I thought I might share my experience for you so that you know what to look out for.
My 1st 3G had no major problems except for the slight sharp edges on the sides. It did have problems with dropped calls, however. Apple swapped it for a white-box replacement.
These phones are remanufactured, refurbished, or whatever you would like to call it. The apple store genius said more than likely they are new since the phone came out a month ago.
The 1st replacement had sharp plastic protruding from the left side. You could cut yourself on it. They swapped it for another.
The 2nd unit looked fine cosmetically. However, I picked it up at noon and by 5:30 my battery had completely died. I did not even use the phone because I was at work. Bad battery. They swapped it for another.
The third unit had dust underneath the glass. I did not take this one home.
The fourth unit had dust under the glass. I did not take this one either.
The fifth unit also had dust underneath the glass. I did not take it home.
At this point the genius was completely frustrated and offered me a refund and I agreed. I then went and purchased another new phone.
Although this one looks and operated fine for 2 days, on the third, mail was completely unresponsive (would not get new mail and would crash) Also the phone was completely sluggish (1-2 minutes to return to home screen from any app). I did a restore and then restored from backup (It did not fix it. Mail unresponsive and sluggish).
At this point I restored it again and just said to create a new phone in itunes and just re-synched everything. I did lose all customized settings, but it appears to be back to normal now but for who knows how long before I need to restore again.
My 1st 3G had no major problems except for the slight sharp edges on the sides. It did have problems with dropped calls, however. Apple swapped it for a white-box replacement.
These phones are remanufactured, refurbished, or whatever you would like to call it. The apple store genius said more than likely they are new since the phone came out a month ago.
The 1st replacement had sharp plastic protruding from the left side. You could cut yourself on it. They swapped it for another.
The 2nd unit looked fine cosmetically. However, I picked it up at noon and by 5:30 my battery had completely died. I did not even use the phone because I was at work. Bad battery. They swapped it for another.
The third unit had dust underneath the glass. I did not take this one home.
The fourth unit had dust under the glass. I did not take this one either.
The fifth unit also had dust underneath the glass. I did not take it home.
At this point the genius was completely frustrated and offered me a refund and I agreed. I then went and purchased another new phone.
Although this one looks and operated fine for 2 days, on the third, mail was completely unresponsive (would not get new mail and would crash) Also the phone was completely sluggish (1-2 minutes to return to home screen from any app). I did a restore and then restored from backup (It did not fix it. Mail unresponsive and sluggish).
At this point I restored it again and just said to create a new phone in itunes and just re-synched everything. I did lose all customized settings, but it appears to be back to normal now but for who knows how long before I need to restore again.
rather than the crappy unchanged 3G iPhone. I would get the old gen iPhone over the 3G one anytime.