by Katy Everett

Created on: September 09, 2010

I have a black Apple Iphone 8gb which I got free when I took out an 18 month £45.00 per month contract with O2 and I was so excited to receive this phone as I have heard such great things about it.

When opening the box you receive the following:
iPhone 3G Stereo Headset with mic 

Dock Connector to USB Cable USB

Power Adapter

 Documentation

Cleaning/polishing cloth 

SIM eject tool 

Now the SIM eject tool is very very small and could quite easily be discarded with the box (as I almost did!) in your haste to get to your lovely shiny new phone.

The documentation that is provided with the phone is very basic and just tells you about some of the phones features (such as the auto-spell keyboard feature) 

The phone has just 4 buttons, the home button on the front of the phone which takes you to the main homepage (which is where you will find literally everything to work the phone). The volume up & down buttons on the top left hand side and the silent/loud button also on the top left hand side.

The microphone and the speaker are both located on the bottom of the phone which sometimes can cause feedback for the caller if you have the phone on loudspeaker (which I often do).

The screen is a 3.5 inch multi-touch display and this is how you use the phone. Double clicking on websites will bring them up closer (making things much easier to read) & scrolling left or right will move through applications or websites/photos with ease.

The camera is a bit of a disappointment as this is only 2.0 megapixels but I am finding that it is still taking some lovely photographs.

The battery specifications are advertised as follows:

Power and batteryBuilt-in rechargeable lithium-ion battery3 Charging via USB to computer system or power adapter 
Talk time:Up to 5 hours on 3G Up to 10 hours on 2GStandby time: Up to 300 hours
Internet use: Up to 5 hours on 3GUp to 6 hours on Wi-FiVideo playback: Up to 7 hours Audio playback: Up to 24 hours

My best advice for conserving battery is to either switch off or switch to airplane usage when you don't require the use of your phone (By going in to settings). Also, switch off the wi-fi and automatically join network as otherwise it will keep searching and therefore draining down your battery.

Check out the application store as there are so many great applications which are free! (Calorie Counter is a very good one!)

I have access to my google mail 24/7 if I choose however I only ask for the phone to push once per hour to conserve battery life.

I am overall quite pleased with my phone but I have found that I am still dropping calls and freezing sporadically even though i have upgraded via the itunes store to the latest version each and every time a new one has been released. 

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