I’ve had my iPhone for a few days now and to say I’ve been blown away would be an understatement. The experience has been absolutely amazing. That being said, there are also several things that I would like to see improved. I’ve broken the review down into several categories to make it easier for you to browse.

Hardware

The case feels extremely sturdy, and the iPhone itself is rather heavy for its size. This gives the iPhone a solid feel, and makes it seem as though it may survive, if you were unfortunate enough to drop it. The screen holds up well to pocket wear and still appears pristine, when the smudges are wiped off. The screen does smudge very easily; however, there are several screen covers available that alleviate this problem. The front face of the iPhone is not quite flush with the metal lip. It appears that this may allow “gunk” to build up in the gap, but I haven’t experienced this problem so far. The accelerometers in the phone are superb, which is apparent when using some of the new apps designed for the iPhone. Apple doesn’t really do anything special with the accelerometers right off the bat, besides allowing users to switch from portrait to landscape view (which any basic touch screen phone can now do). The 2 megapixel camera is adequate for taking quick snapshots, although the camera software takes a terribly long time to actually take the snapshot (don’t move for at least a second).

Software

Overall, the 2.0 operating system provides a pleasant experience. Things seem to work pretty fluidly; however, there are still quite a few bugs, and sometimes a hard reset is require. I’ve experienced several crashes when using a few apps (Twitterific specifically). Switching from portrait to landscape while browsing the net tends to be a bit laggy, but this is a minor annoyance. One of my real gripes is that there is no landscape keyboard available for text messaging. In portrait mode the keyboard takes a bit of practice to get used to. The landscape keyboard provides a little more forgiveness; alas, it is not available for text messages, only web browsing. The native applications (mail, youtube, safari, etc…) are excellent. The iPhone makes you forget that you are browsing on a mobile device. Mail is seamless, and I find it more pleasurable to use than using mail in OS X. The GPS is sketchy at best. The hybrid map layout looks “cool,” but the locater blip skips around quite a bit, and sometimes you merely get a large circle, indicating your approximate position. Of course, these issues can be completely rectified, and most likely will be, in the next software update.

 Applications

The biggest feature added with the 2.0 software is obviously third party application support. Although applications sometimes result in iPhone crashes, overall the experience is overwhelmingly good. I was sad to realize that the iPhone had no tethering ability; however, a new third party application has made this somewhat possible. This is an example of how third party apps can pick up Apple’s slack. Pretty soon, we should be seeing features never before thought possible on a mobile device. 

 Bottom Line

The iPhone 3G is an incredible device. What is more incredible is the software developed for it. Fortunately, this software is available for iPod Touch and the original iPhone as well. If you already own the original iPhone, there is very little reason to upgrade to iPhone 3G, unless you absolutely must have the latest and greatest. The GPS is nothing to write home about, and other than that and 3G capability, the iPhone 3G is pretty much the same as the original iPhone.  To those with and iPod Touch who are financially stable enough to support an iPhone service plan, and to those who are thinking about making the plunge, I would highly recommend picking up an iPhone 3G. So what do you guys think? What mobile device are you using? Are you going to pick up an iPhone? Leave a comment.