Aafter a rather short wait fom WWDC, the phone that seems the same, has changed. And it's going to hit Singtel Retail Stores on the 11th of July. No mention of home orders have been issued by Singtel, but we do know that the DivergentCloud will do our best to get our hands on the gleaming device that has been the spark of much debate in the iWorld.
Singtel's price plans are known to exceed AT&T in terms of the upfront payment for the handset. This ranged from $308 to $508 for the iPhone 3G. A new plan dubbed "iFlexi" was initiated by the telco, which included talktime, messaging, and data plans (limited to 1Gb-3Gb depending on plan chosen.) However, the plans are by far, cheaper than AT&T's asking price of $69 per month, and AT&T's cancellation of it's prepaid feature have forced customers to either sign this plan, or switch to the Blackberry.
In Singapore, Singtel holds a monopoly in telecommunications. As such, we would not expect nothing less of a 7.2 MBPS connection, where 3G is at full signal. The network's ability however, does not seem to penetrate into major housing estates, even dropping to the slower GSM network, or losing the network intermittently.
But today, we are really considering whether or not to get the 3GS. It's form factor and that shiny apple logo might be enough to entice us, but recent problems have shown up, causing many like us to rethink our decisions. The new oleophobic screen layer has been observed to be rubbed off, on top of overheating when 3G and data intensive applications are being used (such as maps). Discoloration issues have also been observed with regards to the white iPhone.
It seems like this user has been playing with the popular flick fishing application, thus we notice the circle and the interesting finger movement patterns. This is truly scary, but thankfully, the iPhone warranty covers everything related to the device, and we strongly advise that you should get the AppleCare warranty for the phone. However it does come at a steep price of S$99.The overheating has also caused many concerns, and we are feeling it even with our older 3G iPhones, surprisingly only felt on the new operating system 3.0, and not 2.2.1. We do hope that 3.1 brings us that cooling management system, as in place with the MacBook Air.
Loss of WiFi connectivity has also plagued many iPhones, and is also sought to be fixed in 3.1.
UPDATE: SINGTEL HAS RELEASE PRICES
It's going to burn a hole in our pocket, $300 for an early upgrade fee? I don't think so. Many of us would just wait it out. So far, we would see getting the iFlexi Value and the iPhone 3GS 32GB as the best money can get, even though a $56 monthly plan seems steep, but think of it rather as a loan repayment plan, rather than a phone bill.
UPDATE:iPhone 3GS released in Singapore!
The phone has hit the Singtel Glass Box, and coupled with a few fireworks at 7pm last night (a far cry from last year's release time at 12am) the crowds thronged to get their hands on the new iPhone. As such, queue times were 6 hours or longer last night, and it was smart on Singtel's part that they released the phone earlier.
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