iPhone 4 is the Phone for You: Here is what they are Saying about the new Apple Phone

The iPhone 4 is thin and sharp. Apple has ditched the rounded, organic look of previous models for an almost Mid-Century Modern stainless steel band around two slabs of black glass. (All iPhone 4s available right now are black; a white model is coming soon, Apple says.) The result is a phone that's slightly smaller and noticeably thinner than all of its competitors, at 4.5-by-2.31-by-.37 inches.

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diggThe device comes in two memory sizes, 16GB and 32GB. There's no memory card slot, and Apple cut down on the size of the SIM card slot. (Apple hates slots, because they mar the phone's lines.) They're using tiny "Micro-SIMs" now, which shouldn't bother you much if you're in the US; US users have no reason to ever remove the iPhone's SIM card.

Most phones feel like gadgets, because they're all metal and plastic. The iPhone 4 feels like jewelry, because of all that glass. The front of the phone is nearly-indestructible Gorilla Glass, according to Apple, and the back is a different kind of tempered glass. That will make the phones relatively resistant to scratches, but I'd still recommend a case if you want to keep yours looking pristine.

Apple's "retina screen" is pretty great, although it doesn't live up to its bombastic marketing copy. (What could?) The IPS LCD technology used has incredibly deep blacks and noticeably richer colors than the iPhone 3GS did, the viewing angles are wider, and it looks much better outdoors. It's far more beautiful than any other screen technology I've seen except for Samsung's upcoming Super AMOLED. I look forward to testing those two technologies against each other.



The iPhone 4, like the 3GS, is a GSM/HSPA 7.2 phone that operates on AT&T's and foreign 3G bands. Also like previous iPhones, it's not the greatest phone for voice calling.

Cue the screaming nay-sayers: "If it's not the world's best voice phone, what good is it? A phone should be a PHONE!" Yes, that is a valid view. There are phones for you. The iPhone 4 is not the phone for you. Move on. There are millions of people for whom making long, heartfelt voice calls isn't their primary desire—they send scads of text messages, play games, Fingerpoke on YouFace (if they're Tina Fey) and make brief voice calls to get their points across. The iPhone is for them.

If you're looking for salvation from dropped calls, the iPhone 4 isn't it. In extremely weak signal conditions in our lab and our basement, the iPhone 3GS actually connected slightly more calls successfully than the iPhone 4 did—about one in ten additional calls went through. The iPhone 4 gave a truer picture of signal strength than the 3GS did, though; its "bar" meter is quicker to respond to changes in RF than the 3GS is.

Apple also acknowledged that the "iPhone death grip" is real, and holding the phone the wrong way reduces signal strength. I made Speedtest.net data speed tests slow down and even stall out by picking up the phone and holding it in my left hand, with one finger on each seam of the phone and the bottom-left corner against the pad of a slightly sweaty palm. Putting the phone down on the table caused the speed test to resume. The death grip only made a difference on voice calls in weak signal conditions, though; with decent or strong signal, it didn't affect the iPhone's ability to connect calls. Adding one of Apple's $29 plastic "bumpers" fixed the death-grip issue entirely.