IPhone 4: the Ars Technica review | Hacker News Reader

IPhone 4: the Ars Technica review

arstechnica.com

72 pointssoundsop17 comments

The performance gap in the Mozilla SunSpider test is much smaller [last page]

Wait wait wait... How'd they derive that SunSpider is a Mozilla test when it's hosted on webkit.org?

The browser technology scene is a bewildering menagerie of spiders, monkeys, squirrels, fish, and mythical birds, so a little confusion is understandable.

And lets not forget smallish, elemental animals and zillas which, despite their name, do not have a bowl-cut.

Yeah, the Mozilla test is Dromaeo (although you can use the Dromaeo test page to run Dromaeo+SunSpider+V8).

http://dromaeo.com/

Their first portrait photo comparison between the iPhone generations is completely invalidated by the fact that only the 3g is using a tolerable white balance:

http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2010/06/iphone-4.ars/4

I was surprised many of their photos seem to show the 3g better than the 3gs. Is this something they could fix in their evaluation photo technique, or inherently an advantage of the 3g?

in the few comparisons I remember studying closely the 3GS pics were always better than the 3G pics (the 4 shown clockwise from top-left ones) -- are we just thinking of different sets?

On p. 4 and p. 5 of the review, the 3g pics (top-left of a 4-set, or leftmost of the 3 magnified) look at least as good to me, if not better, than the 3gs pics (top-right-of-4; middle-of-three).

(The 3g pic on p.4 seems a bit orange compared to all others -- but I don't know the subject's real complexion, and that's why I asked my question of baddox. Is this an inherent skew of the 3g or an artifact of their technique? Except for the color-difference in that set, the 3g photo has as much or more definition/contrast.)

The communications-psychologist in me found this observation about FaceTime interesting (the author seemed to warm to FT as he spent time with it, even to the point of productive "meetings"):

>You almost feel as if you need to talk about something substantial when you're looking at the person.

Anyone found some good reviews comparing the IPhone 4 and the google nexus/htc desire? I was going to get the Htc Desire but hesitated when I saw the IPhone 4 screenresolution. Any thoughts?

Here's a comparison of Retina and Samsung Galaxy S screen: http://www.engadget.com/2010/06/24/iphone-4-retina-display-v...

The Nexus is somewhat last-generation at this point (as odd as that is for a new device). It's all about IPS or Super AMOLED displays now. I'll being going Super AMOLED myself, but only for the software that comes on it.

>It's all about IPS or Super AMOLED displays now.

Pretty bizarre way to differentiate generations.

I'm amazed that in none of the reviews I've read is there any complaint about the horrible sound quality. I bought a pair of iPhone 4s for myself and my girlfriend and we returned them the next day. We each sounded to the other like we were in a cave. This is with full 3G signal strength on both ends.

It's surprising because the 3GS and 2G always sound great. Never any hint of this hollow, echoey sound.

Were you in the same room? I found mine to do some weird stuff when two phones could hear one another, probably due to the new noise canceling stuff.

Nope, we were 7 miles apart.

most useful review i've seen yet

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