i Phone BUY

The iPhone 3GS: What will it get you?

(Credit: Corinne Schulze/CNET)

Q: What are the main differences between the iPhone 3G and the iPhone 3GS? With the iPhone 3G being just $99, I’d rather not spend the extra $100 for the 3GS if I don’t have to.
- James

A: The extra $100 for the iPhone 3GS gets you a few things. They aren’t mind-blowing, but they are worth an extra $100, depending on your point of view.

• Voice control: This is a welcome and nifty feature that performs well. Not only can you make calls using only your voice, but also you can use the iPod player. It’s particularly useful if you’ll be using the iPhone while driving.
• Video recording: Another feature that was long overdue. The video quality is quite good and the editing tool is unique and very easy to use.
• Accessibility options: The 3GS is the first iPhone to offer a broad range of accessibility feature, like Voice Over, which will read a description of the onscreen controls. Other options will further assist visually impaired users.
• Compass: The compass and its integration with the Google Maps feature are neat, but I don’t see myself using them that much, though you might feel differently.
• Better battery life: The iPhone 3GS promises double the battery life of the iPhone 3G. We’re still testing our iPhone 3GS, but it did seem to last longer than its predecessor did during preliminary use. I’m hoping that it lives up to expectations, as short battery life is one of the drawbacks of both the original iPhone and the iPhone 3G.
• Faster performance: We have found the the 3GS is faster than the iPhone 3G. It opens applications more quickly and turns on in half the time.

If price is your main issue, then I think you’ll get a great iPhone experience with the $99 iPhone 3G. But, if money is third our fourth on your criteria list, I’d say that you’ll enjoy the added features from the iPhone 3GS.

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Originally posted at Dialed In Podcast

You might be expecting Doom on the iPhone to be the latest in an increasingly tedious string of ports of the original game. But it ain’t no such thing. Doom Resurrection on the iPhone is a completely new game developed exclusively for iPhone and iPod Touch by iD software. …

RIM BlackBerry Tour

(Credit: Verizon Wireless)

Just a couple of weeks after the introduction of the RIM BlackBerry Tour 9630, Verizon Wireless announced Tuesday that the smartphone is now available for preorder online and will be in stores on July 12 for $199.99 with a two-year contract and after …

Jasper, my tour guide du jour, and a tracking device from his company, Skeye.

(Credit: Dong Ngo/CNET)

Editor’s note: CNET editor and Crave contributor Dong Ngo is spending several weeks in his homeland of Vietnam and will file occasional dispatches chronicling his adventures. To read stories from Dong’s last visit, in December, click here.

HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam–Last December, I visited Ho Chi Minh City and discovered that while Wi-Fi was ubiquitous and the Internet was fast, it was incredibly hard to get across town.

Seven months later, the traffic here is still terrible. This time, however, I found that if you are in the right place, dealing with traffic isn’t necessary at all.

The right place is District 1. Other than being the center of tourism with lots of hotels, famous landmarks, restaurants, and bars, D1 is also the site where you can get pretty much anything you need, especially when it comes to technology and digital entertainment. And it’s all within a short walking distance.

I actually heard about this area during my last trip here. Jasper Waale, owner of Skeye, a GPS- and GSM-based tracking company operating in Vietnam and Laos–and an avid listener of the Inside CNET Labs podcast–insisted I check it out. I took a rain check till now.

Hung checks out my D80. (Just another example of how good I am with the iPhone camera.)

(Credit: Dong Ngo/CNET)

We met at Cafe Centro, a trendy yet casual coffeehouse located in the middle of D1’s most bustling section. According to Jasper, this is a popular place for ex-pats to hang out for both fun and business. It offers reasonably priced refreshments and, of course, free Wi-Fi.

