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Iphone 4 build quality is bluff

K

krumme

Diamond Member
You know why some washingpowder have blue grain, together with white?

Its because the perception is that the blue is good for taking the difficult dirt, while the white is more gently towards the clothes.
Ofcourse its all the same ingridients, just different colours.

Do you know why the B&O remote controls is heavy?

Yeaa, you know. Because its perciewed to be stronger and better build quality.

Looking at the Iphone from an objective industrial production point of view, the chosen materials, is simply idiotic. They are chosen by marketing, not by other criteria. Glass and metal for phone, and not composite or plastic, only makes the phone far more expensive and even more fragile. Then add heavy.

Thats something you can do when you are a brand, like B&O and Apple. Put iron in your product, and then have happy customers carry it around in their pockets, saying they have superior build products.

Now a request for the reviewers. Please stop judging phones and computers from their apearance. All this use of metal is stupid. Its bad for the environment, it takes ressources away from more important areas, and its plain and simple stupid and a general waste.

In the last years the situation have worsened with this idiotic trend started by Apple. My Dell have fx. Trimetal cower. Trimetal yeaa. Why not 5-metal? - this have to stop. Even the hinges on laptops can be made good quality today with plastics.

And quite frankly. Today, all the major factories can handle fx. aluminium, and make it like B&O and Apple. Its no deal, everyone can do it The innovation and development is in composite, and the blending of materials. So besides from beeing idiotic, even the bragging rights have disappeared.
 
Yea right my brother has my old iPhone 4 that I used for 11 months and it still looks and acts like brand new. My former Atrix that I had for roughly 6 months and it looked like it went through hell. It started creaking under pressure when it was in my pocket. Apparently Motorola is supposed to have exceptional build quality lol.
 
I don't want to go into a huge P&N debate, but if you think metal is worse for the environment than plastic you're a fool. A huge fool that doesn't know the absurd environmental eye that's kept on mining and metal production these days.

You simply have no idea what you're talking about in this entire post.
 
Do you work for HTC? Are you just bitter?

I got my iPhone 4 at launch. I've dropped it numerous times, ran with it through near tropical storms down here, and used it daily...and it still has an awesome battery life and looks like new.

The only other phone that has held up this well was my original Motorola Razr which also had some type of metal shell.

I think you are wrong.
 
blah blah blah my OG droid still looks brand new and its 2 years old

dont treat your phone like crap and it will last for a long time
 
PricklyPete said:
Do you work for HTC? Are you just bitter?

I got my iPhone 4 at launch. I've dropped it numerous times, ran with it through near tropical storms down here, and used it daily...and it still has an awesome battery life and looks like new.

The only other phone that has held up this well was my original Motorola Razr which also had some type of metal shell.

I think you are wrong.
Click to expand...

Nothing change the fact that this brick of a phone is designed using one of the oldest marketing trick in the world. Make it heavy, so the consumers think its good quality.

Why on earth it suddenly is accepted for such a small phone to have this weight is beyond me, but the power of a brand is stronger than common sense.

No i dont work for HTC 🙂, and my phone is an nokia e72 running some kind of dos system - lol. For me its only about productivity, answering mail and sms as fast as possible.

You can make composite materials of excellent quality, and ofcourse bad plastic is just plain bad. But come on, its a phone, no need for expensive and heavy materials. Just make it last.

Perhaps i work for Samsung and is very bitter? 🙂
 
Krumme has made a point that he thinks the materials used to build the iPhone are poor choices. Please address this point, and stop with the mild personal attacks. If you disagree, please post why.

Moderator PM
 
1.) Apple does no marketing
2.) The materials in the iP4 are pretty "green"
3.) The iP4 holds up insanely well over time
5.) The Nokia E71's I got last week are cheap and flimsy feeling, the back cover feels like aluminum foil.
 
Pliablemoose said:
What planet are you from? 😵
Click to expand...

Well your metal case for your e71 didnt help it. You rememer all the reviewers praised the build quality of the e71? - there is not nessasarily a correlation between the use of metal and then the build quality of the phone.

What we could use for the high-end phones was some extremely light and solid composite materials in one frame. But hey we wont get it because we prefer alu, glass and steel. Because it gives the right perception. That is all right. But dont say its rational. For the same money we could all have stronger and lighter phones.
 
Pliablemoose said:
1.) Apple does no marketing
2.) The materials in the iP4 are pretty "green"
3.) The iP4 holds up insanely well over time
5.) The Nokia E71's I got last week are cheap and flimsy feeling, the back cover feels like aluminum foil.
Click to expand...

1) Lets give an example how the adressing of perception of quality is done. BMW have 100 persons employed full time, just to work with sounds, so the consumers think the quality is the right one. For sound only. This is not about sound dampening and so on. No this is fx. about the perception of the quality of the door. The consumers think they can judge by the sound of the door when it slams how good the quality is. The reality is, all our senses is controlled and monitored. And Apple is just one of the most professional doing so. They do marketing btw - big time. Its the major part of their strategy thinking, and it filters down all the way to the sound, and feeling of fx. your phone. Its about controlling feelings more than objective quality.

2) My Nescaffe alu pods is also very green acording to Nesle, because alu is the most perfect materiale. You can reuse alu 100% ! - lol - so yeaa probably Apple want to do it as green as possible - when it fits marketing decicions.

3) yes it does. But dont drop it on the pavement 🙂, the point is, they could have made a lighter more durable phone for the same money.

4) Replied post before.
 
