Decent, With a Few Flaws, November 23, 2011

Having the 4S for over a month now, I've decided to write down my opinions of the phone. Starting off, when I first got the phone, I was very skeptical because when I had read the new advancements and features of the phone, they didn't sound too amazing to me. The first few days I had it, I was switching from my iPhone 4 and 4S. Then things started to stand out more.

Pros:

-It's sleek solid build of the phone.

-The A5 chip processor that is claimed to be twice the iPhone 4′s speed is amazingly fast and for a heavy data user, it is very appealing.

-The 8MP camera. The new camera with much more editing features takes pictures with amazing precision. A few times I would just use my phone over my other digital cameras/camcorders.

-Siri. As a heavy traveler, Siri has helped me with so many things. I've used Siri to schedule appointments, ask stupid questions, answer text messages/emails, and ask it to use the GPS to find places and help with the routes. The problem with Siri is that when in crowded places, the microphone picks up way too much of the excess noise around you and is not functional.

Cons:

-Battery life. The battery on the 4S is horrible! I'm a heavy user so I can only get about half a day of battery time with my phone. I have resorted to external battery cases, but the bulkiness of the case is overwhelming and sometimes I feel like I have a rock in my pocket. When my phone is on standby it seems to drain just as fast as it would when I'm using it. A few times it seemed as if it was losing almost 5% of battery life every 10 minutes!

-Freezing. For some reason my 4S tends to freeze a lot. Now rebooting it may only take a few quick minutes and not be a bother to some, but sometimes the freezing lasts more than an hour! It may be just my model of the phone, but I'm not too sure on that matter.

Conclusion:

Now, the iPhone 4S is a decent phone, but in my opinion, it's overrated. The retail price I bought it for was around 0. 0 for this phone is outrageous. The prices seem to be dropping, but if I had had the experience with the phone before I had bought it, I would not have bought the phone for any more than 0. I tried to compare the 4S with a few of my androids, but the two phones are just too different. If I had to choose between an android and a iPhone 4S, then I would probably go with the android since an android is just as fast maybe even faster, and I the price range is about 0-0. Now, if you own an iPhone 3gs or lower and want to upgrade to an iPhone 4S, this is the phone for you. iPhone 4 users, it's your choice. For serious phone users you may need the extra speed this phone gives. For people who aren't so serious, the 4S is there but does not exactly stand as your top priorities.

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Buggy!!!, December 29, 2011

By 

Eddie Landsberg "My 10th year as a reviewer !… (Tokyo, Japan) – See all my reviews

  

  

Very upset… Was doing well with my iPhone4 — but when I heard the latest was out, just had to get it.
iPhone 4s (which I use here in Japan via SOFTBANK) turns out to be hit and miss…
meaning, some have got bugs, while others don't.
In the case of my particular iPhone there's…
–> a worse battery drain than the iPhone 4. (irresolvable to date, but not so bad when I use an extra battery pack.)
–> Audio lost on outgoing calls… Had to go into the Apple store… unit replaced with also had the bug — but luckily I tested it before I left the store.

There's also a STUPIDLY engineered fix to the battery drain bug that requires manually shutting down APPS after you've closed them… As with many
bugs, when you ask reps about it, they giggle and say, "I know, we're working on it!"
In fact, with every recent bug (including the infamous iTunes Password Loop disaster) that's how they answer things — they giggle and say they're working on it.
The way to save some extra battery time is double click the home button, hold down the apps until you get a minus sign, then close down all the ones running
in the background. Also, if you tweet a lot you BETTER have a battery back up.

Also frustrated — had to spend almost 2 hours on the phone with an Apple rep to determine that it was a hardware, not software issue and the rep on the
phone had me restoring and backing up the unit dozens of times to the point I was almost shaking.

That said, the camera is AWESOME, I really mean it!!! I'm not a professional photographer of course, but as a person who blogs and tweets a lot, I find the
quality of the photos very vivid and natural, even at night without the flash — SiRI is funny, and iPhone is with me every minute of my life.

Unfortunately, one of the reasons I switched from WINDOWS to APPLE was becasue of Apple's reputation for putting out products that are well designed, well engineered
and that work… Post Steve Jobs APPLE to me, is like downgrading from TIGER to WINDOWS 97…
If the iPhone were a FREE piece of BETA software the various bugs (some which I haven't experienced) would be excusable, but this is a pricy product rushed to market.

As things stand, my phone is currently stable — and I like it, but when iPhone5 or whatever it'll be called comes out, I definitely won't be as likely to get it… at least not until its
been out long enough to see what the bugs are.

As for iCloud — its great to be able to have access to more stuff that's on my computer wherever I go, but then I remember the PASSWORD bug apple had and previously MOBILE ME
mail outage which they said would be resolved once iCloud was out… With this poor attitude, I'm not sure if I can really trust APPLE to serve as my cloud server.

In conclusion… The iPhone is a nifty device… They also seem to have improved the screen (it seems a lot less smudgy) – however, it might be worth getting the iPhone4 instead unless you're SURE that
you'll be able to deal with potential problems if you get them, or wait for the 5 and see if they get their act together. On the other hand, you might be lucky and get a unit that runs perfectly swell…
take your gamble.

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Stunned, November 28, 2011

By 

Thomas L. Laws "Webspinner" (Michigan) – See all my reviews

  

The iPhone is simply stunning in design. I'm grateful to have not been one of the engineers on this as must have required millions of hours to invent. I've had my 16Gb unit for a month now and haven't ever had a dropped call. Battery life (I haven't applied the software battery life upgrade yet) is fine. I still have about 66% battery at night when I plug it in. I'm not a "power talker" but do use the Ipod player extensively. I can't help wonder if the people complaining of battery issues are a small minority of constant yackers that one sees at every red light? If so, smart phones use more power than non-smart phones just by virtue of the big CPU and display.

My only regret is not buying an iPhone 4 years ago.

Only caviote; The phone does so much that I'm constantly going to youtube or google and inquiring about how to do this or that. A lot to learn but so was MSDOS and Windows back in the day.

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