I was ready for my upgrade and was anxiously awaiting the new Apple event to see what was in store for the next Iphone. I bought my Iphone 3GS a little over a year and half ago end of December in 2009. The Iphone launched around summer of 2009 so right now my 3GS was 2 years old. That is alot in cell phone years for a gadget geek like me. I have been with AT&T for 8 years now in fact they were still Cingular back then. I have owned about 4-5 cell phones in my time. I first started with an old Nokia, followed by Sony Ericsson, then and HTC windows mobile touch screen before anyone heard of HTC. It was a great phone and my first smart phone. I fell in love and was totally against Apple products due to two factors back in 2009. One was no flash support which I thought I needed and second I couldn't tether. With a little research I found that those things were possible with a jailbroken phone so I convinced myself and purchased the Iphone 3GS. I instantly fell in love and my friends poke fun at me that I never put it down.
People often ask me, what is a smart phone?? Besides giving the "smart ass" answer and saying its a phone that is smart. A smartphone is a phone that combines PDA and mobile phones as one. In other words it allows you to check your email, text, call people, has GPS, WIFI and etc. I told people about 3 years ago that every phone will be a smartphone and most likely a touch screen. That dream hasn't totally come true yet but as you can see it is pretty damn close. So back to my story, I woke up because I sleep during the day and watched the Apple meeting about the Iphone 4S. I was excited about many of the features and I was a little disappointed too that it wasn't a redesign and slightly bigger screen. I go back and forth in my mind for a day if I should wait and get an Android smartphone or purchase this phone. I weigh in that many of the music and apps I have already bought and love, will automatically be allowed to be used on the Iphone 4S so I decide to go for it. I purchased it at 3AM EST when it was launched and received my Iphone 4S last Friday. I was excited to see that AT&T said I could keep my unlimited data. Although in all honesty 2GB plan they offer is more than enough for me. I have played with it enough for a 3-5 days and I have decided to share my findings with you all. I have seen Android phones and have played with them but have never owned one but I promise to be as unbiased as possible. I would be lying if I didn't say I have been a very happy customer of Apple and I find most people are that passionate about their products once they own them. Onto the review.
The Phone Itself:
The design of the phone is exactly the same of the Iphone 4. It is thin, I wouldn't say the thinnest phone ever but is a very sleek design and feels light in the hand. I have the 64GB version and I find it still very light. The processor is dual core A5 which basically means it is twice the speed of the Iphone 4. I have seen them load up side by side different apps and its only a few split seconds faster than the Iphone 4. Over my 3GS it is super fast and I am still not used to it and I am blown away from the speed. I can be on WIFI or 3G around town and load up a youtube video and it will start almost instantly. This is because one of the advantages over the Iphone 4 is instead of 7.2Mb this one is 14MB HSPA+. How it runs on Verizon and Sprint I cannot speak for them but I am sure it runs very fast as well. I actually saw a video of someone loading up a webpage on all three networks with the Iphone 4S's and Sprints was horrendously slow. Verizon won over AT&T for a split second. That video was done on release day so I am sure Sprint's network has recovered since then. Another reason the videos/apps load so fast is the upgraded video processor allows the phone to load things super fast. The iOS 5 is a great improvement over the previous operating system and has over 200 new features. When I upgraded my 3GS phone to 5.0 for a few days I felt like I had a brand new phone!!
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| Speeds for you Geeks |
One of the advantages Apple has currently over Android is their Itunes markets. You can literally look for any song, album you want the day it comes out and download it right to your phone. Android has launched a music service but they do not have the part where you can buy music. This may change in the future and real soon but as I am writing this now they cannot. This will now be backed up in the iCloud and can be played on any iOS device. I haven't experimented with this too much and I believe that will be launching soon called Itunes Match. Any song/album you buy from Itunes will be backed up in the iCloud for free to be played. They have a really nice E-Book reader app called iBooks and you can purchase any book you want from their store or you can download and sync your own. Apple does a great job dealing with all of the greedy book and music publishers, in order to provide its users with the vast majority of selections.
Another advantage over Android phones is Apple designs the phones and the OS. As of right now Google develops the Android OS and several phone makers design the phones. Apple has the advantage of knowing the complete design of the phone and can code it to the best of its ability. In easier terms, the OS runs very smooth, fast and efficient. Android phones run fast too, some of them are 1.2GHz dual core and I haven't seen speed tests out yet but I would bet the Iphone 4S being 800mhz would run very comparable in speed to those devices even having the smaller processor. In return this allows more battery life and fun for all.
Screen: Now the iphone 4S sticks with the same size 3.5 inch screen that was in the Iphone 4 housing. This is their famous retina display with has approximately ~330 pixels per inch. The newer phones that are out may have a bigger screen but actually have less pixels so don't be deceived by the smaller screen. Would I have liked a 4 inch screen? Yes but its not what we get this time around.
Operating System: The new iOS 5 update runs nice and smooth. It allowed many new features like wifi sync, backup your phone to the cloud including your documents, pics, contacts, email, etc. This is a great free feature. It also allows for twitter integration so when you are in your pictures you can just click the arrow and upload right to twitter and you never have to login in multiple places. Finally with the new iOS5 we have the notifications tab. This displays your stock info and your weather plus any notifications you have gotten. When you are in a game the text message or notification shows up at the top and not over your entire screen then after like 5-7 seconds, disappears. If you click on it, it will go to it if you want to text back. Many, many more features but you can find em out yourself. It is still not perfect to my liking but that is another story LOL.
