iPhone 3GS gets the quick and dirty tear apart treatment, already (update: could do 833MHz and 720p video)
By Ross Miller 
posted Jun 19th 2009 4:04AM
posted Jun 19th 2009 4:04AM
Update: They've identified the chipset as the SoC S5PC100 from Samsung and thus confirm an ARM Cortex A8 running at 600 MHz (operates at up to 833MHz though) and the ability to record 720p video and handle real-time video conferencing should Apple choose to go in that direction (iPhone 3G S records VGA only). PowerVR SGX graphics and 256MB of RAM too as expected. S5PC100 block diagram after the break.
Read -- S5PC100 [warning: PDF]
Read -- RapidRepair Teardown
This is a useless iPhone release to prevent guys from buying the Palm Pre.
The pre release wasn't as big, because everyone hyped the phone and that gave the leverage for it to get interest.
That's pretty much it. The 3G S seems to just be a tool for taking momentum out of the Palm Pre. It's nothing new to iPhone. Honestly, so many software changes brought to this could've easily been implemented to the original iPhone 3G *cough* Video Recording *cough*
Android did it... And don't tell me specs held the iPhone 3G back from video recording because that's total BS.
Don't worry, the non fanboys and even more reasonable ones see through the ploy here.
At least that's what I'm telling myself so that I don't freak out on the sheep that have to have the 3G S just because it's newer. The whole lack of any real innovating frustrates me.
I am kinda sick and tired of people trolling this site.
@ALBGunner04 You think the 3G could do 30fps H.264 VGA video recording? Maybe you ought to look and see how much CPU power that takes. Clue: more than the 3G has. Yeah, jailbreak it and it'll do some low frame rate small video, but that's not really in keeping with the iPhone, is it? Notice how it only gets features when they're implemented really well?
I know what you are saying tweak.
But... the illusion that IT people suffer from is that they are part of some high speed moving wave of amazing.
The truth is that IT is more like molasses, a slow moving glue designed to leach wallets with the occasional jump forward every 10 years or so.
Apple for some strange reason is perceived as both the fastest moving and the biggest let down. It's neither, Apple comes out with an innovation every year or so and mostly the innovations are not IT related so much as design manufacturing, sales or integration related. The iPhone has some nifty bits, but its main features sit in design, sales and integration, not the invention of a new technology.
Palm? Hardly innovative, over 10 years ago they made a PDA OS, then Palm bought Handspring who had licensed the OS to make a phone, nothing changed for years except maybe giving up on themselves and then with a design guy from Apple they come out with the Pre, which is from all accounts is another whatever piece of plastic from China with client side web apps (now there is a new idea!). I'm not down on Palm, its just business as usual.
Intel, what they added another core, that was being first done in the late 90's. Blu Ray? the key inventions are circa 1994. Co-processors, talk about the magic roundabout, here it comes again...
The rest of it is simply economies of scale, making things cheaper and smaller over time. Amazing IT? And interestingly the real leaps in IT are usually despised by the IT crowd, because it means change, which means work and IT people prefer to sit on their ass, chat to mates and impress the lesser people by demonstrating that they have done the same thing so many times its basically muscle memory, so it seems quick.
This iPhone 3GS has got F all to do with the Pre and a lot more to do with 2 year contracts coming up. Surprise, surprise a sales strategy, not an IT one. The $99 8Gig, Geez that was obvious the moment the first model was released, even the 2 year timing of it, that's manufacturing and sales. They would have been sitting around 6 months before Jobs walked on stage and set the $99 timing for the 8gig back then.
We wish these companies were into IT, but they are into business. All the fanboys can cry into their hankies, cause you know what, we don't even rate on the sales chart. You want to be important to the companies you buy your crap off, move to another industry.
So, do you really have a valid point to make or are you simply playing the part of a douchebag. Successfully I might add...
