iPhone 3G / Maxis

Company	:	Maxis
Price	:	RM2540 (8GB)/ RM2960 (16GB)
Rating	:

The iPhone, once only available to those who went overseas or paid through their noses at Low Yat, was finally officially launched in Malaysia in March 2009. Maxis is the carrier appointed by Apple.

I was given a loan unit for a month to review. But instead of writing about the phone itself (which can be read from hundreds of online sources) I'll focus more on some of the common hardware features, Maxis' service and the App Store, currently the only part of the iTunes Store available to Malaysia.

As everyone knows, the iPhone is a very cool gadget. What impressed me was that even though the size is bigger than my old Sony Ericsson K800i, the iPhone felt smaller and lighter in my pocket. This is obviously because of its slim and sleek form.

The touch-screen keyboard needs a little getting used to. But seeing my wife typing away quite easily on her iPhone for a few months now, it should be no problem with a little practice.

The camera being only 2MP produced surprisingly good quality photos. This can clearly be seen once you've transferred your photos to your Mac.

I did encounter one hardware 'problem': tilting the screen to view in landscape mode doesn't always work the first time. In fact sometimes I have to really shake the phone to change the screen mode. Perhaps I had a faulty unit.

Still on the subject of hardware, the much talked-about issue of battery life is true: it sucks. With normal usage I needed to charge the iPhone almost every night. But what bugged me was that with hardly any usage (i.e. wi-fi and bluetooth turned off, perhaps just one or two brief calls in a day) the battery was almost dead after 24 hours.

The iPhone apps that I find useful are the widget-like Stocks and Weather. And I really like Maps where it tells you your location with a click of a button. Very cool. These work either through Maxis' 3G connection or through wi-fi.

Speaking of Maxis 3G, the service usually performs quite well and the download speeds are pretty good. Watching YouTube is a joy as videos play after only one or two seconds delay.

However, there are a couple of negatives about Maxis. I found that the 3G service wasn't readily available at certain places, and this included certain parts around my office building which is situated in the Golden Triangle. Also, in the one month I had the iPhone, the 3G service became unavailable on three different occasions. I had to reboot the phone to get reconnected.

Now, the App Store. It's totally fun being able to buy stuff directly on your phone. After setting up your account, you simply access the App Store, select the app you want (there are loads of stuff, not just games), click the Buy button and within minutes it's downloaded to your iPhone. However, if the app is more than 10MB you'll need to download it via iTunes on your Mac and then transfer it to your iPhone.

I bought 2 games and was amazed at the graphics, playability and fun factor, all for a mere US$2.99 (around RM10) each. There are tons of apps that cost only US$0.99 each. And what's more, there are just as many free apps! The App Store is truly a wonderful thing :-)

All in all I really enjoyed my brief time with the iPhone. Returning it was hard because I had gotten so used to it. So why don't I get one? Why, I'm waiting for the new version of course!

Maxis offers several plans for the iPhone. Check out their website for more info.