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| Main Home Screen |
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| New Notification Screen |
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| Notification of an email when in an App |
Call Quality: AT&T and Apple have had lots of complaints in the past. AT&T has fixed their network a long time ago. Apple also fixed their exaggerated antenna problem. I know plenty of people who had an original iphone 4 and had no dropped call issues. Apple used a different antenna in the Iphone 4 Verizon style and they are using the new antenna in this phone as well. In other words, no more antennagate. I have talked on the phone a few times and the call quality is amazing. It is nice and loud and clear due to the new speakers and new two way mic. The mic is a two way and actually cancels any background noise, for the calls and of course for Siri, your very own personal assistant.
Camera: The camera is made by Sony and it is a whopping 8 megapixels. It has an LED flash and takes great pictures even in the dark. This camera is as good as many of the point and shoots you buy at the store. It is very user friendly as well. A camera is only as good as the camera but the software of the OS can make it even better. With the new OS you can now take a pic by hitting the volume up key. It has autofocus and even centers the picture for you when you are having people in the picture. You can even crop right from the picture app in the OS. The video is where it really shines. It is a full 1080p and uses the gyroscope to stabilize the picture so hopefully your video won't be all jumpy. This is a nice feature and can be often overlooked. There is also a front facing camera, which is lesser quality but looks good for video conferencing. With FaceTime, you can live video chat just like Skype with anyone who has an iOS device, assuming they have a front facing camera. See the sample screenshots that I have taken with my camera below.
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| A Siko In The Dark |
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| Overcast Day While Driving Through My Windshield |
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| Killer Kitty |
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| Closeup of a magnet |
Sound: If you are like me then you like to stream music. I love using TuneIn Radio app to listen to lazer 99.3 or IHeartRadio and listen to the Top 40 with Ryan Seacrest. The sound quality is very nice. It comes out loud and clear. I can't say how it compares the iphone 4 but I can tell you is way better than the 3GS.
Apps: One of the advantage of Apple is they have so many devices out there that developers will develop their apps first for them to reach the majority of the users. In fact some games never are ported to Android. One awesome game that never made it to Android is Infinity Blade. This game is made by Epic who makes Gears of War series. Infinity Blade II is set to be released on December 1st. They claim with the 4S it will have fish swimming in water and much more detail. This brings me to another advantage Apple has over Android. With Android there are so many phones with different hardware, also there are multiple versions of the OS. We got Android 2.3.1, then we got Honey Comb 3.0, android 2.2 etc. Android is a very nice OS and they do some things better than Apple. One bad thing I see about it is that I know people who have bought a phone and never get a single update for the OS which is due to phone manufacturer moving onto a more expensive phone or the carrier never testing the update. Why is this a problem? Because you are waiting to use the kindle app, or some new app and low and behold it says you need the newest version of Android but it is not available for your phone. Game developers aren't going to develop their game 3 different ways for the 3 different versions of Android out. That is the main reason why Infinity Blade was never out for Android. With Apple the same OS update is for the Ipad 1, 2, Apple 3GS, Ipods and Iphone 4 and 4S. With the life of your phone you will see at least one major iOS update and that makes the consumer happy. Your year old phone gets a nice software update for free, with new features and it feels like a new phone. Now for all you Android fans, I am not saying that every Android phone doesn't get software updates, some of them do but for the low end phones, it is very unlikely. I have enclosed a screen shot of the game Infinity Blade.
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| iBooks Ebook Reader |
Battery: The battery life seems to be about the same as the Iphone 4. For people who have never used a smartphone before. They simply don't go for days without charging, you need to charge it every night. You have been warned LOL. The battery life lasts long enough to get you throughout your day. Use a car charger in your car if you need one. Please don't spend $35 dollars on the Apple car charger. Go to amazon.com and get a cheapie for 5 bux LOL.
Siri: Siri is your personal assistant. This is still in beta and only available on the Iphone 4S. You simply tap the home button twice and the mic pops up and you speak what you want to it. It will call a friend, answer your question, read your messages and has full voice dictation which is included any app where a keyboard pops up. Imagine just doing your grocery list by just speaking into your phone. It is now possible with the iphone 4S. I have used many voice translations and this one is spot on. It rarely miss spells any words I speak and if it does just simply click the word and other choices pop up. This opens up a brand new world of voice dictation. Imagine if they put it on Apple TV or use this on your dvr someday. You just simply yell out, Play ESPN or Record the newest episode of Walking Dead and it is done. That day has not come but we can all dream can't we? I have enclosed some screenshots of Siri below. You can spend a long time talking to your phone seeing what funny replies it sends back.
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| Siri Knows Who MC Hammer Is |
Wrap Up: I highly recommend the Iphone 4S and the apple phones. I have never heard of anyone who has gotten an Apple product and were not happy with their product. Is this worth and upgrade from the iphone4, probably not, unless you are a die hard fan. Rumors are already starting about iphone 5 next summer so I say hold out if you have an Iphone 4. I wrote this review to help people in choosing a phone and letting you know this is a great user friendly phone. There are many different flavors, you can get the 3GS for free with 2 year contract on AT&T. Iphone 4 8gb for 99 bux which is a great deal. Iphone 4S comes in 16GB 199, 32GB 299 and 64 GB 399, available in white and black. I recommend the 32GB version if you are a music junkie like me. I encourage you all when purchasing your phone to play around with Android and with the Iphone and see what best suits you. My friend is up for contract and will be purchasing a new Android phone on Verizon so maybe if I bug him enough we can get a nice review of an Android phone!
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