Apple iPhone 4 32GB review

While previous revisions of the iPhone have essentially been small updates to the existing design, the iPhone 4 feels like a new phone. It’s the thinnest iPhone yet at just over 9mm, being a little narrower than the old models, too.

The front and rear are made of aluminosilicate glass, which is said to be 30 times stronger than plastic as well as highly scratch resistant. It’s the same stuff that helicopter windscreens are made of, and it also has an oleophobic coating which is incredibly easy to clean.

The stainless steel strip around the edge has several functions. First, it provides structural rigidity and second, it acts as the antennae for the phone, WiFi and Bluetooth. Build quality really is first class, and the iPhone 4 feels better built than any other current smartphone.

One of the main new features is a front-facing camera which enables you to make video calls. Apple calls this FaceTime, and it’s currently only available via WiFi. To use it, you call another iPhone 4 owner and then invite them to establish a video call. Once this is running, the voice call is ended. We were surprised about the decent quality and frame rate, as well as how quickly you can switch between the front and rear cameras – useful for showing your surroundings as well as yourself. We found that FaceTime sometimes didn’t work at all, and it also needed a strong WiFi signal.

Apple says that, in future, developers will be able to make applications that work with FaceTime and should allow you to make video calls with devices other than iPhone 4s. However, we’d also like to see the ability to use FaceTime over 3G, but that’s an issue for mobile operators to sort out.

The rear camera has been upgraded to a five-megapixel, back-illuminated sensor, and can now shoot 720p HD video. Rather than keep the same sensor dimensions as the 3GS’s camera, the new camera has the same size pixels and a larger sensor. This leads to far better quality images and video in dim conditions. Although our test photos were a little noisy, it was luminance noise rather than chroma (colour), so it wasn’t too distracting. The only real issue was poor white balance when using the built-in LED flash. However, in good light, the camera was quick to focus and there was very little shutter lag.

When taking video, there’s no warning if you shoot in portrait mode, but the quality of the footage was again very good in bright light. Our test clips rivalled the Flip Ultra HD, as long as you keep the phone still, and audio wasn’t bad either. The LED can be used to illuminate your subject at night, but it’s only good for very close objects. Essentially, video and still photo quality is a major leap from the 3GS.

It’s a little tight of Apple to charge £2.99 for iMovie, but it’s money well spent. With it, you can quickly cut together clips you’ve taken, add a theme and music, then upload your creation to YouTube. The iPhone 4’s built-in GPS receiver means that all videos are geotagged (as are photos), and the Travel theme uses information this to automatically create a map with a dot showing the location and a thumbnail of the video. You can easily change the default dissolve transition between clips, as well as trimming clips to use only the portions you want. To achieve all this on a 3.5in screen is little short of a miracle.

Of course, the new ‘Retina’ display is another of the iPhone 4’s biggest draws. The resolution of 640×960 is incredible – it’s very difficult to see the individual pixels even if you’re looking for them. What it means is that text is smoother than ever (you don’t have to zoom in to elements of a web page if your eyesight is good enough), and photos appear sharper with no jagged edges. Contrast has been improved to 800:1, and it makes a noticeable difference. Looking at the same photo on a 3GS and iPhone 4, it’s clear that blacks are deeper and colours more vibrant.

One of the reasons for this is that the display is laminated to the front glass cover, leaving no air gap. This helps eliminate light refraction, and helps to make everything look even sharper. The other reason for the improved colours is the use of an IPS LCD panel, the same as used in the iPad. This has better viewing angles than the iPhone 3GS’s screen and means colours and contrast don’t change as much when you’re tilting the phone to play a game, for example. As there’s exactly four times more pixels than before, apps designed for a 480×320 screen upscale with no issues.

While iOS 4 isn’t unique to the iPhone 4 – it’s a free upgrade for 3G, 3GS and third-generation iPod touch owners – it runs smoothly thanks to the 4’s A4 processor. Currently, it runs extremely slowly on the iPhone 3G, which doesn’t support the multitasking feature, which is angering owners that have upgraded. iOS 4 adds a feature that people have been calling out for: multi-tasking. Now, it’s possible to run more than one application at a time. Switching between apps is simple: you just double-tap the button on the front to bring up a task-bar, then you select the app you want. Switching between apps is smooth and responsive.

