Apple iPhone 3G Cell Phone Review - Connectivity

The Apple iPhone 3G's big new connectivity is, of course, 3G. With support for speeds up to 1.4 mbps on AT&T's network 3G is going to be a big boost for mobile data. Of course it comes at a cost, see the battery section. Bluetooth is still pretty sad, but you do get Wi-Fi.

Cellular Bands (8.0)
The Apple iPhone 3G is a quad-band GSM device that will run on any GSM network worldwide. This makes it good for world travellers, although travellers may find AT&T's roaming rates to be more of a challenge than the iPhone 3G's capabilities in this area. Our score for cellular bands is based on the total number of bands supported.

Data Support Score (8.0)
One of the major new features of the Apple iPhone 3G is, of course, support for high speed 3G data networks. Specifically the iPhone 3G supports HSDPA and UMTS networks. AT&T's 3G network in the US uses HSDPA with maximum download speeds up to 1.4 Mbps. If you are not in a 3G area, which is currently limited to major metropolitan areas, you will fall back on the same Edge network that the original iPhone used, which maxes out around 230 kbps. We tested the iPhone 3G's speed using dslreports.com and were able to manage a download speed of 1324 kbps. This will be the result for many users, you will rarely reach peak speeds with the iPhone 3G, but it will certainly be faster than the Edge network when you are in a 3G coverage area. The Apple iPhone 3G supports 3G on three bands, the 850/1900 Mhz bands for AT&T's network and the 2100 Mhz band for most international 3G networks. This means you'll be able to use 3G overseas and the iPhone will function in countries like Japan that only run their cellular networks on the 2100 Mhz band.

Bluetooth (5.5)
The Apple iPhone 3G supports Bluetooth 2.0 with Enhanced Data Rate. It might as well not, however, as the only Bluetooth profiles supported are Headset and Hands-Free. The lack of Blutooth support was one of our biggest gripes with the original iPhone and we are very disappointed to see that this has not been addressed in the past year. When you look at the plethora of Bluetooth profiles supported by other devices like the LG Dare and Nokia N95 you have to wonder what Apple is thinking limiting their Bluetooth so much. At the very least we'd like to see support for stereo Bluetooth headphones.

Wi-Fi (5.0)
The Apple iPhone 3G supports Wi-Fi in both b and g flavors. Wi-Fi will generally provides you with your fastest data access experience and its also more battery friendly than AT&T's 3G network, so we recommend you use it instead of 3G whenever possible. The Apple iPhone 3G's Wi-Fi implementation is exactly the same as the original iPhone, and it does a good job of easily connecting you to available hotspots with minimal fuss. You can set it up so that you are prompted whenever a Wi-Fi network is available, or you can just automatically connect to those networks you know and trust.

Infrared (0.0)
The Apple iPhone 3G does not support Infrared connectivity.

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