Just over a year ago I gave my review of the first generation of the Apple iPhone, so with the new 3G phone being out I thought it would be proper to give my review of the upgraded phone.  I decided not to upgrade my personal iPhone, but I did manage to get up early and grab one for my wife.  I have managed to play with it long enough to give my review of this phone and whether or not you should upgrade.  First let me start off with the actual purchasing experience.  We arrived at the closest AT&T store just before 7am on launch day, and the iPhone 3G was in hand and out the door at about 10am.  There was easily over 100 people in line at this time, and I later found out they were sold out by 10:30am.  Basically it was grabbing the phone and adding another line to my AT&T, and that was it…..or at least so I thought.

A little while later I realized my iPhone was bricked….couldn’t do anything with it.  Back to the AT&T store I go, and actually it ended up being several times I had to go.  Basically a lazy employee upgraded my iPhone line to the new iPhone 3G, and totally screwed up my iPhone just to get us out of the door quicker, even though I specifically asked to make sure all the phones were on separate lines.  I will say another employee and the Assistant Manager went out of their way to try and fix my iPhone, and pretty much conceded that they would be purchasing me a new iPhone 3G to replace the one their employee bricked.  Fortunately, they were able to get my phone and my plan sorted without having to result to those measures.  I was actually pleased with the response from AT&T and they made sure I was satisfied with the situation being corrected.

Any ways, lets move on to the actual iPhone 3G.  Physically, it really isn’t much different than the 1st one.  It’s slightly bigger, and the back is now the smooth plastic.  I’m not a big fan of the plastic back, and I really prefer the material used on my current iPhone better.  Now the two big features that are being advertised are the 3G speeds and the integrated GPS.  The 3G is definitely a big improvement over EDGE speeds, but before you jump into the iPhone bandwagon, make sure you area actually supports 3G first.  I didn’t do any of those fancy speed tests, but I can tell you with side by side comparisons that the 3G is much more home on the new iPhone.  However, for someone like myself who works from home and rarely goes anywhere (*sigh*), the increase in network data speed doesn’t mean much as I use wi-fi over 90% of the time.  If you are not like me then the 3G speeds should give you a much better experience with your iPhone.

Next up in the “big” feature improvements is the GPS system.  This is one feature that I am jealous i don’t have on my iPhone.  Although this isn’t turn-by-turn GPS, meaning you aren’t getting voice or visual directions to where you are going, it’s still very helpful with getting you to where you need to go.  I was first skeptical as to the accuracy of the GPS, but we took some drives and it’s about as accurate as any other GPS system I have used.  There are rumors circulating now that turn-by-turn might be possible in a future software update, but it’s just one of those “wait and see” things. 

Aside from those two “major” updates, the next thing is the 2.0 software update which is available for both versions of the iPhone.  I was actually more excited about the 2.0 update than I was about the iPhone 3G.  Mainly because I wanted the native 3rd party apps that were introduced with the App Store on iTunes.  I have been downloading and trying out a huge variety of apps since the update, and there are many that are just useless, but there are definitely some winners.  On the other side of that coin however, is that many of the applications are still prone to crashing the iPhone.  This is really no surprise as this is a big step for the iPhone, but hopefully these issues will be addressed soon.

I’m not going to get into individual application and game reviews today, but some of these applications like WordPress, Twitterific, and Facebook are just fantastic.  Although they do have some stability issues, overall they bring a whole new experience to the iPhone.  I the only thing I have paid for so far is Super Monkey Ball.  This game makes great use of the iPhone controls, and I will give a review of that soon. 

So overall, the iPhone 3G is a compelling upgrade, but only if you really need the 3G speed.  If it doesn’t matter to  you, or if it’s not available in your area, I really don’t see much of a point in spending the money to upgrade.  The real winner here is the 2.0 software, which although they still don’t have features like copy and paste, still has much potential going forward with further updates.  The new price point is also a plus, so making the upgrade isn’t as bad as it was before, but still take into consideration the points above before you commit.