The results don’t surprise me. At all.

I’m not quite sure what people expect performance wise of American 3G networks, but from experience, my expectations have been and still low. 3G works well in large metro cities, since a lot of cell towers are situated closer, so losing signal is less likely. If I lived in a rural area, there is no way I would invest in 3g — especially on AT and T.

I did a 2g vs 3g write up back in June. 98% of the post is still relevant (Since Android wasn’t out yet and Firefox’s new mobile browser just launched, so they’re not included) If you’re interested, I pasted the blog after the jump. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask in the comments. :)



Browsing and 2g vs 3g

1. Do you surf like me?

Email + FaceBook + MySpace (sometimes) + IMing + Twitter + FriendFeed + tumblr.. I’m a SNS’er (Social Network-er) so a trillion katrillion nanoseconds faster* doesn’t matter to me. It’s no secret the iPhone has the best mobile browsing experience, I mean IMO there is no other mobile browser better than Safari. Trust me, I’ve tried them all. From Opera on BlackBerry to Treo, Minimo (Firefox’s mobile browser), to WinMo IE… seriously. Mobile Safari wins HANDS DOWN. The only downfall is no flash or JavaScript support. …but who needs flash enabled on phones anyway since 1. i have no need for flash except YouTube… which is already built into the iPhone and 2. in this day and age everybody and their mother’s offer free Wi-Fi. Just hook up to the internet with your laptop or Wi-Fi enabled phone.

But not supporting Java is kind of ‘ouch’ for I am extremely dependent on my Gmail, and Google has a Gmail widget that’s well… you guessed it, in Java. Aside from Gmail, background / multiprocessing is one thing the iPhone does NOT do. It wouldn’t be THAT big of a pain if the push system on the iPhone didn’t suck. It takes forever for notifications for new emails to pop up and I find myself manually checking for email. :| Yes, it’s a pain…

2. 3g iPhone = 300 hours of standby battery life

See. This probes a HUGE problem for me since I don’t buy into rhetoric and did my research… well googling. Even if the phone DOES have 300hours of standby, 3g drains battery life FAR more than 2g** So unless I plan to carry my charger (which is not a good idea since I always lose stuff) OR invest in an extended battery (which is an extra 100ish dollars since I’d have to get one from Japan cuz all the ones available here are utterly useless) the 3g iPhone’s battery life being 300 hrs (standby) as a selling point is plain and simply LAME.

3. 3g and AT&T

First of all, AT&T is jacking up their pricing plan. FAIL

Second of all, wi-fi is FAR superior than ANY mobile internet network…. unless I’m abroad. The speed is SOOOO super duper ultra slow, I’m HARDLY on EDGE unless I utterly need to be. And even if Apple says it’s 2.4x faster, I still think Wi-Fi’d beat it hands down. With all the free hot spots available, why would I pay extra? Double FAIL Plus! AT&T’s customer service is closed on the weekends. W T F. That makes NO sense to me. At all. Those bastards think they’re all that and a bag of chips just cuz they won the iPhone contract. ugh!!!

….btw this is getting too long so I’m going to break it up. I still have a lot more ranting issues I’d like to address ;)

*in actuality it’s 2.4x faster. Jobs demo’d DL’ing a large file at WWDC 08. On Apple’s site here but a difference of 48 seconds vs 20 seconds on a PHONE doesn’t mean jack shit to me

**not from one source but this article pretty much sums it up via: Applewatch

YouTube link.