6/11/11 I'm on my second week of OS 5, and this should effectively kill all the silly complaining by Droid fanboys. A night and day improvement, and not much need to jailbreak your phone anymore. All the details are on Apple's website, and according to most sources this new OS will be available to the general public this fall.
Below is my original review:
I had the 8GB 3G model and thought that was great, until I got a demo of the iPhone 4. Man is this version is light years ahead of the original model.
With a 1Ghz CPU, and 16GB of flash memory, this thing is a portable office/entertainment center par excellence. I've had this phone for 3 months without a single problem, the display is nice and sharp, the apps load very fast, and I now have over 130 apps to perform just about every duty you could possibly think of with absolutely no impact on performance. And on the ATT 3G network, I average download speeds of around 1.8Mbps, and over 1M upload speeds....and how do I know that, cause I got an app that tells me that's how. BTW, the display is the equivalent of a 960x640 on your desktop so what you see is essentially a high res yield and page loads are superfast. And resident memory, after a full days use I just checked and still had 120Mb of Ram available. On the 3G model that number was usually down around 4Mb by the end of the work day and had to be refreshed.
Even the battery life is 3x better than the previous model, and thats a good thing cause its integrated but a full charge should yield and entire days work of calls, emails, surfing the web, SMS messaging, and play. I no longer need my laptop cause there's nothing I cant do with the iPhone, and that includes sending faxes, editing Excel or Word documents, and even printing. A flash for the 5MP camera, two(2) HD video cameras, and even real time video conferencing over a wireless network, and Bluetooth that unlike the 3G model is actually compatible with everything you throw at it, including Garmin GPS....just amazing. This thing even has 2 mics with noise suppression so calls are clearer on the other end. Man, Apple hit this one out of the park.
BTW, with all the apps, music, and videos I've got loaded on this thing I've still got 10GB of flash memory remaining. I cant imagine why anybody would need more storage, and the 32GB model isn't any faster and doesn't have any more features. You'll need iTunes on your desktop to get the most out of this phone and iTunes can be a little intimidating at first but its worth the trouble, and all the instruction you need can be found on the web or Youtube for transferring photos, videos, music, apps, etc.
Update 12/09/10: I've been reading up on the "antenna problem" with the iPhone 4 and have this to say..... It is easily cured by slapping on a hard case or shell on the phone, which eliminates the issue I see some people complaining about. I have personally never experienced this issue because I left the AT&T store with a protective shell on my phone which virtually everybody I've ever seen with an iPhone has anyway. Very simply you CANNOT replicate the reported "death grip" problem with a shell around the outer frame. Cant be done. And BTW, I don't know if its due to network improvements or what but lately I'm getting 4Mbps download speeds so if anything I'm happier with my purchase now than I was 4 months ago but I live in Florida and cell sites are plenty down here, if you live in California or New York you may not be so fortunate. Zero complaints, and that's something most smartphone users of other OEM products can't say.
Also, amongst the disinformation you'll read about the iPhone here on Amazon one guy states "the screen is easily scratched and the back is easily shatterable." Utter nonsense. First of all, ALL cell phones are "shatterable", and the iPhone screen is made from Gorilla Glass, a proprietary Corning product that quite simply does not scratch. You can read up on this on the web but after a while you will feel comfortable dropping your phone in your pocket or purse with your keys, power tools, pistols, whatever. I've dropped my phone a couple of times and it has not shattered and the screen is still perfect after 4-5 hours of use per day.
I caution you to beware negative reviews on here that are filled with bad English and are authored by individuals who have written only one review (on the iPhone) and posted it in several locations on Amazon's site. Its easy to pick these out, and many have no doubt been written by the same person.
And finally, the Wall Street Journal did an article on the iPhone 4 recently that concluded the following 1) AT&T network is 46% faster than Verizon for iPhone users, 2) many reported problems with poor service and dropped calls are an AT&T network problem, and not associated with the iPhone, and 3) call quality is better on Verizon's network vs. AT&T. There are pros and cons to both carriers but bottom line is.....IT AIN'T THE PHONE! I've posted a link to the article under "Comments." Also a definitive technical review by Anandtech.com is posted there, and yes they cover the much overblown "antenna issue."
Oh wait, about 2-3 times a month my girlfriend gets mad at me and hangs up in the middle of a conversation, so I guess I am suffering from the dreaded dropped call after all. haw haw