I’m sure you’ve heard of the iPhone 4 by now… everyone has. Even both of my grandmothers. Chances are pretty good you’ve read some reviews, heard about the “death grip” and seen pictures and videos taken with the new cameras on the iPhone 4. Knowing that, I’m not going to present an in-depth review of the newest iPhone nor will I delve into all the iOS vs. Android vs. WebOS debate… I’m simply going to share some a bit of my personal experience with the phone over the last few days.
I’ve broken my thoughts down into a few categories (so you can skip to the bits that are interesting to you) and I’m not posting a bunch of pictures of the phone… I’m sure you’ve seen it and if not just go to http://www.apple.com/iphone where you’ll get enough to last a lifetime.
The Display
WOW. It is amazingly crisp, clear and detailed. I wasn’t completely sold on it… until I saw it. Now I want all of my electronics to be this nice. Besides making photos and videos look absolutely amazing, it does have a very practical benefit, namely that you can read much smaller text. This means less tapping and zooming and swiping when browsing the internet. It makes reading large text much nicer as well, you really cannot see any individual pixels. Amazing.
That said, for those of you without very good eyesight I’m not sure how much of an improvement you’d see. I would still recommend that you check it out though… it’s really nice and something that can’t be reproduced in the videos and pictures circulating the interwebs. Gotta see it in person.
The Feel
I’ve owned every iPhone, save the 3GS, and this is by far has the best feel to it. It makes the 3G(S) feel like a cheap plastic toy. It’s a bit smaller than the 3G but feels more dense and very solid. I remember holding a friend’s Motorola Droid and being impressed with it’s feel compared to the iPhone 3G(S). With the iPhone 4 Apple has set itself above the competition again. This phone feels like a quality piece of tech.
Cameras
Yes, that’s right: cameras. The iPhone 4 has two cameras, one on the front and one on the back. The forward-facing camera takes VGA quality video and stills similar to the camera in the iPhone 3G. The camera on the back of the phone is much nicer and takes surprisingly good photos along with 720p HD video. The tap-to-focus is really nice and works just like you’d expect. The LED flash is very bright and works much better than I expected.
The one flaw with the iPhone 4 in regards to the camera is that you cannot upload any of your video clips to the internet in their full HD glory unless you first sync them through your computer. Oh sure, you can upload video to YouTube, TwitVid or even email or MMS it but whenever you do a progress bar pops up and says “converting video”. It evidently down-sizes the video to something more manageable on AT&T’s strained network. Oh well… maybe a future software update will allow full-HD over wifi – that would make sense.
FaceTime video calling
We can’t discuss the cameras without mentioning FaceTime video-calling. The biggest problem is that it’s limited to calls over wifi, but maybe that will change in the future. Even if it doesn’t FaceTime is a nice little perk on the phone. I was sold on it when I made a video-call to a friend in Ireland for free. Of course, currently the iPhone 4 is the only phone that supports FaceTime so you can only video call people who have iPhone 4s… This isn’t a killer feature but it’s nice to have anyway.
Speed
The iPhone 4 has the same 1Ghz A4 processor as the iPad and twice the RAM. This makes the phone a beast. Seriously, I love the display, the quality feel and nice cameras but this is the best part of the new iPhone. It’s blazing fast. I can’t give you specific by-the-second measurements but I can tell you that it’s the most responsive phone I’ve ever handled and doesn’t leave me waiting.
Battery life
I’ve been using it all day everyday and have only had to charge it at night. Much improved from earlier iPhones.
Call quality and the “Death Grip”
Much has been made of the reports that holding the iPhone 4 in a particular (and very common) way decreases the reception on the phone. While I cannot deny this is a problem for some people I have been unable to recreate the issue with my iPhone. I’ve actually tried to decrease the signal or drop a call but I’ve not been able to. I figure that if it won’t do it while I’m actually trying to block the signal it’s probably not going to happen in normal use.
My experience has actually been exactly the opposite… while I had no 3G coverage and spotty Edge coverage at home with my old iPhone 3G I now have full 3G bars and speeds that rival my wifi. I don’t know how much of this is the new phone or if AT&T upgraded the network in my area on the same day Apple launched the iPhone 4. I don’t care… I finally have the 3G I’ve been paying for! The second sound-canceling microphone seems to do it’s job really well also… in all my tests people I called could hear my clearly even with the windows rolled down and music blaring while I drove on the highway. Pretty impressive.
GPS and Digital Compass
The GPS and digital compass in the iPhone 4 are significantly more accurate than the iPhone 3G. It also seems to locate itself a lot faster than the old phones. This makes the phone’s GPS ability good enough to use as my primary navigation system while driving. The digital compass also allows me to take advantage of “augmented reality” apps that allow you to point the phone at restaurants to get reviews or the night sky to identify constellations. Very cool.
iOS 4 / Multitasking, folders et cetera
The iPhone 4 runs Apple’s latest mobile operating system, iOS 4, and so far it has eliminated any need I had for jailbreaking my phone. I can play Pandora in the background. RunKeeper can track the progress of my activities while I tweet or check email. I am aware that it’s not “true” multitasking but this isn’t a “true” computer either… it’s a phone for goodness sake and for all my needs the multitasking in iOS 4 works perfectly. I really think the multitasking is well done and will meet the needs of 99.99% of consumers.
Conclusion
The iPhone 4 is everything I’ve always wanted my iPhone to be… blazing fast, great quality feel, beautiful display, long battery life, great call quality, accurate GPS and awesome cameras. Not to mention a stable and andvanced operating system with the largest library of apps in the world. If you’re an iPhone fan… I highly recommend it. For the rest of you, competition is good and a better iPhone just means Motorola, HTC, HP/Palm et cetera will just have to keep doing better too.
Stay tuned for an upcoming post in which I’ll share my favorite apps for the iPhone. 