(By the way, there are lots of cafes in Ho Chi Minh City, and pretty much all of them offer free Wi-Fi. My other favorite is Cafe Da on Alexandre De Rhodes Street. Also in D1: the best ice milk coffee and smoothies I’ve ever had. If you go there, make sure you try the “Dong Tim” fruit shake. It’s so good, it has my name on it!)

“You’ll find me at Centro at least a couple of times a week,” Jasper said. Then, in a slightly show-offy manner, he pulled out his brand-new-looking Nikon D300 camera.

“I just got a good deal on this one. I traded in my D80 and got about 80 percent of new value to put toward this new one. You’ll have to come see this place,” he said.

I was intrigued, partially because next to his D300, my 4-year-old D80 looked somewhat pathetic. I’ve considered upgrading my camera for a while, but anticipating the whole hassle of selling my D80 on eBay or Craigslist has stopped me.

He then took me to Thuong Xa Tax, a mini shopping mall that’s just a five-minute walk from the cafe. “Mini” here, by the way, is according to American standards; this is actually one of the bigger trading centers here in Vietnam, and it is indeed very large.

As in most shopping malls here, you can find pretty much everything, but we walked straight to the Vinh Hung Camera shop. The owner, Hung, a friendly 40-something man, greeted Jasper like an old friend. He then took a quick look at my D80 and said, “I’ll give you $600 for this one, body and lens.”

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Dell is developing a pocket-size Internet device using Google’s Android operating system that could take on Apple’s iPod Touch, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal on Monday.

Two people who have seen early prototypes of the device told the newspaper it looks like Apple’s …

Originally posted at News - Wireless

Like N.Y.-area icon Crazy Eddie in the '80s, seven contemporary online merchants were caught in fraud.

(Credit: sybsa.org)

Seven online merchants operating more than 40 Web sites have agreed to pay a $765,000 settlement following an investigation by the New York State Attorney General’s office, the AG’s office said.

“These companies engaged in the worst kinds of consumer fraud, from classic bait-and-switch schemes to blatant lies and bullying sales tactics,” New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said in a news release that went out Thursday. “Let this be a message to online merchants everywhere: such abuse of consumers and violation of the law will not be tolerated.”

All of the companies were based in Brooklyn, and while their names invoke digital photography, many also sell gear ranging from projectors to HDTVs and computers.

Five of the companies–Best Price Camera, Foto Connection, 1 Way Photo, 86th Street Photo, and Broadway Photo–agreed to change their business practices, according to the release, while the other two–Camera Wiz and Sonic Photo–will close. A full list (PDF) of the companies and Web sites involved in the settlement is available at HDGuru.com.

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Now that the iPhone 3GS is officially in the wild–and selling at a pretty astounding pace–you might think there’d be fewer stories about Apple’s device. You’d be wrong. However, plenty of other noteworthy stuff happened in gadget land this week too, and we made sure to include …

(Credit: Sprint)

Attention, iPhone users: We’ve found a way (via Pre Thinking and Sprint’s Facebook page) that you can save up to $1,200 over two years on your service plans! All you have to do is buy a Palm Pre and sign up for service with Sprint.
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HP now sells an HP 12C calculator app for the iPhone.

(Credit: Screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)

It looks like a fourth generation of my family is going to be introduced to the ways of reverse Polish notation calculators.

That’s because my three-year-old son, an iPhone fan in his own preschool way, is about to be exposed to Hewlett-Packard’s new iPhone application that fully emulates the company’s 12c financial calculator. The $14.99 application is accompanied by a $29.99 emulator of the 15c scientific calculator, which is better at handling trigonometry and integration than mortgage payments and net present value.

All that’s missing is the pocket protector-like iPhone case, my colleague Ina Fried cracked as she mocked my nerdish tendencies.

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The five-driver iF500 speaker system will retail for $249.

(Credit: Edifier)

After hitting the European market earlier this year, Edifier’s bulbous iF500 iPod/iPhone speaker system speaker is making its way across the Atlantic to both the U.S. and Canada.

Here’s a look at its basic specs:
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