IPHONE 4 REVIEW

Scratch-proof?: The glass in the back is ultra-resistant. It is comparable in hardness to Sapphire, which is so hard that it's practically impossible to scratch it. After months of use, the back of the phone should look a whole lot better than the plastic body of the 3GS. This should help the device retain a high resale value. Now this (almost) scratch-proof surface comes with one weakness: it is brittle. Yes, if you drop it (a couple of times), it will probably crack... so don't.

Feels good: The body of the iPhone 4 is very thin, much thinner than the iPhone 3GS, which was already considered to be very slim. At first, it's a little weird because despite the smaller volume, the weight stays the same. The iPhone 4 feels incredibly dense and solid. I got used to it after a few hours. The good news is that even with a case on, it should stay very compact.

New hardware platform: The iPhone 4 comes with Apple's A4 processor, as found on the iPad and it also packs 512MB of memory, which is twice as much as the iPhone 3GS. The additional memory is probably most useful to accommodate the new multi-task capabilities of the iPhone 4, but it might also bring some added performance to the system. The A4 processor should also be faster than its predecessor (the phone does feel faster) but speed was usually not a real issue on the 3GS, so the difference is not eye-popping.

Bumper: To alleviate shocks when the phone gets dropped, Apple has invented the "bumper", a plastic piece that goes all around the phone. It comes in different colors (orange, blue, pink, green, white, black). I have played with the black bumper, and I sure wish that I won't have to use it. It is probably efficient at what its doing, but it hides the steel band, which is one of the best feature of the phone, I think. Also, the metals feels much better than the Bumper's plastic.

High-resolution: The Retina display is one of the major improvements of the iPhone 4 design. With 960x640 pixels, it has a higher resolution than competitors (800x480) which is great because higher resolution directly impacts the usability of every text-based application (web, email, eBooks...), and the quality of video playback (details...). In practical terms, the Retina Display brings a slightly better user experience than 800x480 displays, especially when there is small text involved. The jump forward from the iPhone 3GS is simply gigantic, also because the 3GS was a little bit short in pixels.

Wireless reception & "death grip": Given the recent antenna problems that we've covered all too often, this is a sticky point. To make things clear: the iPhone 4 has *two issues* in regards to reception:

1/When the user grabs the phone, the human body effectively connects the two antennas (wifi & 3G), which impacts the reception quality (a.k.a "death grip"). For iPhone 4s already in the wild, this can by avoided only by using a case/bumper, applying a non-conductive material or by holding it differently... (scream now). How could Apple not realize what was going on? Maybe because the company tests its products with a case... Still, this seems silly that it wasn't caught during the design process.

2/The method used to display the reception "bars" has been "completely wrong" according to Apple itself. Problem #2 compounds with problem #1 because it makes the signal reduction even more dramatic, but at least, there's a software fix coming for #2. Update 7/16/2010: This has been fixed by iOS 4.0.1