Camera Phones

iPhone 4 – Not THE Great Camera Phone, But It Won’t Matter

With great fanfare, Apple announced the latest in the iPhone range of mobile phones, the iPhone 4 and without too much delay it was available to buy.

Despite underestimating the demand for the device, which has been phenomenal, leading to many retailers selling out almost immediately with long delays until new stock will be available in the UK, there is still strong demand from consumers for the handset.

The good news for those loyal fans that have to wait for the iPhone 4 is that the new operating system was made immediately available for owners of previous versions of the phone to upgrade, so although they can not make use of the new hardware features of the iPhone 4they can enjoy some of the software improvements.

But what of those hardware improvements? The iPhone4 is certainly handsomely packaged in a sleek glass housing with a metal band that oozes quality and will hold its own against any other device on the market. The technical specs look good as well and the screen display, although not the largest on the market, provides superb quality and clarity.

There have been unfortunate reports of reception issues, which Apple have attributed to the relocation of the antenna to the bottom of the handset, which means it is obscured when you hold the phone to make a call. Whilst this is a severe limitation to any phone Apple have suggested they can remedy this with a firmware upgrade to the operating software and reception certainly does change depending on your service provider and location as well. It is unlikely that this will put too many people off getting the iPhone 4.

One of the heralded improvements was the addition of a second camera, facing forward, and an improved resolution main camera and flash. The 5 megapixel main camera is fairly standard for smartphones these days, but Apple have made it easy to use, by removing a lot of the options available when you take a picture. There is autofocus and touch focusing where you can select the point the camera will focus on and the iPhone 4 will change settings to suit.

Unfortunately results from pictures taken with the main camera have been poor, with images being very mottled and grainy, particularly in low light. Whilst for a simple snap this may not be a problem, if you were hoping the iPhone 4 would replace your digital camera, you will be disappointed particularly if you like to print or enlarge your photos. Video recording is improved, but still has similar issues of speckling as plagues the still camera.

Will this put you off the iPhone 4? If you area die hard Apple fan then the limitations can be excused by the fact that it is still an improvement to the previous iPhone camera and from the levels of demand already seen, it would seem many share this view.

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