A friend of mine from China was asking me this question.

Is there anything I should be aware of when I buy an iPhone?

This question triggered a series of questions in my head immediately.

• Where are you getting the iPhone 3G from?
• Is the phone unlocked?
• If not, do you know how to jailbreak it?
• Is 3G available in China?
• If not, does your current mobile service include any internet access?

Out of all these questions that popped out of my head, none of these questions were actually product related. I am a big Apple fan, that’s for sure. But I started questioning myself, is there really nothing wrong with the iPhone 3G itself?

I have been using the iPhone 3G since July 2008 and although the iPhone 3G did used to crash quite frequently in the early stages (especially when you’re using a 3rd party application). It seems that Apple has pretty much took care of the problem now. I rarely come upon apps crashing or misbehavior and I’m always using it. For calls, text, emails, iPod, Twitter, a few games, Google Reader and so on… I can say that I’m actually a very happy user!

The only downside that I can really think of is its battery life. On a normal day where I’d go to work in the morning, listen to music on the way, go on Twitter, check my emails, read any RSS, play a few short games or maybe a few phone calls. By 2-3 in the afternoon, I’ll have to somehow start charging my iPhone 3G. Charging via the USB cable or using the 3rd party external rechargeable battery.

Oh… another thing that I could think of, is dropping calls or time required to reconnect to its cellular network (say you walk into a lift, lost reception, got to whichever level you wanted to go to, walk out of the lift). It takes quite a bit of time to reconnect to its cellular network. I’m not sure if this is a common issue with iPhone 3G itself, or it’s a matter with my cellular provider, 3. Is anyone out there with 3 experiencing the same problem? What about other iPhone 3G users that aren’t using 3?

Well, that’s my ‘user experience’ for the past 9 months. Just wish that the iPhone OS 3.0 can be released sooner. What about you guys?

PK Lai