You knew it was only a matter of time before Apple’s favorite reviewer got a hold of the iPhone 4 and Walt Mossberg gives the latest iPhone quite a lot of praise.
Uncle Walt has been toying the handset for the past week or so and he says Apple is still the head honcho in the smartphone game.
I’ve been testing the iPhone 4 for more than a week. In both hardware and software, it is a major leap over its already-excellent predecessor, the iPhone 3GS.
It has some downsides and limitations—most important, the overwhelmed AT&T network in the U.S., which, in my tests, the new phone handled sometimes better and, unfortunately, sometimes worse than its predecessor. I’ll get into that below. But, overall, Apple has delivered a big, well-designed update that, in my view, keeps it in the lead in the smartphone wars.
One of the biggest new features of the iPhone 4 is the front-facing camera and the ability to make two-way video calls over WiFi with FaceTime. Mossberg said this feature “worked very well for me and is a classic example of the value of having one company do integrated hardware and software.” I wonder who he called though, as the feature is only available for iPhone 4 owners (he probably gave FaceTime to David Pogue ).
He says the new design feels great in the hand and the much-vaunted Retina Display is just as Apple claims because “text on the screen shows no jagged lines, even when expanded to giant size.”
The 5-megapixel camera gets an old thumbs up as well, and he was pleased with the high-definition videos the iPhone 4 can now record.
He touches upon the multitasking elements of iOS 4 and says it works well for the limited programs that enable true background processing (like Pandora) but it’s more of an app switcher for things like Facebook or games.
It shouldn’t be a surprise, but he finds AT&T to be the biggest fault with the iPhone 4.
Just as with its predecessors, I can’t recommend this new iPhone for voice calling for people who experience poor AT&T reception, unless they are willing to carry a second phone on a network that works better for them.
How say you, readers? Is this about what you expected? We’ll be in line Wednesday night and Thursday morning to capture all the madness, follow us on the live stream.
[Via All Things D]