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  • jcromano - Monday, January 12, 2009 - link

    Checking the archives, I see this article and at least five others on the iPhone. I don't see a single article on the G1. Is it so far inferior to the iPhone that it doesn't even warrant coverage, or am I just not looking in the right place for the article?

    Jim
  • Believer - Friday, October 3, 2008 - link

    If I recall correctly, the reason why the iPhone 3G caused cut-offs (even for others), was because there was an error in the communication to the transmission towers, where the iPhone subsequently declared it needed increasingly more transmission then it really did, causing the towers to drop calls in order to comply when they were at full capacity.

    I think it's these malfunctioning transmission demands that have been fixed, among other things, which would only affect battery life by very slight degree with the lessened intercommunication. The big winners are all the other subscribers who won't get frequently disconnected by the act of Apples bad software engineering.
  • marf8 - Wednesday, October 1, 2008 - link

    Surprisingly I have noticed a decrease in battery time in standby. I used to be able to get around 6+ days in mostly standby, with moderate SMS texting (10 per day), with maybe 10 minutes of phone talk for the 6 days. (Note that 3G is turned off, EDGE data is turned off, Bluetooth is turned off).

    Now I get about 4 days with the same usage.
  • Doormat - Wednesday, October 1, 2008 - link

    The third generation iPhone due late in 2009 will have the ARM chips fabbed at 45nm. The core ARM will probably be designed by the PASemi guys, and will have a lot more integrated in terms of controllers for the LCD, touchscreen, etc.

    The baseband chipset goes from 3 chips to 2 (X-GOLD 618), with the power controller chip integrated, and support for HSPA speeds (7.2/2.9). Power is reduced 30% in the baseband chip and 40% in the core ARM.

    I would expect the third gen iPhone to be able to be faster, with longer battery life (10 hrs 3G talk, 12 hours internet, etc). But you just have to wait...
  • Griswold - Wednesday, October 1, 2008 - link

    Well done, you just took all the rumours available on the net and threw it into one post *and* sold it as facts. I couldnt have done that...
  • Doormat - Wednesday, October 1, 2008 - link

    I should clarify, the ARM chip is fabbed at 45nm, and the baseband chip from Infineon is fabbed at 65nm.
  • imaheadcase - Wednesday, October 1, 2008 - link

    Stop panhandling phone reviews.

    Just because you own it does not make it something people are interested in.

    I'm still awaiting that long due update to GE Toasters, and of course BIC trusty new Ball point pen. I hear the new pen is more comfortable on the fingers!

  • 37203 - Tuesday, September 30, 2008 - link

    Decent article, but as others said, the biggest change is standby time. Through the friggin roof compared to previous firmwares.
  • Wineohe - Tuesday, September 30, 2008 - link

    I think the battery life is not as clear cut as just testing before and after. My personal experience is that the problem was with how the 3G functioned, and probably more the email application as I'll mention later. In my case the 3G worked poorly in some areas causing the phone to constantly search or hang while attempting connection. Also many dropped calls and my battery life was abysmal. I was barely making it home in the late afternoon, with little actual talk time. The solution that was offered by others was to turn off the 3G. This made some difference but seemed to defeat the purpose of me waiting a year for this phone.

    As for the email application? Again it seems to hang up and struggle to connect, as if it's in a loop trying to synchronize. This could occur while on the 3G network or Edge, but seemed worse when accessing 3G. The real problem was early on when I first got the phone. I would work with email and then watch it try to sync. I would stick it in my pocket thinking it would eventually go. NOT!! It was eating my battery. My solution eventually was to reboot the email app. I do this by holding down the menu button to force the email app to close entirely. Reselect the email app again and it should sync OK this time. With 2.0 I found myself doing this a lot. With 2.1 not so much.

    With the upgrade the battery life now seems more predictable, but still not great. I can get a few days now in some cases given that I am not a real talker when it comes to a phone. I'm convinced that all the 2.1 upgrade did was fix many bugs, one of which was the tendency to drain the battery while trying to connect to the 3G circuits, which really depends on where you live or work.

    3G is not the panacea that one might expect. The Edge network is slower but more reliable and more efficient. I would also agree that the Iphone needs a faster processor. I'm thinking that I should have waited for the 3rd gen or even 4th gen Iphone.
  • Mr Roboto - Tuesday, September 30, 2008 - link

    For a second there it looked like an iPhone cemented in a brick. When speaking of iPhone firmware updates that's the first thing that came to mind.
  • silversound - Tuesday, September 30, 2008 - link

    I think iphone 3G is pretty fast compare to motorola GUI, samsung or even Nokia interfaces. Moto was the slowest for the phones i used. Its just a phone, how fast can it be, well at least cant beat any dual core computers lol :P
  • cheetah2k - Tuesday, September 30, 2008 - link

    Anand, you say the iphone needs a faster CPU... Well you of all people should remember that the CPU hardware in the iphone is capable of 620Mhz, however Apple have selected to have it sit around the +400Mhz mark for battery life reasons.

