Let me be clear that...
Let me be clear that I am not a huge Apple guy, I buy what I like and what works. I own a Macbook Pro and an iMac, the decision to buy the iPhone 4 was entirely on my wife who loves her iPhone 3G. I was using a Nokia 2320 (candy bar phone) prior to the iPhone 4.
My wife and I picked up our iPhone 4s last week from Best Buy. The 3+ week lead time from Apple was a bit much so I spent the last two weeks calling around to different stores and finally lucked out.
Having owned the phone for a few days, I can tell you the following things...
** ....Initial Observations.... **
The screen is absolutely beautiful, reception is very good. I live in the Los Angeles area and the reception is definitely improved. As far as the whole "antenna gate" thing that went on.... now that I have one in my hand, I can safely say that it was overblown and possibly a hoax.
I love that I can fit my whole music library on this thing. I use an iPod nano but am slowly using the iPhone instead. The nano has the Nike + iPod sensor but apparently the iPhone 4 does as well. Nice!
Comes with remote headphones, AC adapter, and dock cable. "finger tips" manual for learning how to use your phone was kinda clever.
** ....About the Antenna.... **
Ok, with all the drama in the media about the infamous "antenna gate," I think it is fair to dive right in and give the straight dope from someone who owns one.
Driving home from Best Buy, my wife "gripped" the iPhone 4 all the way home....it never lost signal, this was pre iOS 4.0.1. In our place, we had 5 full bars of signal....after the update it dropped to 3 bars. Basically, everything Apple said the iOS 4.0.1 update would do, it did, and exactly the way Apple described it.
As far as "grip of death," it will drop a bar or two (sometimes 3) if I am literally "choking" the phone. If I touch the little band on the bottom-left, it will drop a bar if I'm already in low signal area but I've not seen it if I am in a 5-bar area.
As an anecdote, my wife called me as she was driving home and talking on her iPhone 4. I was sitting on our couch in the living room and the call dropped. She called me back and said she had full signal, I had 3 bars....this is not new since we have dropped calls in our living room with the iPhone 3G on AT&T's 3G network. However, I decided to see if I could get the call to drop signal.
This I don't mind sharing even though it sounds a little unorthodox.
As an experiment, I took the iPhone 4 into the most isolated place in our home--the bathroom. I gripped/covered the iPhone with the real "grip of death," covering the phone all over, and stood in the bathtub while talking to my wife. I had it up to my ear and only checked the signal every so often. I got the signal down to 1 bar 3G and my wife said she could hear me loud and clear....never dropped or cut out, we were on the phone for another ten minutes until she finally got home. The call never dropped, she sounded perfectly clear, and she said I sounded just fine and couldn't tell where I was or that I was cutting out. We have 3 bars on average in our home, usually that's the most I see.
I was really surprised because of all places, cell reception in our bathroom would have been a surprise since it's the most isolated part of our home.
I'm really impressed how well the iPhone 4 holds signal, especially while gripping the phone. I don't see any real difference using it in a case or not.
By the way.... Touching the spot on the phone with the little black line does NOT drop calls like people are saying it does. Maybe they have bad phones but so far neither of us have been able to drop a call by touching it or by gripping the phone.
** ....Speed + Battery Life + Quality.... **
The phone is very fast....the ability to bring up an App is as fast. We also noticed that after prolonged use of any intensive apps, the phone does get warm. I have been using the iMovie app and because the phone is so fast it actually "renders" the film right on the phone. I was very impressed by that. The battery seems to last 2-3 days of moderate phone and data usage.
Face Time is really nice if you have family and close friends. I called a friend of mine (who got his IPhone 4 at launch) with it and he was showing me around his new place with the camera.
The camera also takes really nice pictures--I was impressed when we got home and pulled them up on our home iMac. They look great, esp. for a camera phone.
** ....Conclusion.... **
Neither of us have had any issues with our phones, and are really enjoying the Facetime feature the most. I do not use mine in a case (commando style) but my wife does, cases are sort of hard to find right now. Apple is going to be sending out free cases (already got my notification) so you save $20-$30 right there.
On the whole, we are both very happy with the iPhone 4. I use mine commando-style (no case) and it sits in a horizontal belt clip. My wife uses a green frog case for hers because we discovered the g