"The 3G S seems to just be a tool for taking momentum out of the Palm Pre. "
That's what the Nintendo DS was supposed to be too against the PSP, and look where those two systems are.
I didn't get a Pre, or a G1, because I'm locked in with AT&T for another year at least. I won't upgrade to the 3G S because I'm not eligible, and because I know there will be a better Iphone before my contract is up anyway.
The way our cellular market works, unless you are rich (or dumb. Hundreds of dollars to break contract), there are more deciding factors for buying a new phone than simply wanting one.
Useless? I don't think so. A lot of iPhone users have been complaining about the poor camera quality and the lack of video recording. Apple really had to release a new version of the hardware. I am not so sure that the current release is enough but I am quite sure that next year there will be a new version.
Oh and this release has very little to do with the Palm Pre. Apple's release schedule is quite rigid plus OS 3 got announced and released to developers about 4 months ago. Sure going from 3G to 3GS is nothing like going from Treo to Pre but Palm has only themselves to blame. Plus I am quite sure that the Palm hype will very soon hit the fan. We are no longer in the 90s and a good device alone does not sell very well.
3.0 was a huge upgrade, and yes it was done to counter the Pre and shut them up (which it did). However, the 3GS is a superior hardware compared to the 3G. Double the RAM and storage, 1.5x more CPU power, along with an enhanced graphics engine to allow PS2 quality games and an autofocus camera/video recorder makes for a less glamorous unpgrade, yet they are big upgrades! Just wait until you see the kind of games and apps that will be created for the 3GS! It may take a few months, but expect some very impressive stuff!
Granted, I do think it's b.s. that Apple didn't allow video recording (sans the 30 fps and autofocus quality) for the 3G through the 3.0 software, but I think they did this to prevent poor quality video on teh 3G being mistaken for the 3GS's capabilities?
Regradless, I'm excited about all of the new stuff under the hood of my 3GS and can't wait for an even better phone next summer!
"That's what the Nintendo DS was supposed to be too against the PSP, and look where those two systems are."
Is this a serious comment? That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. You know the DS came out 20 days BEFORE the PSP, right? And that's just the Japanese timeline, the DS released in the US several months before the PSP.
Please, troll harder. Make me work.
"I am kinda sick and tired of people trolling this site." - rippinhonda
Amen. The comments section on Engadget has become a sorry joke.
Actually it's a release to bring the iPhone up-to-par with the Pre's specs.
Do you feel less butt-hurt when it's phrased as Apple playing catch-up with Palm?
let's do an experiment.
Let's take a Dell laptop from 2 years ago, running Windows XP. Now, let's get a brand new Dell laptop and (pay extra to Micro$oft) to put Windows XP on it. The old dell is a 1Ghz proscessor with a gig of RAM, 120 GB hard drive and integrated graphics and a 2 hour battery. The new Dell is a 2.11Ghz, 2GB Ram, 250 GB hard drive and discreet graphics, with a 3.5 hour battery.
Which would you want? Would you upgrade to a machine that is twice as fast, with twice the RAM, twice the hard drive, faster graphics, and more battery life? I would.
That's the difference in the 3G and the 3GS. People too stupid to understand that internal changes are more important than changes in the visible UI or the industrial design of the shell are the ones saying this isn't a real upgrade. They'll be the same people saying Snow Leopard isn't a "real upgrade" because it looks the same on the surface, even though it's completely rebuilt on 64 bit architecture.
I'll gladly pay for speed. video, magnetometer, and voice control are nice, but it's about speed, for me.
"They'll be the same people saying Snow Leopard isn't a "real upgrade" because it looks the same on the surface, even though it's completely rebuilt on 64 bit architecture."
Yeah, but it'll only be $29 to upgrade, and you don't have to break a contract to do it. The whole 64-bit statement is a bit misleading anyway. Apples and oranges...
Right, cos the Pre has has the option of 16GB and 32GB storage and ....wha.....?
