Review: iPhone 4

As far as taglines go – “This changes everything. Again.” – coined by megalomaniac Steve Jobs at this years’ WWDC; who is quite possibly right this very second bathing in a platinum-lined bath filled with an nebulous amount of cash; is by and large spot on.

It’s very much a case of reinventing the wheel, or rather handing it over to the ever quirkily spelt “Xzibit”, and getting him to “pimp it” or some such.

Fans of Apple’s packaging will be pleased as it continues trend, though departs somewhat with the main pack-shot taken from the side and framed on black, rather than the usual front-on-with-white fare.

Under the lid, the iPhone 4 sits majestically atop the lower compartment concealing the peripherals and light-reading material.

Immediate thoughts: the headset is very tactile, the glass finish amazingly smooth and it generally just feels right in your hand – though it does take some getting used to for those grown accustomed to the fit of the other iPhones.

And then you connect it to iTunes and it comes alive, and you truly fall head over heels.

Retina Display

Turning it on for the first time, the clarity of the much touted Retina Display is literally breathtaking. It really is incredible, and words only go so far as to describe the crystal-sharp visuals. I suppose if I were to cobble some words together, then “like having a HDTV in your hand” wouldn’t be too far off.

Apple’s claim that the user will be unable to see the actual, physical pixels is completely true, and actually a little jarring at first. The display is so clean, so flawless, that it takes a while to get your head around its immense clarity not being some kind of photoshopped image. To put it into a gaming perspective, it’s like what we believed before next-gen – that we’d actually be able to play a game with polished cutscene visuals, and how impressive and awe-inspiring it was when we first played that launch title.

Despite the screen not being OLED as many had hoped and wagered, you’d be forgiven for actually mistaking the super bright and crisp LED display for it’s newer counterpart.

Like the iPad before it, the quality of the user experience is dramatically enhanced by visuals, and as such, it makes you want to use the iPhone 4 over anything else, even the iPad. Text of any size is easily readable from a distance, and sure to set the designers and visual-nuts among you positively dribbling at the gorgeous sans-serif fonts without a pixel out of place. The amount of detail when viewing images is just astounding, and often makes photos look all the more appealing.

Certain app icons do look a little blurry and pixellated in contrast with the newer “HD” ones that come preloaded on the handset, but that’s nothing a future update on the respective apps’ part won’t fix.

It really is something that can only be truly appreciated in the flesh, and a feature that I predict many a company to adopt, if not pine over, and soon to become a mobile standard.

Build Quality

While considerably thinner than the previous models and a tad taller, the iPhone 4 has a surprising weight behind it, yet, at the same time, is remarkably light.

It’s a conundrum. A conundrum set on a sleek stainless steel chassis embossed with engineered glass used on helicopter windshields. Regardless, it’s a weight that denotes its incredible build quality, design finesse, and assures the user that what they hold in their hands is nothing short of the finest, first class tech.

Some are going to miss the almost iconic unibody curves made famous by the original iPhone, and later refined by the 3G and 3GS; and though they’re still present in a lesser capacity, the overall feel and impression the handset gives is more professional, industrial – you have the feeling that it could withstand a knock, even though I wouldn’t recommend you going out of your way to do – and ultimately is a prime example of form following function.

The buttons feel more durable, echoing the device as a whole, and are all the more satisfying to press with their audible “click” of a reply. The silent switch is an improvement over previous iterations, though moving it back to neutral for the ringer to sound feels that it could have been addressed better. Perhaps raising the back-end a little for a bit more finger traction.

Having relocated the new microSIM slot to the right hand side of the phone feels like a natural progression; and telling of Apple’s intelligent design seeing as the stainless steel band on that side of the handset is empty of external features otherwise. Granted, accessing the slot is still done via the rather technical

“paper-clip”

opening technique, but now it feels less like you’re popping out Data’s emotion chip.

Camera

The iPhone’s camera has, in the past, been the target of more complaints than any other of the handsets’ features – and while Apple held steadfast that 2MP’s was suffice, claiming it was the photos’ content rather than clarity that was more important; they later recognised the consumers want for a better camera after iPhone photos became dominant on sites like Flickr. So came the meagre upgrade with the 3GS, but Apple have truly realised, and I think it’s safe to say, outdone themselves with the camera for the iPhone 4.

