Review: iPhone 4
The first thing that caught my attention when I was playing with this phone was the design. I think it is the most stylish phone I’ve seen so far and the glass-metal combination seems perfect in terms of design. I was definitely won when I hold it and notice how well it sits and feels in your hand, aided by the 9.3 mm thick and 3.5-inch screen. Also worth mentioning the volume buttons that are large enough and well shaped to be easily pressed with your finger, but also to not be accidentally pressed in your pocket.
The screen seemed exceptionally the first time I saw it and has nothing to do with the fact that I went from a resistive display of 65k colors (my ex HTC phone). Respond quickly to attacks, vivid color, can be used without problems in bright light and the resolution of 960×640 with 326 ppi (pixels per inch) makes any corner displayed to show perfect gradient. I have not yet seen the Super AMOLED on the Nexus S, but comparing with the AMOLED screen of the HTC Desire, I like more the iPhone.
It was talked a lot about the fact that the phone has glass on both front and back and it’s easy to break. It is true, iPhone 4 is likely to break more easily than other mobile phones, but can be protected with a hood. I managed to slam it on the desk several times but it is fine.
Hardware:
iPhone 4 comes with a 1 GHz processor and 512 MB of RAM but I must confess that when I have chosen it I had no interest in these issues and that’s the beautiful world of Apple. Any application works perfectly and you should not care about system requirements or other constraints. If an application is developed for the iPhone, will surely go smoothly. In terms of storage space, there are variants of 16 GB and 32 GB. I chosen 16 GB, which in reality is 14, but I is sufficient. I managed to fill it with movies and installing lots of applications but only for the sake of seeing how much I can store in 14 GB of memory.
Multitouch software was new to me and I’m very excited about this functionality, especially the zoom which was pretty disappointing on Windows Mobile.
One problem is claimed by many, about signal that decreases when the phone is held tightly in hand. No matter how I tried to keep the phone my signal has dropped by no more than one line and in the 4 months of use my conversations were not interrupted. I tested it also in areas with weak signals. Worth mentioning on the hardware: WiFi (version n), GPS, Bluetooth, accelerometer and compass, useful if you get lost in the woods 
IOS:
The operating system was the biggest unknown for me. Sure, I played with it occasionally, but in daily use is different. The first thing I did was to look for a file manager but, surprise!, No such thing. Everything can be seen on an application icon and is possibly a settings section “Settings” menu. Each application has its own disk space and file transfer (eg music player for audio) is using iTunes. Scenario like “File – Open” and then navigate to open a disk file, as I get used with Windows Mobile, does not exist on iPhone. There are some exception to the rule, pictures taken with the camera application. They can be copied to the computer directly, without using iTunes.
The applications are arranged by 16 per page and can be grouped into folders that can contain up to 12 applications.
The phone can be configured to synchronize mail, contacts, calendar and notes with Microsoft Exchange servers, GMail, Yahoo plus others that I have not used before. I sync with Exchange Google account (which supports push) to bring my contacts, emails and calendar, and the same Google account with Gmail to make back-up of my notes.
Browser: (Safari) is very good. Does not support flash but this is not a problem for me. YouTube videos can be seen in dedicated application and websites look better without so many banners. There are alternatives like Skyfire who can play Flash videos and can be used if necessary.
Camera: 5 megapixel camera takes pictures of maximum 2592 x 1944 pixel resolution, has a flash, shooting at 720p HD at 30 frames per second. Like any camera phone has some problems with pictures in low light because flash is not strong enough, but is still beats on all the chapters my compact Sony camera. The camera application do not know how to make panoramas, but there are applications like AutoStitch which you can join more pictures with into a full panorama.
FaceTime: allows you to make video calls to other iPhone owners. WiFi goes only official and is activated by an international SMS only once at first call. Just to know and do not worry like me when you see additional cost from nowhere. I once tested, works fine, but do not see why I should quit Skype anyway given the fact that I have internet connection.
Battery: better than other phones I had. The more I managed to hold it was three days without too much load and at least 12 hours, of which about 6 hours of playing FIFA, surfing the net and made plenty of mobile calls. But the average is 2 days, given that I always keep 3G or WiFi active. An interesting thing is that I never felt that the phone would heat up, neither at charging or while using it intensively.
A few things I found about my first time on iPhone:
- Do not rush to buy applications if you do not really need them. AppStore policy allows developers to change prices at any time and for this reason there are times when certain applications are offered at reduced price or even for free!
Jailbreak:
Everything I wrote above about the software is available without jailbreak. When I did jailbreak the iPhone has become another phone and most of the limitations Apple has set has disappeared. So I began to have access to the filesystem and a lot of tweaks that bring new facilities or quick access to functions. The best example is the main reason for JB SBSettings, which solve the problem about quick access to settings.
All these new options come with a price: the operating system stability decreases and the battery will hold less time, depending on installed applications. If until jailbreak I had no reasons to restart the phone, after, there were moments when I restarted the phone because some applications from Cydia. Depending on the needs and after an analysis of advantages and disadvantages you can decide whether or not you really need jailbreak. You may also lose the guarantee if you have a problem with the phone, if the service can prove that you did jailbreak.
Conclusion:
I hope you have a better idea about what the iPhone 4 is and the advantages and disadvantages. Go to a store, play with it and make a decision. I chose it and I’m very happy, now I would not change my iPhone 4 with any other phone.