rarely requiring interim charging at the office or in the car, even though, because I was testing it, I was pounding it much harder than usual, making more voice calls, playing lots of videos and music, trying numerous apps, constantly downloading email from two accounts, and syncing two calendars over the air. – Walt Mossberg for the Wall Street Journal

Speed

Safari, Email, Camera all load noticeably faster than on the iPhone 3G (both running 3.0 software). Even booting the phone takes about half the time. Apps with long load times, like Sims 3, Oregon Trail or Metal Gear Touch all show how much faster you get up and running on the new device. Seriously, everything is faster. It's exactly the same experience as switching from a two- or three-year-old computer to something brand new. Your apps all look the same, but they load and run much more smoothly. Even if you're doing the same things on both machines, the new machine is that much better to work on. – Jason Chen for Gizmodo

Video

It’s the real deal: sharp, smooth, 30 frames a second. Once again, it’s not quite what you’d get from a proper digital camera or a Flip camcorder—it tends to “blow out” the bright areas — but it’s darned close. You can’t beat the capacity, either; in theory, the 32-gig iPhone can capture 17 hours of video — just enough for the elementary-school talent show.With a fingertip, you can trim the ends of a captured video and then upload it to YouTube or MobileMe, right from the phone. (That part, it does much better than a digital camera.) – David Pogue for The New York Times

1 | 2

Next