Sprint iPhone 4s 16GB
I have been kind of a phone geek for a while now, it started back when I got my first job in a wireless retail store. Over the years I have had several Sprint smartphones including:
- Palm Treo 650 – Palm OS/Symbian
- Palm TREO 700wx – The first Windows Treo
- Palm Treo 800w – Windows 5.0
- HTC Mogul – Windows 6.1
- HTC Touch Pro – Windows 6.5
- HTC Hero – The first Sprint Android phone, Android 1.6, upgraded to 2.1
- HTC EVO 3D – The first 3D phone, Android 2.3.2
- Apple iPhone 4s 16GB – iOS 5.1
As you can tell, I have had plenty of smartphones. I have actually had many, many more than this since I buy and sell cell phones as a hobby/job, but this is a good list. You can check out my online store at SquawkTalkWireless.com.
I bought my first Android phone at Best Buy several days before the official release date and have been hooked on Android since then. Android never gave me a reason to use the iPhone, but with all the hype and the popularity of the iPhone made me want to know what the big deal was. Since I buy and sell phones as well, I wanted to know my product, so I bought an iPhone 4s to try out.
I am definitely not what you would consider an Apple fanboy. I don’t have a mac, I don’t have an iPod, I have never really used iTunes, and until recently, I never used an iPhone. That being said, I will be as unbiased as possible, here is my review.
Pros
The hardware. I have to be honest, the phone feels great in your hand, the size and weight seem just right. The screen and camera are both great, the buttons are all easy to use, and perhaps an underrated aspect, there is a volume on/off switch. The switch may not seem like a big deal, but once you get use to it, you will miss it. This was actually one of the features I have missed all the way back to my Palm Treo days.
The Call Back Button. When you are talking to someone and drop a call, which I am sure no one ever does, the dial pad comes up on the screen with a green Call Back button. This is a great idea, why don’t all phones have this?
Siri. For those people who use it, this comes in very handy. I personally never used it that much for 2 reasons. 1. I use Google Voice for all my text and calling needs, Siri wouldn’t use Google Voice for either. Siri uses data. I have Sprint, I don’t care how much data I use, but when you are in weak reception areas (which I tend to frequent) this causes issue for Siri. Since I could never seem to get into the habit of using Siri, she quickly became an expensive reason to buy the iPhone 4s over the iPhone 4.
iTunes Sync. There were a couple times where I had either reset my device or switched iPhones and one sync with iTunes brought all my apps, photos, wall papers, etc back to my phone. This is one feature that Android has nothing comparable that I know of, and it’s a great feature.
Cons
The Apps. People are going to go crazy over this, I can feel it right now. Here is the deal, on Android there is a little thing called a Menu button. This button is great for storing settings and features that you want to include in your apps. Simply put, the iPhone doesn’t have a menu button. This means that all the features/settings have to be put on the screen or eliminated. In addition you have your many ads for free apps, and a smaller screen to boot. Many times this means the same apps on the iPhone have less features/options than their Android counterparts. Many apps are harder to use do to the small screen area, and with all the additional clutter, it’s just a mess. On one app I used quite frequent, there were 4 buttons taking up space on the screen + ads. On the apps Android counter part there were no buttons, this became a big deal for me. If you use a lot of Google apps you may find yourself, like I did, using web apps (meaning when you launch the app it actually opens in the browser instead of an actual app), which is less than ideal.
The iOS5 (The Operating System). iOS5 allows for very little customizing, no widgets, and can be clumsy to use. For instance, on my Android device I downloaded GMail, Google RSS, Google+, Google Docs, and Google Voice on my Android phone. I only had to log in one time, the rest of the time I was simply already logged in, no reason to do it twice. On the iPhone when I went into the App store, iCloud, Facetime, iMessage, Contacts, etc, I had to log in every time – even though I was using the same account. I once counted 8 times that I had to log into my Apple account when setting up my phone, a couple times is no big deal, but 8?
Email, Contacts, Calendar sync and GPS. This is actually a pretty big deal. One of the things that effected me more than anything else was the fact that in order to get my email, contacts, and calendar to sync, I had to set up an exchange server on my phone (unless you switch all of your email, etc. to iCloud, which for me wasn’t a good solution). This may or may not seem like a big deal, but to me, I hadn’t used an exchange server since 2008! Unfortunately I found myself using Maps for the first time since 2008 as well. Android has Google Maps installed on every device, in addition you get Google Latitude and Navigation for free. These two apps where not only not on the device, they couldn’t be downloaded either. And, there are no free alternative Navigation apps for the iPhone either. Almost every navigation app is $5+ a month. Trust me, from a guy who travels a lot to places I don’t know, Maps is not the same – nor comparable to any navigation app on the market
Dial pad / Keyboard. From a guy who loves to type Peoples names on the dial pad to get to the contact I want to call, not having this feature was disappointing. This was yet another feature that I have had continually for some time, actually, I have had this feature since 2007 at least. How could this just be absent? (Patents are my best guess.) Another great feature with Android is the ability to download and use different keyboards for your phone. Granted, the iPhone keyboard is very accurate, but I still found it lacking. I personally love Swype, I have become very fast with it and used it with one hand while still holding the phone with one hand. This is nearly/is impossible with the iPhone. Another very popular keyboard for Android is SwiftKey. In addition, voice input is something that’s been standard on virtually all Android keyboards since the beginning, while being a new add-on in iOS5, and it feels like it. The voice input is not on every keyboard and it forces you to push a button after speaking, why? On the iPhone the keyboard does some things real well, but I hope you like it, because it’s your only choice.
There were more things that landed on my annoying list, for example, in Android almost every app has a refresh button, this is not the case in iOS5, and I found myself missing this feature. Apple doesn’t just always work, I had apps freeze and had to reset my phone a couple times. Not as many times as I have on Android, but I did have to do it. In the end, while the phone size was very good, the screen is too small. This needs to be overcome in the next version of the iPhone. It was fine for a while, but I couldn’t use it permanently, the screen is great, but too small.
Over all I did like the iPhone, I used it exclusively for over 2 months. The primary reason I stayed with the iPhone for so long was the hardware aspect of the iPhone, it just seemed great, but I couldn’t overcome the screen being so small. In the end though it really came down to the software, in which Android wins hands down. When I switched back to an Android phone so many things just felt right. The ability to customize the look and feel of the phone including things like the keyboard, widgets, apps, email, contacts, calendar, and GPS became things that I use daily, and it was becoming impracticable to not have them.
There are many people that love and use iPhones and I say great. For me I have to use the tools that fit me best. At this point that is Android. Without being biased or mean towards Apple, their iOS5 really feels like it is several years old. I repeatedly found myself settling for things that I haven’t needed to do for multiple years. After using the advanced technologies for several years, I just couldn’t justify going backwards.
Make sure to sound off in the comments section! I look forward to hearing your thoughts on the Apple iPhone 4s!
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