Apple iPhone 4 review, Price, pictures, Details, model specifications
You can’t make a phone that everyone loves and Apple is not even trying. Much like any other iPhone so far, the iPhone 4 is a phone that everybody loves AND hates.
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Apple’s latest is always the greatest – you have to give them that. Sometimes it seems they put less effort into making it than in letting people know they did. But with the Apple iPhone 4, they were obviously hard at work. The 4th generation iPhone has an all new look, new feel and plenty of new skill. We already caught a glimpse of the iOS4. But there’s much more: a 1GHz chip, two cameras, HD video and of course the Retina display – the highest-res screen we’ve seen so far on a GSM phone.
Surely there are still enough blank spots on the feature list but that’s Apple and its iPhone. Compromises are being made in every phone out there anyway. But the simple fact is Number 4 is the best iPhone to-date. Let’s see how good that is.
Key features
- Quad-band GSM and quad-band 3G support with 7.2 Mbps HSDPA and 5.76 Mbps HSUPA
- 3.5″ 16M-color LED-backlit TFT capacitive touchscreen of 640 x 960 px resolution
- Scratch-resistant glass front and rear, with fingerprint-resistant coating
- 1GHz Apple A4 SoC; 512MB of RAM
- 5 MP autofocus camera with LED flash and touch focus
- 720p video recording at 30fps
- Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n
- GPS with A-GPS connectivity; digital compass
- 16/32GB storage options
- Accelerometer, proximity sensor and three-axis gyro sensor
- Active noise cancellation with a dedicated secondary microphone
- Standard 3.5 mm audio jack, stereo Bluetooth v2.1
- Excellent audio output quality
- Slim waistline at only 9.3mm
- Secondary front-facing camera
- Some degree of multitasking
- Rich AppStore
Main disadvantages
- Hardware design is prone to reception issues
- MicroSIM card support only
- No Flash support in the web browser
- No true multitasking for all applications
- FaceTime video calls work only over Wi-Fi
- No file transfer over Bluetooth or USB Mass Storage mode
- No hardware shutter key for the camera
- No FM radio
- No stereo speakers
- No microSD card slot
- No smart dialing
- Too dependent on iTunes for loading multimedia content
- Poor loudspeaker performance
As you can see, most of the main disadvantages are simply passed from one generation to the next but – whatever iPhone you’re coming from – the Number 4 will tick most of your boxes. Upgraders will be used to the shortcomings, and unbiased observers will have less points to complain against.
It just seems some features will be forever missing. The iPhone’s memory isn’t expandable and you can’t use the thing as an external drive (this also means that files are only transferred via iTunes, again). Bluetooth has been upgraded to cover not only for music and calls but a compatible wireless keyboard too. File transfers however are a no-go.
The lack of Flash support in the Safari browser is no surprise given the Apple-Adobe feud. Luckily there’s the good old YouTube app to partly make up for that but Flash games are still out of the question.
There is now a secondary video-call cam but the “reinvented” FaceTime video calls feature only works over Wi-Fi (for now) and between two iPhone 4’s.
As for the multitasking, this is the closest the iPhone has ever gotten but there is no true multitasking, and certainly not for all apps.
You’ve probably also heard of the user reports of reception issues and you’re wondering how much of that is true. Well, we’ve checked that in detail, too.
The Retina display
The iPhone 4 Retina display is the highest resolution screen we’ve seen in a mobile phone. Retina is just a marketing name made up by Apple to differentiate it. But it doesn’t need the extra differentiation cause it’s among the best screens we’ve seen too.
The new display has the same size as those on the previous iPhones (3.5 inches) but the the resolution has been bumped up four times. From 320 x 480 pixels on the previous generations, the new iPhone 4 screen has the amazing 640 x 960 pixel resolution.
iOS 4.0: at full throttle
The iOS 4 is can be installed on any iPhone 3GS and – technically – 3G. We see no point porting it on a 3G though – the whole thing gets dismally slow and some of the new features are not supported anyway. What matters now is how the OS performs on the iPhone 4. There’s a quick video you may have already watched in our blog.
Thanks to its gorgeous new screen, better still camera and vastly improved camcorder, gyro sensor and video-call camera, the iPhone 4 is the device on which users can genuinely appreciate the potential of iOS 4. iPhone 3GS can run it almost without any compromises but you’ll get the fastest and most seamless performance on the iPhone 4 and its 1GHz Apple A4 platform.
On an iPhone 3G you will get neither homescreen wallpapers nor multi-tasking. The rest of the stuff is there, but the performance drop is too much to bear.
But let’s be positive here – we have an iPhone 4 and a 3GS to enjoy, which is more than enough. You might have already been through our iOS 4 review – you’ll find it’s got a lot of common with the follwoing part of the iPhone 4 review. You will find identical wording, don’t you worry, we’ve made sure all the details are updated with iPhone 4 specifics.
