iPhone 4 – The Review

Transition from Blackberry to iPhone 4

Getting my new iPhone on launch was as painless as I didn’t imagine. I think the most painful thing was waiting for it to launch and leaving the Blackberry team. Arriving at the Apple Store on 5th Avenue around 1:40pm, and seeing the line for the non-preorder made me appreciate waking up early on June 15th to Pre-order mine. A lil lack of sleep paid off. The pre-order line was very short and very organized, both lines were actually. The wait on the Pre-Order line was about 30-40 mins outside, and 10 mins inside to pay and activate your phone. Painless!

After 2+ years of being a Blackberry user, I decided it was time to put it to rest for now and try something new. After a few hours with the iPhone I’ve noticed that it’ll slow me down, and I mean this in a good way. With the Blackberry multitasking is a lot easier and somewhat faster, especially when your hourglass  or clock isn’t spinning and your patience starts  to run short. With the iPhone, things slow down a bit because you have to figure out quick and easy ways to multitask to match the multitasking speed you had with your Blackberry.

Please note that I am not saying the iPhone is SLOW or things take much longer to load or whatnot, it just means that overall, trying to figure things out and being used to a BB makes the iPhone somewhat confusing at first.

Okay so what are the Pros & Cons of the iPhone 4:

Pros:

• Great new look: slimmer, easier to grip and hold, no feel as if it’s going to slide right out your hands.
• Colors/images/display are a lot clearer and sharper. I did notice the difference on some of my new apps recently downloaded compared to the ones I transferred from my iTouch, the apps from my iTouch are a bit blurry and not  as sharp.
• FaceTime is pretty cool, is like having a Skype convo right on your phone. I haven’t quite figured out if FaceTime works with Skype.
• Multitasking feature is a great addition to the iPhone. Coming from a Blackberry I’m still used to my BB ways of going back to previous doings by pressing the clear or back button, with the iPhone you can’t do that, instead you have to use the multitasking option (double clicking the home button) and selecting the app you wish to return to.
• Typing – not being used to a touchscreen keyboard typing on the iPhone felt like a challenge, but after playing around with the settings, I’ve made it work for me and I can say I can type as fast as with a BB.
• Music/movies/phone all in one! This is a huge thing for me, no longer having to carry 2 devices to get me through my day. Now I can have my music, my movies, my phone and much more all in one!
• Clear sound – voice calls sounds are super clear.
• Folders: Something useful in BB, iPhone has folders to group your apps together by their functionality. As of right now I have four folders:
   
  1. Social – any social media applications are in here
     
  2. Lifestyle – Apple store, Amazon, etc…
     
  3. Games (2 folders)
  4. Navigation – Hopstop, Mapquest, etc…

Cons:

• The camera – as of yet I am not impressed with the camera’s resolution. Maybe it was the poor lighting in my home or the fact that it was night, I didn’t quite get the Wow effect from the images I took.  I will give it another shot in the daylight and see if there’s a difference.
• Heavier phone – the new iPhone feels a lot heavier than the old iPhone.
• Signal – I did notice fluctuations in my signal strength. At this I’d have 5 bars and other times right back to 1 or 2 bars.

This is it for now, over the weekend I’m sure I’ll discover more things that I enjoy about the iPhone and some things that I miss from the Blackberry or wish the iPhone had, and I’ll come back and share my tips and tricks for the iPhone4. In the end I have no regrets switching to a new phone, change is definitively good.

Did you get the iPhone 4? Are you planning to get one? What are your thoughts?