Apple iPhone 3GS review

Apple's original iPhone rewrote the rule book on mobile phones. Hell, it tore the old book in half, shredded it up and set it on fire. It's pricy and lacks some features that are easy to get on other smart phones, but, if you're wondering why it has inspired such gadget lust, you only have to look at how every other phone maker has been clamouring to match it.

The iPhone 3G S is a new chapter in that book, not a wholesale rewrite. It plugs some of the feature holes that made some people avoid the iPhone, although plenty remain. But it's not the features that matter, because this is a rare beast: a gadget that's truly a pleasure to use.

The 3G S is available from O2 on an 18-month or 24-month contract, starting at £29.38 a month with a £184.98 upfront charge for the 16GB model and a £274.23 charge for the 32GB version. You can get the 16GB 3G S for free if you pay £73.41 a month. You can also grab it on pay as you go: the 16GB version costs £440.40 and the 32GB versions costs £538.30.

King of the touchscreens
If you've been living in a cave, or are lucky enough to not have friends who sit in the pub bragging about their phones, you may not have had an earful of iPhone already. If you've previously used the iPhone or iPhone 3G, skip ahead to the next section, because the 3G S is pretty much identical to its 3G predecessor in terms of its appearance and user interface.

The landscape keyboard is a welcome addition

If you haven't used an iPhone before, you've got a treat in store with the 3G S. It has a big, bright 89mm (3.5-inch) touchscreen that sets the bar for every other touchscreen phone on the market, thanks to its responsiveness. The home screen is simple, featuring large, rounded icons that you tap to open the phone's functions and applications. Beneath the screen, there's a single round home button that kicks you back to the home screen.

The user interface is an ode to finger-friendly usability. You scroll menus with the swipe of a finger, and the screen bounces jauntily when you come to the end of a list. Multitouch capability means that you can use more than one finger, so you can do things like zoom into a Web page by pinching your fingers together on the screen.

The 3G S travels well and its display has a new protective coating that resists fingerprints and smudges

Apple's App Store started the craze that's sweeping the mobile-phone industry, resulting in the launch of RIM's BlackBerry App World, Google's Android Market and Nokia's Ovi Store. Of course, you could always install applications to add more functionality to your smart phone, but the App Store made it easy to find and install those apps painlessly. It also made it simple to pay for your apps though the iTunes store, which motivates developers to get more addictive and useful stuff up there. From virtual pints to VPNs, there are loads of apps to love.

Similar but different
If you're upgrading from the 3G to the 3G S, you won't see a big difference, but there are a few solid improvements. The solid and slick body is totally unchanged from the 3G's, except for a face-grease-fighting oleophobic coating on the glass, which we found makes it wipe clean on your trouser leg slightly more easily. It's also a couple of grams heavier, due to a new battery, camera unit and other guts, but that's not really a cause for concern.