    I definately consider the iphone GUI faster with 2.1 firmware - 2.0, 2.0.1 and 2.0.2 were terribly slow and buggy.

    Lets see what happens with 2.2 firmware to be released shortly.
  • George Powell - Wednesday, October 1, 2008 - link

    On that basis could one overclock the iPhone?
  • mjohnson1212 - Tuesday, September 30, 2008 - link

    I upgraded from 2.0 to 2.1 and saw an immediate difference in standby battery life.

    I don't use my phone a lot during the day, a couple web pages and some emailing, and maybe a call or two.

    With 2.0 by the end of the day my battery would be at 1/4 to 1/3 full.

    With 2.1 my battery is 3/4 to almost full every night when I go to bed.
  • psonice - Wednesday, October 1, 2008 - link

    I've seen the same thing - I use the phone on and off during the day (phone calls, a bit of web + email, reading a book, playing a game perhaps) and at the end of each day the battery is definitely more full. It's now practical to charge every other day instead of daily in fact (this is with a first gen iphone).

    I think the test was somewhat flawed here.. it doesn't reflect real usage at all, and subjectively at least in real usage it seems hugely improved.

    Then again, I can't complain - I wouldn't want to spend several days using the phone in a fixed pattern either ;D
  • robp5p - Tuesday, September 30, 2008 - link

    I experienced the same thing - Massively increased standby times. For me, this is the true test. I never talk on my phone more than 1-2 hrs a day all put together.

    With the 2.0 firmware, I would be nearly dead by the end of each day with 1 hr of call time, email and a little web browsing. With the 2.1 firmware I can go for 2 1/2 days without recharging. <--- this is the real world test of battery life I care about.

    I would be interested in seeing a standardized phone battery test from anandtech that focuses more on this real world use case, rather than just 'how many minutes until it goes dead' marathon.
  • Connoisseur - Tuesday, September 30, 2008 - link

    Slightly unrelated to this article, but is there any way to do a comparison between the top of the line American phones vs. what's available in Japan? I keep hearing about how they're years ahead of us in terms of technology and features but I'd like to see real world tests and samples to see what kind of impact they'd make were they introduced into the US market.
  • psonice - Wednesday, October 1, 2008 - link

    I was in japan a while back, and had a good look around akihabara at all the latest phones and stuff. I'd say japanese phones look about 10 years BEHIND, not ahead.

    The phones have some very 'advanced features', like built-in TV (which works very badly from what I saw). But they're HUGE. And the interfaces... urgh! They've had mobile internet for years too, but it's all 'imode' mobile web, not proper internet. You'd have to pay me to use a japanese smart phone.
  • eraigames - Tuesday, September 30, 2008 - link

    PLEASE let this stereotype DIE. Japan is not the fabled land of technology. I live in Japan and this place is behind the times in soooo many ways. Japan was the first country to start with widespread use of cameras in cellphones. They also pioneered several popular essentially useless features like text messaging, the "virtual wallet" and the "smile sensor." Text messaging took off so quickly in Japan because we have to pay for every minute we call people as we do not have the handy free call-time plans other countries have. The virtual wallet is stupid and very limited. It mostly works with vending machines. The smile sensor means you can take a picture without hitting the button because it can sense when the subject is smiling.

    Japan was the first to champion widespread use of these phones but 10 years later and they are still peddling the same crappy behind-the-times phones. There are next to no smartphones in Japan. The best phone here BY FAR is the Iphone 3G. I hate Apple as a company and I hate most of their products but I have to admit that nothing here in Japan comes anywhere close to the iphone.
  • BenMc - Thursday, October 2, 2008 - link

    Amen! If I had the time, I'd like to make a video comparing side-by-side the performance of my "high tech" Japanese piece of crap (814SH) with my iPhone. I actually use my iPhone to browse the internet, read books, play games, instant message, email, keep a ToDo list, check google maps, etc.

    Some of these I can't even do on my Japanese phone and for those that I can, the performance and ease of use is sooo much better on the iPhone. I find "typing" with a number pad to be torturous.

    The Japanese make many wonderful things, but the iPhone, while it has much room for improvement is the best cell phone in Japan.
  • IcePickFreak - Tuesday, September 30, 2008 - link

    I'd like to see this too, but it seems you can not go anywhere on the internet without a friggen update on the iPhone. Want info & reviews on another phone? Good luck.
    While I can respect it for what it is, I've never seen one in person and at this point I don't care to. It's kinda like music on the radio, it may have been a good song when you first heard it, but 3 days and 400 listenings later I would walk the other way if I seen the whole band walking down the street.

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