Echo's like that in any cell phone are caused by the phone's mic not having noise cancellation technology such as like a Polycom conference room phone.

Is it just my crazy imagination, or does the battery on the new 3G drain faster than a keg on Gameday?

Is it searching for a cell? That used to happen a lot with Nextel when it couldn't find a tower.

Make sure you have the push email turned off and use fetch instead. The push kills the battery.

Ok, lets check it:

Push - Off
Bluetooth - Off
Wifi - Off
Brightness - Dim

Wow, maybe now I can make a phone call, LOL.

B-Line, you're not crazy. The 3G actually has less battery life than the old one. I'm holding out until they give it a proper redesign to get rid of my "outdated" iPhone.

Yep, battery ran down pretty quickly :( I let my battery run completely down twice and now it definitely seems to be lasting longer. This seems like a device that will need charging every two days --- which I don't mind as it stays in a cradle a lot of the time.

Battery Problems
 

Dam this battery is crap! About 7 hours with medium use and no web usage. I think the 3G is the problem. What would be the point to turn off Push? I want my e-mail push to me as I use this as a business phone.

ps. Barry it is okay for you to buy the iPhone 3G. ;)

FYI, on Monday night a new version is available: 2.01 from iTunes.

As i said earlier the point is to preserve battery life..... You can decide.... Longer battery life or quicker emails??????? I use my phone for business as well but I'm okay with a <15 minute delay in getting my messages in order to continue getting them later in the day.