The un boxing of the iPhone 3GS

As mentioned earlier we just received our iPhone 3GS’s from Optus in Australia.

There is 3 main networks here & some minor ones. Optus has the best pricing, but Telstra although almost always dearer than everyone (Strange seeing as they are the biggest) does have a better network. They have a different frequency which has better penetration in more areas. Vodafone is the third & we used to be with them before Optus. Vodafone’s customer service in the past was slightly better than the other 2. Keep in mind that customer service for all mobile providers in Australia verges on the criminal. Their business is communications, yet communicating is what they do worst. We’ve been receiving better service lately, but am not quite sure if that’s just because we were put through to Australian call centres. The upgrade process was quite painless & was able to be done over the phone, unlike the 2 weeks worth of paperwork we had to go through the first time.

Yes I know this next section is pretty fanboy.

Here is the package. The images are taken with the iPhone 3G & tweaked in Photoshop as it was a dark day in here.

Here is a tip to Optus’s shipping system. Apple has gone to many pains to reduce the shipping size & environmental impact of its products yet you ship the iPhone in a box 6 times bigger than the actual iPhone. Thinking this might be for the protection of the phone so it’s received in excellent condition, but when opened the packaging had no padding or anything inside, just the iPhone rolling around hell for leather inside the box. Thankfully the iPhone is pretty well packed.

Comparison shot of the old 3G box & the new 3GS. As Apple has said the packaging is about 33% smaller

The contents are pretty much exactly the same with an updated pamphlet but with the omission of a microfibre cloth. Looks like we’ll have to break out our old black turtlenecks to polish them. Please note - hideous Aussie charger

To be honest, as a huge gadget fan, the thought of getting new stuff is always exciting. But as to be expected, with everything design wise essentially the same, after you slap your screen protector on & case you’ll quickly forget that you have a new iPhone

All that was needed to do was back up the old iPhone & swap the sim card to the new one. It then updated the carrier settings & synced the basic preferences. Not sure If this step was done wrong but after it was ready to go, we had to go back & sync again to get the apps on the iPhone. The apps were all over the place when replaced back on the 3GS but with our second iPhone 3GS they were in their normal place (not sure why the difference). The only additional app I noticed being the compass.

Oh & yes Apple still won’t let us delete stocks or the weather apps. Seeing as we don’t have stock’s, we’d like to delete it. As for weather, well it’s never more accurate than sticking your head out the window.

So how does it compare & function?…… well stay tuned & we’ll give you our first impressions in coming posts