Maurice Ali
Joined: 14 Nov 2003 Posts: 7858 Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
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Posted: Tue Jan 18, 2011 6:55 am Post subject: Long Term Review: iPhone 4! |
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Long Term Review: iPhone 4!
By Maurice Ali
iPhone 4 in a cheap plastic case.
Technology reviews are transient in nature, but due to the interest in the latest (at this time) iPhone, I will offer up my extended review of the iPhone 4.
Pros:
Industrial design second to none. Scratch resistant glass and forged stainless steel with the antennas acting as the structural side supports to the phone. I have to say I love the design. I am sick and tired of plastic that scratched if you just drop it once or wears through the cheap chrome paint used as accent on the phones. This thing feels manly and well put together.
Everything works. For me there were no antenna problems, proximity sensor problems or alarm problems. I tried to recreate them but to no avail. Any problems I had at the beginning were user error, now that I know better, and I only had to reset the phone once in two months after I admittedly was monkeying around with thing.
Retinal Display. It is down the list here but it is actually the best part. A display that cannot be improved upon because it is better resolution than the human eye. Sure maybe technically you could improve blacks and such but nobody is going to notice the difference. And congrates to the design team for putting this screen behind scratch resistant Corel glass instead of plastic. The screen deserves nothing less.
Battery. I only mention this because the iPhone 4 finally has a battery you can replace. Sure you need to unscrew the two screws to take the back off and a screw removal for the connector but the battery can be replaced yourself, and it lasts.
Apps. I can actually do everything my workstations can do - within limits. I can produce music, shoot/edit HD video, shoot/edit photos and edit and upload files and website pages. I can read and edit all Microsoft Office files and that app even puts "My Documents" on the phone! That is a God send for people that have to conduct business outside the office anywhere, even without a laptop. You can even tether without any special knowledge.
Cons:
No led indicator light, This will bug Blackberry users. There is no way to just look occasionally at the phone and tell if you have new emails or missed phone calls, etc. If you hit the "home" button it will tell you missed messages but this is one that could actually be a deal breaker for some.
No security. For business the iPhone is the least secure of all smart phones. That is why many, including myself, use the Blackberry and iPhone. Only the Blackberry has real security and encryption.
Apple proprietary BS. You can only interface with your computer via iTunes and all sorts of convoluted problems to remove songs and photos while other phones allow you to just add them ore subtract them like any other file system. The problems are too large to go into but Apple makes their phone less than it could be here.
Non-expandable memory. Another proprietary thing here. To stop the iPod from being defunct, the phones are limited to 16gig and 32gig. That is actually a lot but still the future allows almost unlimited expansion with other phones.
Lousy worker conditions at Foxconn. Workers paid next to nothing in worker cities. Workers committing suicide on company time. Something to think about when you marvel the product. I only found out after I bought the phone.
Comments. The big thing is the 1ghz processor and no bottlenecks which made my Canon G10 incapable of HD capture. These things "are" micro-computers now. That's about it for now. I would have liked the 32gig model but the phone I got was all that was available after half a day of searching. In any case I only used 1.5 gigs so far (for music) so this may be moot. No regrets buying this thing so far. |
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