iPhone 4 - First Impressions
It’s been just over two weeks since the iPhone 4 was released here in the UK and I’ve had mine for about a week. Now all the initial craziness and hype has died down I thought I’d give a ‘sort of’ review and my thoughts on Apple’s new clearly, must-have device…
The body
As you’ve all seen in hundreds of images and videos, the iPhone 4 is slightly smaller, flat on both sides and if you’ve held one notice it’s a bit lighter than the previous models. The metallic band that runs round the side of the phone looks awesome and doubles up as the phone’s antenna (more on this later). With the addition of a second camera in the front, a flash and newly designed buttons it’s fairly similar to it’s older siblings. I prefer the look and feel of this new model. There was a lot of “hoo-hah” about the design before release but in my opinion it does look nicer. Also to note is the phone’s front and back panels are made from glass which adds to it’s visual appeal and certainly feels nicer to hold and use.
Now about the signal loss. If you kept an eye on the interwebs almost immediately after the iPhone 4’s launch you would have no doubt seen a few complaints about the signal cutting out when the phone is held a certain way. Then “a few” complaints went crazy into a near revolt resulting in techies at sites such as Ars writing letters to Steve Jobs and lots of users posting videos on YouTube as evidence. After Mr Jobs responded, very hilariously, saying “just don’t hold it in that way” there was an official update from Apple saying they had calculated the signal strength bars incorrectly (even back to previous iPhone models) and people thought their phone’s we’re dropping its signal when in fact the signal bars on their phones we’re reporting a stronger signal than they were actually receiving. Apple are due to release a software update to try and rectify the problem. To me that doesn’t seem to be solving anything, but will tell me more accurately when I don’t have a decent signal. The issue is the antenna and how it’s held. I don’t want to get into it too heavily purely because I haven’t experienced it. I know of people who have but hopefully the imminent update will help.
The screen
There’s one word that sums up the new Retina Display: wow. You rarely see features on phones that are real game changers and make you say “wow”. The Retina Display delivers on this and is a big step forward in resolution technology. What hits you first is text. Text looks so crisp and sharp that when you go back to your iPad or monitor after using it, you can’t help but now notice the pixels and everything seems a tad blurry. You can clearly see what companies have made the effort to make their icons and apps Retina Display approved as the ones who don’t seem less polished in comparison. What’ more, your photo’s and videos benefit from it and makes viewing your pics a joy. (*There is a rumor that the iPad will be fitted with a Retina Display in the future so those of you like me who do not have one yet, it might be wise to wait to see if it’s confirmed*)
The Camera
Upgraded from the measly 2MP from the previous models to a now more creditable 5MP’s, the camera now produces even better looking photos. I like the addition of the tap to focus and zoom features, as well as the added flash. There are a couple of issues that are worth noting however. Firstly the tap to focus. In order to accomplish this the lens needs to grab more light in order to focus on subjects further away. While this is not a problem for individual photo’s, when you’re taking comparison shots, the overall light and tone of each photo will differ. Here’s an example couple of shots I took this morning:
Foreground in focus
Background in focus
As you can see from the lower photo focused on Darth Vader, the photo overall seems lighter and the wood table has a more un-natural look. I’m not sure if there is anything that can be done to solve this and it’s not a massive issue but it is one of those little “niggles”.
The addition of the front-facing camera is welcome. Apple have implemented a “new” feature called FaceTime which is essentially just a video call. I tried this out the other night and it took 3/4 attempts to get it working but once it did it was a good experience and worked fine. Hopefully Apple will fine tune this to work over 3G as it’s only working with wi-fi for now. The obvious benefit to this is once FaceTime kicks in ditches the data call and switches to a VOIP call so essentially, free calls. Nice.
Video recording has had an overhaul since the 3GS and now records in high definition 720P. I’ve made a couple of recordings and the result is great as long as it’s during the day and there’s plenty of light. At night things get a little patchy on the quality side and you start to see plenty of noise throughout the video. The built in flash does provide a light source for video but this results in people with pale washed out faces and some pixelation.
The camera overall for photos and video is a great tool and works well as long as you have enough light. As this is the case for any camera phone or entry level point and snap digital camera you can’t crticise too heavily and the addition of FaceTime is a cool feature.
The OS
The iOS4 which is also available to download on the 3GS model is a big deal in how it powers and handles everything on the phone. I can’t comment on the 3GS model but I noticed immediately on my iPhone 4 just how fast and smooth everything is. From simple things like the waking the phone up, swiping through the apps pages to loading apps with multitasking or recording video. Everything is quick and there’s no delay. The same can be said for the connectivity. Posting to Twitter, sending text messages, updating my Facebook etc all happens a lot faster than my old iPhone. This is one of the main features that make using the phone a joy. So far it hasn’t lagged on launching anything and everything snaps together nicely. On the subject of multitasking, it does what it says on the tin. Double tapping the home button while having an app open brings up a section at the bottom where you can scroll through all your other apps and open them on-the-fly. It works ok but is no means a serious buy or won’t buy feature.
One of the best new features is App folders. If, like me, you have quite a few pages of apps, the ability to group them into folders is great for organising your stuff. I had lots of social media apps such as Twitter for iPhone, Twetdeck, Tumblr, Facebook etc which took up a page and a bit so having them all in one folder is easy on the eye and makes more sense.
Conclusion
Overall I’m very happy with the new iPhone 4 and most of the features Apple have hyped up are as good as they say. There are a few though that don’t quite make the cut such as multitasking, some signal issues and FaceTime connectivity.
The better features outweigh the poor though and it’s definitely a worth while upgrade. If you can find somewhere with one in stock go and grab one. Until the iPhone 4S or whatever Apple’s revision will be next year this is a big step forward for phones.
Now all I need is a case…