Let’s start with the changelog:
General UI changes
- Homescreen wallpapers
- Applications can be organized in folders
- Multitasking – fast app switcher with app specific pause or backgrounding
- You can do Google/Wikipedia searches straight from Spotlight
- Minor icon facelifts
- Video call support (only in iPhone 4 and only over Wi-Fi)
- Settings menu gets you the last toggled setting screen
Text input and management
- Keyboard layouts now cover QWERTY, QWERTZ, and AZERTY
- Spell checker
Contacts
- Simplified contact adding and editing
Messaging
- SMS character counter
- SMS search
- Email threading
- Unified Email inbox
- Email archiving is now available as an option when you setup Gmail
Camera
- 5x digital zoom in still camera
- Touch-focus in video capture
iPod player
- iPod music player can now create, edit and delete playlists
Bluetooth
- Bluetooth keyboard pairing support
iTunes store and AppStore
- Free iBooks e-book and PDF reader
- iMovie adds advanced video editing to the iPhone 4 (paid app)
- iAd service allows for free, ad-supported apps
And the stuff iOS 4 failed to deliver
- No Flash support in the web browser
- No true multitasking for all applications
- No quick switches for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or 3G on the homescreen
- No social networking integration in the contact list
- No lockscreen or homescreen info widgets or plugins
- No new ringtones or SMS tones
- SMS,,email, and calendar tones are still not customizable
- No proper file browser or access to the file system
- No USB mass storage mode
- Screen has no vibrating haptic feedback
- No Bluetooth file transfers to other mobile phones
- Contacts lack a swipe-to-delete or mass delete feature
- No SMS/MMS delivery notifications
- No smart dialing (but Spotlight is a somewhat of a substitute)
- No DivX or XviD video support and no official third-party application to play that
- The whole iPhone is too iTunes dependent and you’re also limited to syncing particular types of content only with ONE computer..
Folders
You can group up to twelve apps into a single folder. Check out the video below to see how it’s done:
It’s easy, isn’t it? Folder names are automatically generated depending on the selection of items you’re grouping together. But you can rename folders anytime. The folder icon is also created automatically – it simply displays the icons of the apps inside.
Homescreen wallpaper
Apple at last has the one thing that should have been there from the very beginning. Yes, we knew it would be there, we’ve seen it on jailbroken devices, but it’s still kinda cool to finally have it official.
What do you know, Apple invented video-calls
“People have been dreaming about video calling for decades. iPhone 4 makes it a reality.” Says Apple on their website. Alright, each of these two statements is true on its own. It’s what they’re trying to imply that is absolutely incredible. The correct wording should’ve been: Ever since the first iPhone, people hoped that maybe – just maybe – video-calling will at some point be enabled… erm sorry, invented.
FaceTime is perhaps a valid premise for Apple to claim (re)inventing video-calling. Well, they did. Apple’s video-calls only work via Wi-Fi and only with another iPhone 4. You can start a FaceTime call right from your phonebook or switch to FaceTime mode during a voice call.
Audio quality impresses
It’s hardly a secret that all the previous iPhones had perfectly clean audio output with relatively low volume being their only problem. However Apple have obviously done the right thing and fixed that here, making the iPhone 4 one of the best music player among the mobile phones that we have seen.
In fact the iPhone 4 is identical to the iPad tablet as far as audio output is concerned (volume levels included), which makes us suspect that Apple have somehow managed to squeeze similar hardware inside.
But let’s cut the small talk and give you the results so you can see for yourselves what a great music player the iPhone 4 is. It might be about time that you retired that old iPod of yours.
Very simple video player
It’s the iPod app of course – and it makes no sense that in there you can access all your downloaded clips but not the videos you captured with the phone’s camcorder. The video playing interface is very simple, with nothing more than the usual player controls and a scrubber for precise skipping back and forth.
Supported video formats are not really varied and as you probably already know, DivX and XviD videos are out of the quiestion without a conversion. The nice thing about the iPhone 4 is that it can easily play 720p HD videos. Unfortunately, FullHD 1080p video is not supported – they can’t even sync to the iPhone via iTunes.
Top-notch 5 megapixel camera
The Apple iPhone 4 has a 5 megapixel camera capable of taking photos at up to 2592 x 1944 pixels. There is a LED flash too, which may even make some difference given the back-illuminated camera sensor.
The camera has both autofocus and touch AF, which are fast and quite accurate. The latter even tracks moving subjects.
The camera user interface is neat and simple – the only controls are a shutter/rec key, flash settings and a small thumbnail in the corner that shows the last photo taken. Oh, and there is a switch to toggle between the main and the front-facing camera.
Video recorder in HD
The iPhone 4 records video in 720p resolution at 30 fps. That’s quite something as an upgrade to the 3GS. Clips are stored in .MOV format. The big letdown is the lack of a video resolution setting. We’re not even gonna mention SloMo or Time Lapse videos. We’re talking about giving the user the simple choice between HD and VGA.
Anyway, the actual video quality is quite good though. The framerate is very consistent. Perhaps the iPhone 4 could use some sort of digital image stabilization to keep handshake under control, but we suppose it’s too much to ask.
Connectivity
One of the promising features of the iPhone 3.0 OS was enabling third-party developers to create apps that communicate with accessories or peripherals over a USB or Bluetooth connection. We didn’t see many results from that but might just get a boost from the new iPhone.
The iPhone 4 is Bluetooth v2.1 enabled with A2DP for streaming music to a compatible stereo Bluetooth headset or speakers. Bluetooth file transfers are not available. Peer-to-peer connections over Wi-Fi, and even Bluetooth, are a way around this but they only work between iPhones. Bluetooth connectivity also includes support for Bluetooth keyboards much like on the Apple iPad.
The latest iPhone 4 supports Wi-Fi b/g/n standards. Though we didn’t have a Wireless N router for testing, we can happily confirm that the Wi-Fi connection is much faster than that of the iPhone 3G over a G connection. What’s more, if you press your palm against the iPhone 4 Wi-Fi antenna – the metal strip on the upper left hand side of the phone – you even get a signal boost. That’s exactly the opposite to the issue we’re having with the cell signal.
Organizer
The few default apps aren’t enough to make the iPhone the ultimate organizer, but they will do well to get you started – the AppStore will take care of the rest.
The iOS calendar looks much like its average competitors – you can create and sync different calendars (Google and Outlook for example). Then you can add various events with alerts.
GPS: Google maps and a compass
It’s Google Maps again and this means the iPhone 4 doesn’t offer proper SatNav out of the box. You know what we’re gonna say next then – AppStore. At least Google Maps have the benefit of a fully integrated magnetometer (digital compass).
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