Yes, it’s here. We were going to say ‘finally’ but to be honest, Apple seem to be churning out iPhones as though Steve Jobs knows something we don’t about when this world will end.
Let’s get to it; it looks great, feels great, and basically does what the 3GS does a little bit better. Whether you feel that necessitates forking out £500 for the handset, or at least £80 for a minimal contract deal, is up to you.
New Features
The most striking aspect of it is the new industrial look and feel – Apple have done away with the soft, curved edges we saw on the iPhone 3G and 3GS and opted for a more practical, buisnessy design. In our opinion, it gives it a premium feel with expensive-looking aesthetics, akin to designer handsets such as those made by Vertu.
Arguably the best new feature of the iPhone 4 is its new ‘Retina’ display; a resolution of 960×640 which has raised the bar when it comes to screen quality. Photos look superbly crisp and bright whilst text is as a clear as that printed from a high-res laser printer.
When it comes to bandwidth, the iPhone 4 can effectively double 3G BW compared to the iPhone 3G as Apple have upgraded the hardware to support HSDPA and then upgraded the iPhone 4 to support HSUPA as well – effectively meaning the iPhone 4 can reach speeds of 7.2Mbps for downloads and 5.8Mbps for uploads.
The Swiss-Army functionality of the iPhone is just totally unparalleled in the smartphone market. There are now over 200,000 iPhone apps available – such as a solid camera and photo editing software, e-reader applications from numerous providers including Amazon’s Kindle and Apple’s own iBooks), iTunes integration for digital entertainment wherever you are and a navigation app from a company like Tom Tom. Weigh it all up and suddenly you have a piece of technology that is five key devices in one – smartphone, digital camera, MP3 player, e-reader, and GPS.