I must admit, I'm a fan of this tradition of ripping new products apart to take a look at their internals and see what they're really made of. It's a good thing they do it too, because if you were to just ask Apple what's inside, they'd probably just say "magic!"
Why was it necessary for this article to jump back to the top of the page just because an update was added?
yep, but I still don't know any information about a DAC chip. Was it improved? Is it the same?
Is the audio quality better or the same?
this is the main question for me as I would probably get this as a good "loseless format" player, and a phont in it can be handy...
but the sound in previous generation was not on par with iPod touch so I am currious...
don;t u love those lego bricks...
Lego flash drives i presume?
http://www.target.com/Dane-Elec-1GB-Brick-Drive-Yellow/dp/B000TYC992/qid=1245387315/ref=br_1_6/188-1590523-2356929?ie=UTF8&node=700574011&frombrowse=1&index=tgt-mf-mv&rank=price&rh=&page=1
Ooh. Do those fit with real legos? If so, I can totally imagine pretending my lego creations were secretly hiding sensitive data.
I had a feeling all along they were using Legos.
This post should get a NSFW tag, seriously, this is too sexy for geeks.
girls = sexy
phones = ...phones
you are very sad.
Oh, u mean the undressing part...argh...i finally got it...hahahaha...
Uh, girls will date you if you have the right gadgets. Take an iPhone to Starbucks. You'll see.
All the girls will be crowding around the guy with the pre and you'll be all alone with your iPhone.
Right.
yeah... all the fat ugly girls who think it's a new type of twinkie.
"Hey, you wanna see my Pre?"
*slap*
"I guess not."
hahaha those girls are called phonesluts then
Ok...so you buy your phone to pick up chicks at a Starbucks?
This has to be the funniest/most pathetic thing I've heard in weeks. There are about a million insults I could come up with for this moment right now, but I couldn't possibly pick one.
Sad twat.
You people have no sense of humor. Nice one Paul.
Reverse troll = sucessful
the rest of yall fell for it, again
You are arguing over phones. Both of you, GTFO more often. 99% of clunge doesn't give a fucking shit what phone you have; of the 1% that do, 95% are ugly as sin.
But I live in SF, where EVERYONE has an iPhone. I can't imagine scoring any action at a starbucks here by whipping it out.
will it really look much different inside compared to the 3G? I think the only real physical change is the compass.
This is a pretty lame release in general. Imagine if a car company simply added a few horsepower and a compass and that was that?
You know you want one.
Dude, they do that every year! Don't expect a revolution every year.
Well I kind of would hope that the internals would look a lot different than the 3G as they are using a new processor, new graphics card, new camera lense, the compass, and obviously the increased RAM and increased HDD room. I would say that I am sure the internals are similar, but with the big hub bub about what processor that new iPhone is using, this would be even more critical than the 3G internals.
Hey Buddy you picked the wrong analogy since you know Car makers just add a few features and call it a new car.
not to beat a dead horse here, but that was probably one of the worst analogies I have ever seen in 35 years of life. It gave me pause.
Just imagine if for 25 years all the tv companies just released the same tv's in the same resolution, and billed them as new tvs ... Oh wait....
I just don't get what all the bitching is about, Nokia has been doing this spec bump thing for years, there is nothing wrong with releasing a more powerful piece of hardware. Were people expecting an adamantium orb shaped iPhone?
The groves on the housing of the iPhone are different, only difference I can see.
And yes, I did replace my rear housing. It's red, and selling for $800.
ugh why do they offer replacement housings for the iPhone and every other iPod model but the touch? this is getting annoying.
I want like, a red iPod touch, that I don't need to send to a company that's prices are outrageous just to paint it.
Arg.
Although my friend is walking around with a nice blue iPhone 3G. :(
Part of (a large part of) what Apple sells is the "look". The silver Macbook Pros, the white Macbooks, the white earbuds - these are things that have instant recognition as Apple products.