My iphone review

[Deleted member 4644]

Coming from an iphone 3G here is my review:

It is a lot faster. A lot.

It loads huge pages without any grey checkerboxing. It loads the entire page. Fast.

It has noticeably better reception. In my kitchen, a dropped call was about 90% chance with the 3G. I was able to make 3 calls without dropping (some quality problems however) over 30 min in my kitchen with the 4G.

The speaker is slightly better, and very slightly louder.

All in all, very happy with it for 199 - what I can sell my 3G for.

 

[JS80]

So basically it's the same shit?

 

[cheezy321]

So basically it's the same shit?

Yeah, but they IMPROVED upon things. Like battery life. When is google going to address this problem?

 

[Spoooon]

Yeah, but they IMPROVED upon things. Like battery life. When is google going to address this problem?

What does google have to do with anything?

OP: try that left handed right handed thing gizmodo or some place talked about. Something about it affecting reception.

 

[TheStu]

What does google have to do with anything?

OP: try that left handed right handed thing gizmodo or some place talked about. Something about it affecting reception.

He might be talking about the fact that although various Android phones have large batteries, and have had for a while now, the iPhone gets better battery life, at least based on the reviews that I have seen for both. So, at this point, although the battery capacity is there, and the hardware is not dissimilar from the iPhone's (1GHz CPUs, high resolution screens, wifi, GPS, 3G, all that) and are used for the same things, Android seems to get worse battery life.

It is not that different from Windows/OS X. The latest MacBook Pros get crazy battery life... in OS X. Boot them into Windows and that number goes down by something like 40%. Apple only has to design their OS for so many hardware configurations so can do every little exploit and trick in the book to increase life on their systems.

Google is in the same position now. There are tons of phones out there that are running Android, each with similar but not identical hardware and capabilities, and as such the battery life will almost certainly suffer. I believe it would be up to the individual OEMs to fix the battery problem.

 

[shortylickens]

Google has seriously improved the power usage on Android, but hardware manufacturers still need to do some stuff on their side.

I hate Apple fuck them. Everything they make is lame, and all they do is steal ideas from other less famous groups.
BUT, I will admit they almost always seem to have the lead on battery life, whether its phones, media players, or laptops. Nothing else comes close.

 

[sjwaste]

IMHO, Android battery life sucks mostly from what the carriers are adding. I'm running my Evo with the Fresh ROM and have very acceptable battery life. No, it's not iPhone-good in battery life, but it's good enough.

 

[Deleted member 4644]

No reception problems. The reception problems stemmed from the fact that they were touching the antenna with bare metal. I bought the case for mine, and I have really good reception (for ATT at least LOL).

 

[Aikouka]

I'd really like to see an Anandtech comparison on the phone compared to a 3GS. I mostly care about battery life and some aspects of speed at this point. I assume that I'm being limited heavily by the network in some aspects, so loading pages may not be the biggest deal.

I'd also like to know how the higher resolution may affect applications. I heard about Apple taking a Java-like approach to application GUI design, which I guess would help, but I wonder if it might cause some unsightly graphics on things that shouldn't be resized.

 

[Aikouka]

EDIT:

Oh well now how did I get two of these messages here... awkward .

 

[zerocool84]

He might be talking about the fact that although various Android phones have large batteries, and have had for a while now, the iPhone gets better battery life, at least based on the reviews that I have seen for both. So, at this point, although the battery capacity is there, and the hardware is not dissimilar from the iPhone's (1GHz CPUs, high resolution screens, wifi, GPS, 3G, all that) and are used for the same things, Android seems to get worse battery life.


I believe it would be up to the individual OEMs to fix the battery problem.

Of course it's up to the OEM's. They don't control the hardware like Apple does. People always seem to forget that Apple controls EVERY aspect of the phone and EVERY aspect of the OS. It makes for much better tight control of things so they can just work but less freedom as we all know. That's why there are trade-offs for both types and you have to weigh what is better for you and what you want and need.

 

[TheStu]

Of course it's up to the OEM's. They don't control the hardware like Apple does. People always seem to forget that Apple controls EVERY aspect of the phone and EVERY aspect of the OS. It makes for much better tight control of things so they can just work but less freedom as we all know. That's why there are trade-offs for both types and you have to weigh what is better for you and what you want and need.

Well, wouldn't it also be up to Google to a certain degree? It is up to them to make sure the OS is efficient and doesn't waste power where they can help it. It is up to the OEMs to go the last mile IMO.

 

[zerocool84]

Well, wouldn't it also be up to Google to a certain degree? It is up to them to make sure the OS is efficient and doesn't waste power where they can help it. It is up to the OEMs to go the last mile IMO.

It's just like Windows, there' only so much one can do to optimize for different hardware. Of course with every new version they're making it infinitely better but of course if they don't control every aspect of the device, it's impossible to optimize like someone who controls every part of the device.

 

[TheWart]

Yep, this phone is really slick. No issues with my unit and it's performance has exceeded expectations all around.

I flew yesterday and about 7 people were like oooh is that the new phone so I let them play with it and they were also blown away.

 

[you2]

This is more of a feature of the hardware and tweaks to the software (not android nativly). First the snapdragon processor used in the EVO is a power hog and most snapdragon phones have relatively poor battery life. The two new phones (galaxy S and droid X) use the OMP processor (somewhat similar to the iphone processor) and are showing much better battery life. Second it is very easy to setup background processes on andriod that suck power via frequent sync and similar. People like instant notifications but there is a battery cost assocaited with it. Third (as noted above) a bit more effort has to be made to optimized the software settings for specific hardware. It looks like both Samsung and Moto are doing this (though the more efficient processor helps a lot). Moto has a really nice feature on the Droid X where you can configure start up and shut down of certain features to save the battery.
-
The iphone 3g had awful battery life but the 4 (and ipad) look to have much better battery life. It took apple 4 generations to get there. The driod X and galaxy S are second generation phone and they are already doing much better than the iphone 3g (also andriod 2.2 is suppose to help quite a bit when the upgrades occur). I'm mixed between the two but apple recent change in policy (i.e, all apps from itune; can't use itune unless you agree to their new location policy) for me is the final nail in the coffin. I.e, sure we will let you opt out; but then your device will be a brick (anyways I expect a lawsuit on this one).

As for the actual device+carrier; that really is a matter of preference. All three of the phones have pros/cons. Both the Samsung S and iphone have wicked displays and sleek designs; the moto display looks to be very good (slightly better than evo) so it is no dog here. The iphone has video conference if that matters to you; the moto has 3 microphones (and early reviews suggest they really do work well). The samsung and moto both have user replaceable batteries (and moto is comming out with a 2000 unit if you want the extra size; though I suspect it will cost a pretty penny).
There are more apps for the iphone; the samsung and moto allow you to swap memory cards (for me a big deal because I like to watch movies when traveling).

Anyways I suspect there will be more rapid development in android hardware for both + and -. I personally am likely to go with the driod x; though the galaxy S looks interesting.

IMHO, Android battery life sucks mostly from what the carriers are adding. I'm running my Evo with the Fresh ROM and have very acceptable battery life. No, it's not iPhone-good in battery life, but it's good enough.

 

[Rottie]

I went to Apple store yesterday to get my dirty hands on an iPhone 4 and it looks gorgeous the display is nice. My friend is an anti-iphone wanted to test drive this and played avatar game he seems drooling but he wont admit it. he is going to get HTC HD2 today anyway.