Yes it really is that bad. Have a good read
HERE. As a design Engineer in electronics for a decade I have not seen a top tier company put out anything with this many design flaws internally. It's pathetic to say the least. I have a brand new iMac, and a brand new iPhone that replaced the last gens which I had from previous purchase. I'm always taking it up the yang for Apple and defending them, but this time no amount of fanboy BS can stop me from giving apple a big ripping over this last design. It is absolutely HORRIBLE. Sure the 3g does what it is supposed to do so from a performance standpoint I have no issues with it. It's the build quality, and design that make it the piece of disaster that it is.
The 2g was such a good design from anyone in the electrical fields standpoint. Soldered contacts, weather proof connectors, rigid metal frame construction....... the list could go on forever.
The 3g has a twisting plastic "unibody", no frame. This would be ok IF they hadn't put everything on the motherboard on pressure tabs. This is a piece of metal bent over in a v shape and the pressure of it laying against the v compressing it to the board is all that makes the connection.
So #1- it's not a solid connection. with the plastic frame it twists on the motherboard as the phone flexes. This causes connection issues and all the critical components are in the phone on this design.
#2- it's an open air contact with no plug surrounding it. The contacts are copper/brass and will corrode quickly with the temperature changes of winter and the higher chance of crystals freezing in the air and settling on the open contacts causing connection issues through the winter as it goes along. Another instance however that can happen at ANY time is walking from a cold air condition environment into a hot environment which causes colder items to condensate. Remember when your glasses fog coming out of a cold room into a hot room? That condensation on the contacts of the phone will begin to attract corrosion. On the 2g, the plugs are REAL PLUGS that self seal from the elements.
#3- The entire motherboard of the 3g is one piece. If a single component fails, you have to replace the whole board. The 2g was a 2 piece design separating the phone side from the flash side.
#4- The plastic gets scratched on your phone, you can't replace the back piece like you can on a 2g for a couple bucks. The 3g backing (unibody) IS the mount for everything. Cosmetic issues? It'll cost you $125 for a new back off ebay and then you have to determine if you are up to building the phone from scratch into the new backing. On the 2g, you'd have spent 20 mins swapping the backplate.
#5- as covered the 3g mounts everything to the backplate, which is why we see many more "iphone needs service" screens coming up than on the 2g. Shocks and impacts go directly to the motherboard that is mounted to the plastic, flexing frame. There is a glass component on the 3g phone that will crack in half and render the entire motherboard useless if the phone is dropped. This single component will render the phone dead..... but then again this is a one piece motherboard.... Any single component can kill the phone. On the 2g if the comm board goes out, you just drop signal.... the phone still functions, plus a simple comm board swap won't even affect your HD or anything on it.
Seriously, I could write until my fingers bleed about the 3g phone. I've been a design engineer for a decade. Worked to design aftermarket electronics in Lexus automobiles, I've done about all anyone can do in the field for establishment. I've seen a lot of things, but nothing like how far Apple lost uality with the 3g release. There are just so many steps backwards on this phone. You told apple you wanted a battery that wasn't soldered in so they gave you one that wasn't soldered in....... too bad they stuck it under the motherboard!!!! You have to completely dissasemble the phone and removed every-single-component to get to the battery to replace it........ well, all you said was you wanted a battery that wasn't soldered in.
monday to get a new one