Multitasking might not sound all that useful, but it means you can now carry on listening to Spotify, for example, while checking email or browsing the web. Plus, navigation apps that use the GPS receiver can continue to track your position and give you spoken instructions while you jump to another app. It’s worth noting that many apps will pause, so a Twitter feed will still have to update when you switch back to it – this is to save battery life.

Battery life, of course, is one factor that many iPhone users aren’t happy with. Apple has put a larger battery into the iPhone 4 and in our tests, it’s certainly an improvement. Our light-use test ran for a stunning 49 hours before we had to recharge. Plus, in normal use – with a mixture of calls, emails, web browsing, downloading, taking photos and videos – we got almost two days’ use. If you’re using the screen at full brightness and using the phone heavily, we’d imagine you’ll need to recharge a littler after a day, but this is no worse than any other current smartphone.

Another new feature is the screen lock, which prevents it rotating to landscape mode. This is useful in many apps, but particularly in the free iBooks. Oddly, you have to download this from the App Store as it’s not installed by default. The interface is identical to iBooks on the iPad and you can turn pages by slowly dragging them, or by quickly swiping your finger across the screen. We love the attention to detail as you can see the text and images of a page showing through the ‘paper’ as you turn it over. You don’t have to buy books from the iBookstore – you can transfer any PDFs to your device through iTunes.

You can now set a wallpaper to appear behind app icons – a feature we think is long overdue – and create folders in which to store apps. When you tap a folder, the apps within are displayed and other icons on screen are dimmed. Creating a folder is easy: tap and hold an app until it wiggles, then drag it on top of another app. The folder will be automatically named based on the type of apps, but you can rename it to whatever you like. It all means you can have over 2,000 apps in up to 180 folders.

There are a few other tweaks that we appreciated. One is that mail messages can now be grouped in threads, just like Gmail. This makes it far easier to keep a track of an entire conversation. There are also two microphones – one on the front and one at the bottom. Together, they provide effective noise cancelling.

We found that call quality was better than on the 3G and 3GS, and we didn’t have any noticeable problems with signal dropout when holding the phone at the bottom and therefore bridging the different antenna sections together. We expect most people will use their iPhone 4 in a case, so this shouldn’t be a problem.

UPDATE 5/7/2010: With a few extra days’ testing, we can confirm that both our test phones exhibit the widely-reported drop in number of signal bars displayed. This occurs when holding the device in the left hand at the bottom of the phone. However, as we reported last week, Apple claims this is primarily an issue with the number of bars shown, not the signal itself.

We’ve made calls in strong and weak signal areas and haven’t experienced any dropout or terminated calls when holding the handset in this way. We’re still waiting for cases to arrive to assess whether they alleviate or even eliminate the issue. We’ll also report back after Apple releases its promised software update that supposedly fixes the problem.

Apple has packed ever more sensors into the iPhone 4. As well as the accelerometer, there’s a three-axis gyroscope, a proximity sensor and the ambient light sensor. It’s a phenomenal amount of stuff given the compact dimensions.

There are some minor annoyances, including the fact that Apple still refuses to install a memory card slot. There’s only room for a MicroSIM, which is incredibly annoying if you want to use an existing contract, as you’ll have to get a new SIM or be brave enough to cut your existing SIM down.

The other problem is the price. The iPhone 4 is considerably more expensive than Android-based phones, both SIM-free and on contract. You won’t be able to get a free one on O2 unless you’re willing to have the 16GB model and spend £60 per month. Currently the white version isn’t available in the UK either. If you want the 32GB version, it’ll cost you £279 plus either £30 for 24 months or £35 for 18 months. Whichever provider or package you opt for, there’s no doubt that the iPhone 4 is expensive. However, if you want the best, this is it.

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