Build quality thread? If it isn't the iphone it's samsung etc... same rehash.

oh-look-its-this-thread-again&
 
I agree that people will falsely believe that heavier=better, I've seen other people say this for other things, not just phones.

With the iphone 4 I think it has very good build quality asside from the glass back which is stupid imo. I've taken apart several iphone 4's and a few other smartphones and the iphone 4 is very well designed internally, there's almost no wasted space and everything is held together with screws instead of cheaping out and using glue or double sided tape (*cough* HTC).

That being said the glass back feels good in your hand, but the two iphone 4's I've owned became really scratched up on the back after a few weeks of use. So yeah i disagree with people who say the iphone 4 holds up well, with my 2nd iphone I replaced the back and bought a case right afterwards, but the first back had really bad scuffing on the edge just from putting it in and out of my pocket.
 
I have questions for the OP then...
Why do you consider a light phone to be the better way to go?
What evidence do you have that the weight of the phone is 100% about looks and has absolutely nothing to do with impact strength and "shatter proofing" from a fall?
Are you aware that material thickness is proportional to the pressure that can be applied before fracture? There's a reason aquarium tanks and bullet proof glass is thick.
How long have you owned an iphone 4? I mean, surely you're not forming an opinion based on bias and you actually have first hand experience with it... right?
 
Apple's material choices for the iphone serve to extend their design language, to differ from others. The risk of shattering glass was irrelevant to Apple when they made the iphone. It was their desire to awe and differ from others that led Apple to antenna problems.

As much as one may not agree with it, ultimately Apple wins. The majority of the market will be attracted to the "fragile" iphone and the majority won't shatter it anyway. Shattered iphones vs. total iphones sale count? 1%? 2%? 5%? Percentage of owners switching to other phones because it shattered opposed to % of people who repaired/bought another one? Under 50%. Apple wins.

Afraid to damage the iphone? Buy a case. Still dropped it and shattered it? By another iphone.

Don't get me wrong, I completely understand your angle. But I haven't seen any fit and finish problems on the iphone when I had it.

Are other phones more durable even without accent on durability? Likely so. Does it matter? Not really if we look at market share. I trust my HD2 to survive more falls than the iphone 4 but that's not really a deciding factor in choosing a phone.

The sad thing, I expect the next Moto Droid to play that same card, kevlar vs. glass.

I think other OEM's have equal build quality compared to Apple in their high end phone lineup at least. I wouldn't be surprised of the Galaxy W or the Wildfire have some creaking going on though.

My G1 survived a 4 ft drop to concrete with minor scratches on the back. 3-4 months later it split when it fell on the hardwood stairs, screen one way and keyboard went the other. The think had a creaky battery cover and I could have sworn the display wasn't parallel to the bezel. None of the issues are present on the HD2 though. A lot of these build quality complaints are a result of bias and circumstance anyway.
 
I personally put a lot of emphasis on getting a phone that's not too heavy. Heavy phones can literally become a pain when you talk a lot on the phone.

The iPhone 4's glass back was very annoying to me because the phone would slide on just about any surface that wasn't flat and level. It looked nice, but that doesn't do much for me especially with it being the back of the phone, the part I have no reason to ever look at.
 
people are perceiving building quality on 2 different areas:

#1 - Durability. Yes Glass is not as durable as acrylic, and will crack much easier than acrylic. It's also lighter. They use this things for stopping bullets at (albeit a very thick version) banks! The only argument glass has is that it doesn't scratch as easy as acrylic, and that you can get tempered glass, so it's "harder". So why dont' they use acrylic? The palm pre did!

#2 luxury. The next time you get a coach bag, a louis vuitton, or any name branded accessory, you'll know it's not "made to be dropped". Or is it made to be dirt proof or scratch proof. The fact of the matter is, these "high-end bags/accessories" are not using material that'll be more durable than your run-of-the-mill JC Penny bags/accessories. They're more luxurious, and requires MORE care than your average cheap-o bags.

I think this is where Apple is trying to hit: luxurious accessory market, not the durability market. They want it to feel expensive, and not be MORE durable than others.

So there you have, 2 different perceptions of build quality:

Luxury vs. durability.
 
I think I have been in a similar conversation lately...

So why glass, and not plastic?

Well, for one, the device has a huge screen. And that one is very easy to break upon impact, so regardless if Apple used plastic or glass, the device would be rendered useless as soon as you drop it and the screen cracks or breaks. Therefore, they might well use glass. It looks and feels nice, and it serves as a reminder that this particular phone must not be dropped under any circumstance. Plus it is much less prone to scratches than plastic.

As for the metal banding, it's not a secret that metal transmits signal better than plastic, is it? The iPhone 4 makes use of the metal banding as an external antenna, so metal is not just to look cool, but also to boost reception and transmission.

Now, if they can somehow create a screen that doesn't break from impact, and a plastic that does not scratch or leave fingerprints, and a composite material that transmits better than metal, then I can see how I'm wrong. But alas, there are some physics laws we just can't break...
 
They should make phones out of same carbon material they make Look bike pedals out of. Its injection molded, so easy to fabricate, strong and light.
 
I can understand what op means. I have a vibrant and I have an iphone4 and neither in any type of case. The iphone4 looks great as does the vibrant but the vibrant travels much better than the ip4. If I were to drop both phones from the same height onto a hard floor I am guessing the ip4 would probably be destroyed and the vibrant might survive. I make it a habit to not drop and abuse my things so its a non issue for me. I also never use cases as it takes away the beauty of the devices.so for me it is a waste of quality materials as I am just careful with my shit. But most people aren't. I guess.
 
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