Apple iPhone 4 Review

Apple iPhone 4
★★★★☆
4.2
81.0% of users recommend this
  • Screen Quality

  • Battery Life

  • Features

  • Reception

  • Style

  • Value For Money

the elements600's review of Apple iPhone 4

“I've had my iPhone 4 for nearly a month now, and...”

★★★★☆

written by the elements600 on 08/01/2011

I've had my iPhone 4 for nearly a month now, and coming from a Nokia E71, its a huge step up.



I found the inital switch between no touchscreen and suddenly having to do just about everything with a touchscreen a bit of a change of style of course, but it's an incredibly intuitive phone to use and the touchscreen is very responsive. The retina display is tremendously clear as well, a noticeable difference from the 3G/S models. It's a very durable screen too, after lots of use over the past few weeks there'd not so much as a scratch on it.



Right off the bat, the phone has some apps pre-installed such as maps, youtube, weather, Apple's own mail client, a compass and a calendar.



The number of apps available from the store to further boost functionality is insane, and perhaps the phone's strongest asset. There's quite literlly an app for everything; from those which make you laugh like Angry Birds, apps to keep you up to date with current affairs such as BBC News and FLUD, and apps which simply make your jaw drop to the floor like Solar Walk and Star Walk. The things you can do is endless.



The camera is 2 megapixels and produces relatively clear images in decent light conditions. The flash, whilst being LED is bright, but come on Apple, give us a proper xenon flash!



I like the convenience of the volume switches on the side and the switch to change it from loud to silent and the 3.5mm headphone jack, as opposed to the horribly primitive 2.5mm socket my E71 had!



I have yet to use Face Time, but to be honest I probably never will. Many of my previous phones have had the ability to do video conferencing which I literally only did a couple of times to see what's what, and aside from the fact that Face Time uses wi-fi which may allow for a better, smoother picture, I see this feature as a fancy gimmick.



Now for the not so good things. The signal where I live is pretty poor at best. On my old Nokia E71 I'd usually get anything from low to medium signal, on the iPhone I struggle to get past one bar of signal. I've never had a dropped call whilst I've been chatting to someone, but I have had it not ring and go straight to voicemail, which is incredibly irritating. This is even with using a bumper; I shudder to think how poor the signal is without one.



Battery life too, is abysmal. My Nokia after heavy use would still last a good 2 days without needing a charge. The iPhone? It's been off charge for about 16 hours and after some leisurely facebooking, it's down to 55%. It varies on how much you use the phone of course and indeed what you use the phone for, but the best I've got out of it is a day and a half. If you're going away for the weekend there's no two ways about it, you will need your charger.



I also see no reason why Apple are using a smaller size sim card. This is incredibly annoying, because if, for whatever reason there is a fault with my iPhone, I can't simply remove the sim card and put it back in my Nokia. Just seems like Apple taking advantage of their position in the marketplace and being inconvenient, simply because they can.



If email and business use is more for you, I strongly suggest looking at a Blackberry rather than an iPhone. The email client on the iPhone 4 is simply not of the same standard, and you will find the Blackberry much more functional in that respect.



Overall however, the iPhone 4 is a joy to use. OS4 is a gloriously slick interface, and if ease of use is a priority for you, this is definitely a phone to consider. Just bear in mind that if you do get one you will have to live with some compromises and shortfalls.

  • Value For Money

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