When you meet a gadget and fall in love at first sight and spend the night, er, money to play around with it, sometimes the magic wears off. You wake up with it next to you and curse the day you pre-ordered it from the Apple store.

Well, my friends, this did not happen to me. I am still infatuated.

The iPhone 3G S is like David Lynch. Yeah, some people (Forcedtodrive) know all the weird things that happen in Lynch’s movies, but I’m the kind of person that needs to watch them a few times to really take it all in. I knew there were a lot of features to the new iPhone and 3.0 firmware, but I needed a couple of days of playing around with it to REALLY get to know it.

So what have I learned?

The Voice Control feature. It’s a feature I never really needed, but am glad to now have. Of course, I never really needed an iPhone when I first had it – now I can’t live without it. I’m immature and laugh at how the Voice Control lady mispronounces all the Artist’s names – like how she says “McPee Pants” as if MC Pee Pants was the Irish rapper on Aqua Teen Hunger Force.

Battery Life. It takes a couple of days to really get a feel for the battery life of the phone, but I do see an improvement over my old 3G. Of course, I don’t always have the 3G Network and WiFi on, which improves the life significantly, but even with it on the charge lasted longer than the regular 3G did. You would also think that taking videos would burn up a lot of juice – but I recorded two 3-minute videos in a row and it only dropped my battery life from 82% to 79%. Another 2% was used uploading those videos to my YouTube account. One downside of the 3G S is that it seems to take MUCH longer to charge the phone to 100% than the 3G did.

Compatibility with new Apple earbuds. I like the new earbuds – but the only difference, really, is the volume control being on the microphone. I used to just click once for the music to turn off if someone started talking to me, but if the new earbuds mean I don’t have to reach for my phone, then that’s alright with me!

Forcedtodrive thinks that my 8.5 rating was too. Although the cost is extremely high, that is not my reasoning for what I thought was a fair rating. I don’t like the placement of Spotlight on the page before the main one. Whenever I hold down the Home button for Voice Control for too short of a time, it goes right to that Spotlight page, which is aggravating. I would also like to put some Apps on that Spotlight page. More control over the Home key shortcuts would be great as well – like clicking Home 3 times to go to the 3rd page, or to open a certain app. Of course, having a camera flash like some Blackberry phones even do would be optimal.

At this point, I keep my rating of an 8.5. What do you think of the new iPhone 3G S? If you don’t have one, are you jealous that my phone has a compass and your’s doesn’t?

I’ve already mentioned that I’m in gadget-love with my iPhone. Today, it matured into a handsome young 3G S. I made sure to be awake in single-digit morning hours (the worst hours of the day) to make sure I did not miss the UPS guy delivering my bundle of joy.

Everyone knows the specs of the 3G S versus the 3G and 2G, and everyone also knows that the 3G and 3G S phones are identical in appearance. See, this isn’t a completely new phone, it’s more of a makeover for the 3G – except, instead of putting lipstick, stilettos and a hot red dress on it, Apple gave it a magnetometer, video capture, larger capacity (32GB), and support with the latest Apple earbuds with volume control, amongst other things. AND THE SPEED, OH THE SPEED! I cannot wait to get all the newest games that take advantage of the faster technology of the 3GS.

First, here are the pros and cons:

+ FASTER!
+ camera with auto-focus
+ video capture
+ same exterior as 3G, so no need to buy new cases/screen protectors
- price, because I want everything for free
- magnetometer does not work with Google Street View (yet?)

Overall, I give it an

Wanna know why and more? Read my entire review of the 3G S after the jump!

(more…)

Let me lament about my 2G iPhone that I held onto for over a year and a half, waiting for a generation of the iPhone that has video capture and better speed for gaming. Apparently the iPhone was less patient than I was – only a month before this week’s Apple Worldwide Developer’s Conference, it jumped into a flushing toilet at a bar in Jersey City. Now I find myself selling my 16GB 3G on Ebay to pay for the 3Gs I preordered the day after it was announced.

So, why do let Apple control my life emotionally and financially? It’s as simple as having my entire life organized, emails read promptly, Twitter checked frequently and procrastinating with all the games and apps the iTunes App store has to offer me.

iPhone’s 3.0 firmware is also available for those who have enough self control to keep their 3G and iPod Touches. It will provide the cut and paste functionality that everyone has been hollering about for years. Eventually, AT&T will allow MMS and tethering, and there are tons of great games from big-name developers slated for release as early as this week!

While all these new features are absolutely AWESOME, AT&T has stirred up quite a bit of controversy with 3G owners – by charging us poor 3G-owning souls $499 for the upgrade 32GB 3Gs (along with the $18 upgrade fee).

I’ve always been a sucker for controversy, though, and I am in total tech-love with the iPhone. My name is Jenn, and welcome to the TechTab on GameESC!