While 5MP’s is by noway measly, comparisons will be made to other smartphones packing upwards of 8MP’s into their handsets. What’s on the iPhone 4’s side is the backlit sensor which is seeing a rise in popularity in digicams. This sensor – which is actually the same pixel size as the one in the 3GS – allows for greater light capture in low-level conditions, producing some of the finest photos with great colour and contrast that I’ve seen from smartphones. Though, I’m sure Retina Display helps matters.

Coming from the 3G myself, I was mightily impressed with the ease of focusing, and heck, even being able to focus at all was so welcoming it’s laughable. The camera will intelligently autofocus if you hold the iPhone in front of something for a few seconds, but if you want to control what to focus on, it’s as simple as a tap on the screen. A little blue square will appear over the object you’ve selected and a mere second later, the lens will have focused.

Though the camera lacks a dedicated macro button, it’s not a problem as the lens effortlessly focuses on even the most up-close of objects.

Digital zoom works well, and can be activated by touching anywhere on the screen which will produce a slider just above the bar at the bottom. Going into this, I was expecting shots taken at at max distance to be terribly noisy, but honestly, I was taken a back at their overall clarity. While still noisy to an extent, this is without a doubt the best result I’ve got from a non-optical zoom.

I’ve never been a particular fan of LED flashes, but the one on the iPhone 4 works fantastically well, and is surprisingly bright and produces fantastic photos when in low-light surroundings.

The front facing VGA camera takes, obviously, notably lesser quality stills than the primary lens on the back and lacks the focus function, despite tapping the screen bringing up the blue focus box.

Switching between the front and back camera is also a doddle – tapping the camera flanked by arrows icon in the top right hand of the screen. Flash can be toggled by pressing the lightning bolt in the top left hand of the screen, and options available are Off, Auto and On, allowing you to fire off those covert photos to upload to People of Wallmart and Delta Park Fake Celebrities and the like.

Video

Video-capture made its debut on the 3GS, but where the iPhone 4’s video sets its apart is it’s 720p HD recording capability.

Switching to video-mode is as easy as swiping to enable the option from within the camera itself. Video has all the same features as the camera – focusing, front facing recording (though at lesser quality) – though without the digital zoom which isn’t the end of the world.

Audio capture is on par with dedicated camcorders and on its highest settings, the HD video can record up to approximately 80 minutes worth of content; and just overall adds to the all-in-one appeal of the iPhone.

The iMovie app does not come preloaded on the iPhone 4 which is irksome considering it was very much implied that it would be. It can be found on the App Store for £2.99 and $4.99 respectively. Though that’s a review in of itself, the production quality of the condensed program, even with its theme presets, is quite remarkable for a mobile device.

Speed

After using the iPhone 4 for only a matter of hours, it was evident to me that the 3G has already become vastly outdated, if not stale, after only two years on the market in respect of its processing power.

Thanks to the A4 processor, opening apps and having them update (such as Twitter clients) and ready to use is the work of moments. It’s sprightly and the difference is immediately noticeable. Closing apps and returning to the home-screen is lightning fast, and so are creating folders and opening, editting and closing them. It’s seamless, whereas performing the same actions on the 3G is a laggy, sorry process.

Also, with the powerful processor behind it, it turns the camera into a rapid-fire shooter.

Double-tapping the Home button when in an app or on the home-screen will bring up an extra bar at the bottom of the display and grey out the rest. Swiping your finger across the bar, you’re able to scroll through your most used apps and with a press, you’re straight into that other app. While this feature isn’t ground-breaking or new, to the iPhone user it is, and I’m fairly certain that it’ll go down like the “revelation” that was copy and paste introduced in OS 3.0.

Battery Life

Okay, so battery-life is perhaps the second most complained about feature of the older models.

Boasting a respectable “up to 300 hours” of standby; seven hours of talk-time and six hours of Internet over 3G; with ten hours of Wi-Fi and video playback, and an awesome forty hours of music; I think even the most heavy of users will be well covered.

Wi-Fi drain – even when you’re not actually using it – seems to take a leaf out of the iPad’s “lasts all day” motto.

On my 3G, come early afternoon, it’d need a charging top-up, but today, byt the same time and after a fair amount of use and testing, the battery is only at 68%.

I think that is proof enough that this is a mobile phone.

Final Thought

It shouldn’t feel innovative, but it does; and quite simply, the iPhone 4 is the sum of all its predecessors – with Apple taking note from the community, and scouting various competitors on the market, to create a stunning and luxurious experience for the consumer and a handset that is a sure fire winner for design and phone of the year.