Apple iPhone 4 Review
Over the years, the iPhone's appearance hasn't changed a whole lot. The first iPhone was mostly constructed of metal, and had a matt finish. The iPhone 3G & 3GS were mostly constructed of plastic and had a glossy black finish.
The iPhone 4's design is a lot more industrial, it swaps most of its sleek curves for more angular and straight lines. The rear of the device is neither plastic nor metal, it's glass. The glass back panel gives the iPhone 4 a comfortable weight in the hand, and becuase of its metal rim around the side it feels sturdy. According to Apple the metal rim is 4x stronger than steel.
We love the new design of the iPhone 4, existing iPhone 3G & 3GS users may need to get used to the curveless back but it feels like a quality device in the hand. The iPhones 1GHZ A4 processor that it shares with the iPad makes the iPhone feel very snappy. It opens apps much quicker than its siblings and consistently keeps the pace, even when many apps are open.
Apple have scrapped the petty 2 megapixel camera seen on the iPhone 3G and have now replaced it with a new 5 megapixel camera, with autofocus, tap to focus and an LED flash. All this allows for some very good snaps, and it could potentially replace a compact camera. Colours are true to life, the detail in photos is outstanding and functions like tap to focus and face detection make everday photography a lot easier and more fun. The LED flash is not too usefull for pitch black nights but it does a good job at lighting up low light scenes. You can also record 720p HD video with the main camera at 30 FPS.
The iPhone 4 also has a 0.3 megapixel (VGA) camera on the front. It can be used for FaceTime, the new video calling function and taking pictures of yourself. Apple have introduced Retina, they claim that the pixels are so small (73 Micrometres) that individual pixels can't be distinguished from one another. The screen measures the usual 3.5", but this time the resolution is 960 x 640. This is the highest ever seen on a mobile phone. When fully zoomed into a webpage the text is perfect, it's like anti-aliasing on steroids. Images and videos are just as good. It's the best mobile phone screen we've ever used. Although we believe that we can just about see pixels. Not through normal use, but looking at the mail icon closeup, where it changes from white to black, we can see some very tiny pixels. With the iPhone 4, you also get all the goodies from iOS 4, making this phone an extremely powerful tool.
What I like about Apple is that they're consistent. They've always had the 30 Pin connector on the bottom, which is proprietry, but iPod's and iPhone's are so popular they feel standard. iPhones have always had 3.5" screens, so migrating from most other touch screen phones is easy. Although iOS 4 may be a radical change from the previous version, it's easy to use if you're used to iPod touches or older iPhones and it's still easy if you've never used one before. On the iPhone 4, iBooks which used to run slow on older devices now glides through menus and page transitions are all smoother
The iPhone 4 has a metal rim (mentioned earlier) around the edge of the device, the iPhone makes us of this as an antenna. This was supposed to bring increased signal strenght to the iPhone. However it's now been confirmed that this design causes signal defects. When held over one of the gaps in the metal rim the phones signal gradually decreases and before long you recieve a no service warning.
We found this extremely frustrating as we found the natrual way to hold the phone was over one of these gaps. Apple is holding a conference on 15th July 2010, it's thought that Apple might recall the new iPhone. This would be a serious blow to Apple. The iPhone 4 has many striking features, most noticeably the retina display, new design as well as the improved camera and front camera. The iPhone packs all these new features and a new superfast 1GHZ processor into the thinnest smartphone ever.
Score:
Usability - 9/10
Performance - 9/10
Design - 8/10
Camera - 8/10
Overall Score - 8/10
The iPhone 4 is a fantastic device, the high score is down to, the build quality, performance, improved functions (Camera, front camera, screen, cpu) and usability. However the signal loss issues are inexcuseable and need to be fixed, if it was fixed and all iPhone 4's are recalled and fixed, we'd happily give it 9/10.
The iPhone 4's design is a lot more industrial, it swaps most of its sleek curves for more angular and straight lines. The rear of the device is neither plastic nor metal, it's glass. The glass back panel gives the iPhone 4 a comfortable weight in the hand, and becuase of its metal rim around the side it feels sturdy. According to Apple the metal rim is 4x stronger than steel.
We love the new design of the iPhone 4, existing iPhone 3G & 3GS users may need to get used to the curveless back but it feels like a quality device in the hand. The iPhones 1GHZ A4 processor that it shares with the iPad makes the iPhone feel very snappy. It opens apps much quicker than its siblings and consistently keeps the pace, even when many apps are open.
Apple have scrapped the petty 2 megapixel camera seen on the iPhone 3G and have now replaced it with a new 5 megapixel camera, with autofocus, tap to focus and an LED flash. All this allows for some very good snaps, and it could potentially replace a compact camera. Colours are true to life, the detail in photos is outstanding and functions like tap to focus and face detection make everday photography a lot easier and more fun. The LED flash is not too usefull for pitch black nights but it does a good job at lighting up low light scenes. You can also record 720p HD video with the main camera at 30 FPS.
The iPhone 4 also has a 0.3 megapixel (VGA) camera on the front. It can be used for FaceTime, the new video calling function and taking pictures of yourself. Apple have introduced Retina, they claim that the pixels are so small (73 Micrometres) that individual pixels can't be distinguished from one another. The screen measures the usual 3.5", but this time the resolution is 960 x 640. This is the highest ever seen on a mobile phone. When fully zoomed into a webpage the text is perfect, it's like anti-aliasing on steroids. Images and videos are just as good. It's the best mobile phone screen we've ever used. Although we believe that we can just about see pixels. Not through normal use, but looking at the mail icon closeup, where it changes from white to black, we can see some very tiny pixels. With the iPhone 4, you also get all the goodies from iOS 4, making this phone an extremely powerful tool.
What I like about Apple is that they're consistent. They've always had the 30 Pin connector on the bottom, which is proprietry, but iPod's and iPhone's are so popular they feel standard. iPhones have always had 3.5" screens, so migrating from most other touch screen phones is easy. Although iOS 4 may be a radical change from the previous version, it's easy to use if you're used to iPod touches or older iPhones and it's still easy if you've never used one before. On the iPhone 4, iBooks which used to run slow on older devices now glides through menus and page transitions are all smoother
The iPhone 4 has a metal rim (mentioned earlier) around the edge of the device, the iPhone makes us of this as an antenna. This was supposed to bring increased signal strenght to the iPhone. However it's now been confirmed that this design causes signal defects. When held over one of the gaps in the metal rim the phones signal gradually decreases and before long you recieve a no service warning.
We found this extremely frustrating as we found the natrual way to hold the phone was over one of these gaps. Apple is holding a conference on 15th July 2010, it's thought that Apple might recall the new iPhone. This would be a serious blow to Apple. The iPhone 4 has many striking features, most noticeably the retina display, new design as well as the improved camera and front camera. The iPhone packs all these new features and a new superfast 1GHZ processor into the thinnest smartphone ever.
Score:
Usability - 9/10
Performance - 9/10
Design - 8/10
Camera - 8/10
Overall Score - 8/10
The iPhone 4 is a fantastic device, the high score is down to, the build quality, performance, improved functions (Camera, front camera, screen, cpu) and usability. However the signal loss issues are inexcuseable and need to be fixed, if it was fixed and all iPhone 4's are recalled and fixed, we'd happily give it 9/10.