iPhone 4 Reviews Say New iPhone Is The Best Smartphone Out There

Tweet

The new iPhone 4 is hitting stores tomorrow folks and we’ve told you pretty much everything there is to know about pre-ordering this baby. Then we showed you all the problems that came with the iPhone 4 pre-order, and we weren’t really that surprised to see AT&T completely fail, once again.

But what will the new iPhone 4 look and feel like? Is it really the best handset out there or are we all following pastor Steve Jobs like blind sheep whenever a new iPhone gets released into the wild? Is the new iPhone 4 truly magical or will it quickly get overrun by the competition this year?

Well if you’re an iPhone/Apple hater then the new iPhone 4 will not be a good fit for you no matter how interesting some of its specs are. David Pogue says it best in his NYT iPhone 4 review:

On the other hand, the new model won’t do anything for people who detest the iPhone. It wouldn’t matter if the new iPhone could levitate, cure hepatitis and clean your gutters; the Cantankerous Committee would still avoid it.

iPhone 4 Design

That’s something everyone starts with because this time around Apple decided to offer us a different device. The old design was scrapped and now we have a thinner model that is still able to hide lots of upgraded features inside. Joshua Topolsky writes in Engadget’s iPhone 4 review:

The 3GS now feels cheap and chubby by comparison, and even a phone like the HTC Droid Incredible — which just came out — seems last-generation.

So yes, the new iPhone looks a lot better with that glass casing that’s supposed to be 30 times more durable than plastic and with that ingenious antennae / stainless-steel trim piece that goes around the device.

iPhone 4 Hardware

iFixit has already tore the iPhone 4 down and we know what’s inside. A fast 1GHz ARM Cortex-A8-based CPU made by Samsung and similar to the one found in the Samsung Wave, 512MB of RAM, up to 32GB of storage space, a better, longer-lasting 1420mAh battery, Wi-Fi n, 3G support, front-facing camera and 5-megapixel camera with autofocus, single LED flash and HD video recording on the back, 3.5-inch touchscreen display with an impressive 960 x 640 resolution (the Retina Display), 2 microphones for better phone call quality and all the sensors in the world (gyroscope, accelerometer, GPS, AGPS, compass) .

Sure we could definitely have used up to 64GB of storage space and, while it’s not all about pixels, a better than 5-megapixel camera would have also been in order.

But the main problem of the device is AT&T, at least in the USA. Xeni Jardin from BoingBoing says:

Here’s the thing:
AT&T still sucks, and the best engineering out of Cupertino won’t change that.
AT&T’s network includes black holes and Bermuda Triangles in many places around my town, Los Angeles. Even where signal strength was terrific, dropped or garbly calls did still occur sometimes with this new iPhone. But a little less often.

In other words, no matter how great the phone would be built, AT&T will manage to make you hate it at least a few times around.

And since I did say we could do with a better camera I’d also like to point out that these early reviewers liked the way the new shooter performs. The camera of the new iPhone 4 is said to offer an outstanding performance as it’s apparently capable of getting in all those extra photons for some crisp, high-quality pictures. And the HD video recording feature, coupled with that new $4.99 iMovie app will definitely convince some young director out there to shoot an entire move using iPhone 4 units alone.

iPhone 4 Software

iOS 4 has been recently launched (June 21) and we have told you all about it. It’s a new, revolutionary software that will bring you lots of new features to iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 and some iPod touch models. It will not work however on the iPad and we assume that a later version of it, iOS 4.1 or even later, would be compatible with most of these devices. We showed you what iOS 4 is supposed to do, but the iPhone 4 is definitely the device to run it.

It’s a lot faster and thus capable to enjoy all its new features: multitasking, folders, custom backgrounds, FaceTime, the unified and improved email, iBooks and iMovie support and much more. By far, even if not true multitasking, the multitasking feature is what we really want out of iPhone OS 4.0. USA Today’s Ed Baig comments on multitasking:

You’ll need an iPhone 4 or 3GS to take advantage of multitasking. Older iPhones don’t have the resources to pull it off. The beauty of multitasking is you don’t have to shut down an app when you want to launch another. […] To be sure, multitasking on the iPhone isn’t like multitasking on a PC or Mac. Among other things, you can’t display more than one app at a time in different windows on the screen.

Of course, one of the perks of the new iPhone 4 is FaceTime, which is Apple’s own take at VoIP video calling. The technology will probably be adopted by lots of others companies as Apple is inviting everyone to work on this new open standard. We can whine about FaceTime being an iPhone 4-to-iPhone 4 feature only and we can definitely hate the fact it works only on Wi-Fi. But in the future we’ll definitely have support for more Apple and non-Apple devices and, best of all, it will not consume your regular voice minutes as Apple has found a way to keep the call on while switching from AT&T to your local Wi-Fi network. Here’s a FaceTime conversation between Joshua Topolsky and Ed Baig that will show you how FaceTime currently works:

But what’s really not to like about the iPhone 4? Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg says it best:

The most important downside of the iPhone 4 is that, in the U.S., it’s shackled to AT&T, which not only still operates a network that has trouble connecting and maintaining calls in many cities, but now has abandoned unlimited, flat-rate data plans. Apple needs a second network.

Do you really need a review to convince you to buy the new iPhone 4? The new specs and features have been available for quite some time and we’ve known for a long while what iPhone OS 4.0 can do. But pair these two together and you’ll end up with probably the best smartphone available out there, at least for some time to come.

In case you do need reviews to help you decide if you do need the phone or not, then here’s what these early reviewers have to say about the new iPhone 4:

We’re not going to beat around the bush — in our approximation, the iPhone 4 is the best smartphone on the market right now. The combination of gorgeous new hardware, that amazing display, upgraded cameras, and major improvements to the operating system make this an extremely formidable package. (Engadget)

If what you care about, however, is size and shape, beauty and battery life, polish and pleasure, then the iPhone 4 is calling your name. (NYT)

Just as with its predecessors, I can’t recommend this new iPhone for voice calling for people who experience poor AT&T reception, unless they are willing to carry a second phone on a network that works better for them.
For everyone else, however, I’d say that Apple has built a beautiful smartphone that works well, adds impressive new features and is still, overall, the best device in its class. (WSJ)

Would I buy it? Yes. (Boing Boing)

Even its most strident critics — folks frustrated by AT&T’s dropped calls, people who never cozied up to a multitouch display — must concede that the iPhone is the smartphone by which others are measured. (USA Today)

We’ll definitely want to hear from you folks! Have you gotten your iPhone 4 already?