First Impressions of iPhone 4
Early this morning I was outside the Vodafone store in Plymouth, well 6.45am and 1st in the queue. In Plymouth there are 2 of o2, Vodafone, Orange, Tmobile, Three, Carphonewarehouse and Phones4u stores. O2 and Orange queues were immense, especially the o2 stores.
I hadn’t reserved, just walked in and paid. The phone was activated in store, although I am waiting for my number to port which apparently takes 48 hours.
The phone is awesome, thin and beautiful. The screen is as lovely as all the reviews. My apps have all been synced across. I am so thrilled with the quality. I was lucky that the Orange store had iPhone 4 cases from Gear4. I got their Ice Edge, which is like an Apple bumper case but with a clear plastic back.
The phone feels nimby, sexy and wonderful. Apps open with ease. I have to work now, so wont get a chance to play until tonight. I am hoping my number ports asap.
Review by Gavin Fabiani-Laymond. Date of Review – 24th June 2010.
Peter has sent in his thoughts as well-
- love the screen – no doubt more supporting applications will make this even more impressive.
- camera seems fine – I have an Olympus pen ep1 so not so bothered by it
- battery life to follow after the first charge and discharge – no complaints yet
- keyboard seems better – not sure why, it just seems to work? Always had problems before, but rattling this email off it now. Maybe better, or maybe trained from horrible keyboard on desire. In portrait btw…
- the “signal drop issue” when holding the metal band is true – tested next to my vodafone sure signal… Gather apple are claiming it’s a display bug – will test tomorrow with a call.
- blindingly fast so far
- why not 64gig?
- don’t understand the carrier approach to the launch – no clue, a few phones in my local but no micro sims?!
And Statto has posted his first impressions here.
Just wanted to add my quick impressions into the mix…
I queued for more than eight hours yesterday, but it was worth the wait.
The screen is just beautiful. Text looks extraordinary. It’s hard to explain, but the screen just seems to disappear as if there is absolutely nothing between you and the words you are reading. Photos and videos just pop.
Call clarity is orders of magnitude better than on my iPhone 3GS. Everything is louder and clearer.
No one has been able to fully match the speed, fluidity and consistency of the iPhone user interface, and the iPhone 4 simply kicks it up another notch. It’s breathtakingly fast and smooth.
Low light photos are great and I’ve been impressed with flash photos, too. I think this camera can replace a point and shoot with ease. Goodbye Flip, too.
Battery life is looking very good. Yesterday I used the phone intensively for more than two hours straight including surfing, video, 15 minutes chatting on the phone, and a couple of FaceTime calls. Battery went from 100% to 80%. In normal use, I reckon there’s more than enough juice to get through the day with room to spare.
I love the look and feel of the new industrial design. My old iPhone 3GS feels bulky in comparison. Build quality is exceptional.
FaceTime is so easy to use and so seamlessly integrated with the phone it’s not even funny. Video calling may not be new, but I think the iPhone is going to take it mainstream.
I agree with Gavin – the iPod has much richer and deeper sound than previously. Surprising.
The overall performance of the device combined with multitasking provides and unprecedented flow to everything that I do. It doesn’t get much better than this.
I will miss my old 3GS which, despite being a year old, was still right at the top of the smartphone heap. But the my new iPhone 4 is in a class of its own.
I have now had the iPhone 4 for just over 24 hours. And what a difference it has made already despite the fact I haven’t been able to make any calls as my number won’t be ported until 4pm on Monday.
However, I have synced my films, music and iPod Touch apps across and with the wifi connection been online trying everything from email, web, You Tube and more. What is bizarre is I am having to use my HTC HD2 until Monday and therefore it is easy to compare. Obviously 2 different operating systems, and despite the fact the HD2 is a great phone, the iPhone 4 trounces it is so many ways. The iPhone 4 touch screen typing is the best. Unbelievably the HD2 doesn’t even come close. Then there is the fluidity and speed. Everything just works. No tweaks needed. The HD2 is larger, heavier, larger screen but now it doesn’t look or feel right. Apple’s ios4 really shows how backward Windows Mobile 6.5.5 is! Now I don’t want a war on bashing operating systems. The HD2 does have some useful spec eg 4.3 inch screen, wifi router and highly tweakable. But all those specs in my opinion doesn’t produce a better phone. I was thinking about my time with the HTC Hero and other Android phones. They are good too, but have an uncontrolled infrastructure ie. different hardware but it does so the most promise. Web os will it survive. Could evolve into something amazing. Anyway back to my iPhone 4.
The screen. The more I use it the more I realise how incredible looking and using the screen is. Writing, viewing anything. The camera. Totally way way above my expectations. Goto my Flickr photo stream, the Dartmoor 3 photos with iP4 next to were all taken on the phone. Make sure you go large to see the detail. My Flickr is http://www.Flickr.com/photos/gavinfabl100 . I repeat it’s worth checking out the quality. The audio. How good is good. Well my headphones suddenly started resonating at levels not heard before. Deeper and tighter bass, mid range clarity and superb treble. Very impressive.
And then there is the apps. Endless. Moving between apps is fast and fluid. It’s worth seeing for yourself in an Apple store. The other sweet spot is using the sd reader and copying photos from the iPhone to the iPad . Gotta say this works a treat. Does anyone know what app you can use to transfer other types of docs? Facetime. Can we get a list of numbers, names to do this. It’s about time we got to see you!
Great to hear the new reviews. I can’t wait to get mine once stock is back.
I’d love to share afacetime chat with you once ihave my device. I don’t know anyone else with an iphone4 sp this is the only way I can test it.
Sid
Sid and everyone. To do FaceTime if you email Shaun your info, he can forward to moi and then I will reply back directly to you.
I played with one in an Apple store this morning, the main impressions I came away with were…
SPEED! – The GUI feels significantly faster than the 3GS, in fact everything does really.
Display – The best I have seen on a mobile device so far in terms of contrast and clarity.
Folders – Hmmm, not sure how ‘Apple’ this feature is, it doesn’t seem that well executed. 12 Apps per folder is very limited, putting unrelated apps in a folder and seeing what name it comes up to group them is good fun.
Multi-tasking – It can multi-task little better than Palm OS could multi-task. WebOS shows how multi-tasking should be done on a mobile device. In contrast to the simplicity and intuitiveness of WebOS cards, Apple’s multitasking ‘tray’ of running Apps is very poorly done. Worse still, it isn’t real multi-tasking and is limited in it’s usefulness.
Build quality – It doesn’t feel like a phone, it is slightly weighty in the hand and like Mr Jobs said feels like a Leica camera or an expensive watch. Best in class.
So in short, very impressed, I will buy one when available.
Does anyone have a HTC Desire and iPhone 4? The reason I ask is that http://www.techradar.co.uk seem to think that there isn’t a massive gap between them.
Jah I have used both and would not agree. Apple has a better Eco system for music and entertainment. The screen and camera are better on the iPhone both in terms of clarity and typing. Music audio is better.
Don’t get me wrong the desire is good but not IMO better.
Taken photos and video today that wipes floor with even my digital compact and Samsung Video recorder. Much better quality.
The reported signal issue is nonsense. I have zero problems! But then i have a case on mine.
Well, it isn’t nonsense. Saw it happen myself today at work. Using a case solves it, but it is still a problem.
Battery also good. Started day with about 75% and have struggled to get it down into red zone. Should be even better once fully discharged a couple of times.
Signl bars do appear to fade from time to time (#grip of death) but doesn’t appear to affect calls