Author
Josh Cox
I didn’t wait in line for my new iPhone 4, I had it shipped to my apartment. So I missed out on all of the cool Apple chatter while waiting in line for hours only to see the smiling people walking by me with their new phones. But my day waiting for the UPS delivery person wasn’t a picnic either. They didn’t show up until 3 p.m. so I was stuck at home for most of the day.
My first impression right out of the box was, “Wow, I really like the design.” It fits nicely in your hand and thickness (or lack of) is noticeable as soon as you pick it up. I went through all of the activation steps. I even charged it before activating. As soon as it powered up and the screen turned on you could instantly tell the difference between version 4 and 3GS. The Retina Screen is exceptionally clear. When using Safari or just sending messages to friends the text pops it’s really razor-sharp.
The first act I did was reinstalling some apps that didn’t carry over and had to remake all of the folders I made less than a week earlier on my 3GS. Since I was at home all day waiting for UPS, I was online reading about the phone in anticipation. So I read all about the screen issues and even the signal degeneration that was happening when you held the phone in your left hand when talking. I’m not going to lie I was pretty anxious about the latter issue. I’m a left-handed talker myself. So naturally the next thing I did was test the issue.
Sure enough the signal dropped and it dropped quickly. As soon as I held the phone just on the glass the signal went right back to full strength. Hopefully the case (which I had to order) will alleviate the issue. But honestly I haven’t had any dropped call yet and I’m not changing my phone habits, so there’s no rush to solve the issue.
Out of all the new features on the phone, I couldn’t wait to try FaceTime. I’m sure that was probably everyone else’s thought as well. Out of all of my close friends with iPhones only one had upgraded to the new version. We finally scheduled a time later in the evening and tested the new feature. It is amazing. When the video first connects it’s almost surreal. “My cell phone can now video chat,” that’s all I was thinking. We were both pretty impressed with the resolution and quality of sound. We only had about a 10 minute conversation but most of the back and forth was about how cool it was and how now when our friends do something stupid and we aren’t there, we can now watch it happen live instead of hearing about it later.
All in all, I’m pretty happy with the iPhone 4. The HD video is outstanding along with the LED flash. The new design is a smaller and a much better pocket pleaser. And the screen is one of the most impressive features, next to FaceTime of course. If you have any questions feel free to post them.