The iPhone 4 is Apple’s most revolutionary, and divisive design to date. At first glance, it appears to be a single slab of glass, encircled by a solid band of steel. It’s a love letter to minimalism, and one the father of modern industrial design Dieter Rams would have been proud to call his own. Does function match its form? Read on and find out in this part of our iPhone 4 review.
Read the rest of our iPhone 4 review
iPhone 4 review
iPhone 4 review: Retina Display
iPhone 4 review: HD video and iMovie
iPhone 4 review: Worth the upgrade?
iPhone 4 review: Electricpig staff opinions
iPhone 4 review: Sample photos
iPhone 4 review: Live Q&A
The iPhone 4’s external appearance is more than a reduction of extraneous buttons and a glossy facade though, it’s a technical feat of engineering too. By replacing the front and back panel with a single sheet of glass, which runs all the way to the edge of the handset, Apple has lost almost all of its front and back mounting points.
As a result everything sits inside the iPhone, connected to that metal band, rather than slung from the front, back and sides. It’s the key to its aesthetic, and the anchor holding the whole thing together.
But there’s a problem. That metal band around the outside isn’t just decorative and structural, it pulls double duty as the iPhone 4’s antenna, forming its 3G, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi aerial. The different antennas are separated by black notches in the otherwise unbroken silver border.
Much has been made of its cleverness of Apple designer Jonathan Ive’s multi-purpose design, but it does harbour a flaw. Should your hand bridge the two sections of the shell/antenna in the lower left, it’s possible that the signal will drop. Apple’s official advice has, so far, been to “hold the phone differently” and while at first glance that might seem trite, it’s a bit of advice that’s worth heeding.
We had to force ourselves to hold the iPhone 4 in a way that significantly hindered its reception. Holding the phone while on a call yielded almost no obvious degradation in signal strength. The flaw is most apparent when browsing the web, since you’re more likely to cradle the phone by its base.
Much has been made of the iPhone 4’s antenna issues in online debates, but we’re yet to have a single call drop, or lose signal at all without actively attempting to bridge the two antennas. It seems, for the most part, that using the phone as you normally would yields great performance.
What’s less impressive are the minor points of the iPhone 4’s construction. To save space, Apple has used new Micro SIM cards, which shave roughly a third off the size of a current SIM. They’re tiny, and at present, remarkably rare. Even if you buy a completely unlocked iPhone 4 from Apple, you might struggle to find a SIM card from the network of your choice: T-Mobile, for instance, don’t sell them at all.
Likewise, the iPhone 4’s speakers are just as tiny, and tinny, as before. Sure, they’re a marked improvement on the original iPhone, but where the 3G and 3GS offered up improved audio, their placement at the bottom of the phone, and inclusion of just one speaker, means it’s still infuriatingly quiet at times, with calls easy to miss if it’s nestled in a jacket pocket.
There are numerous strokes of genius in the iPhone 4’s construction though. The front facing camera is ideally placed, and seamlessly integrated into the glass frontage. The new volume buttons and silent switch are reassuringly clunky, as is the sleep/wake button up top. The old reliable Home button is just as much a peach as it always was, neatly recessed to accommodate your thumb without a second thought.
If you can overlook the foibles, and in our opinion you really should, the iPhone 4 represents a monumental leap in mobile design. It’s innovative, smart, and has looks good enough to stop traffic.
ReadRead the rest of our iPhone 4 review
iPhone 4 review
iPhone 4 review: Retina Display
iPhone 4 review: HD video and iMovie
iPhone 4 review: Worth the upgrade?
iPhone 4 review: Electricpig staff opinions
iPhone 4 review: Sample photos
iPhone 4 review: Live Q&A
