Apple's iPhone 4: Thoroughly Reviewed
by Brian Klug & Anand Lal Shimpi on June 30, 2010 4:06 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Apple
- iPhone 4
- Gadgets
- Mobile
Incredible Battery Life
I’ve publicly praised Apple for its honesty in reporting battery life over the past couple of years, and the iPhone 4 gives me no reason to stop.
The 4 has an integrated 5.25Whr battery. That’s around 95% of the battery capacity of the HTC EVO 4G, despite having much lower power frequirements. It’s also a 16% increase over the 4.51Whr battery that was in the iPhone 3GS. This means at bare minimum, assuming the iPhone 4 doesn’t draw any more power than the 3GS, we should get 16% more battery life.
In reality, we get much more.
When Apple introduced the iPhone 3G it dropped battery life to a level that we’d been stuck at ever since. The 3GS improved battery life a bit through better CPU power efficiency but you still didn’t have enough juice to get through a day without charging.
The iPhone 4 changes all of that. The combination of a larger battery and a more power efficient SoC results in an incredible amount of battery life.
Our first test is a basic web browsing benchmark. We've scripted almost two dozen webpages to load, pause for 20 seconds, then forward on to the next page. None of the pages use any Flash. This process repeats until the battery is dead. Screen brightness on the iPhones was set to 50% and the screens remained on the whole time.
Battery life improved nearly 38% with the iPhone 4. It's clear that while the A4 improved performance, the real improvement was in battery life. This test has enough idle time where good power management and low idle power can really impact the results. There's simply no other similar smartphone that can touch the 4's battery life.
We then repeated the same test over WiFi instead of 3G:
Apple claims the iPhone 4 will last for up to 10 hours over WiFi, we measured just under that at 9.96 hours. The improvement here is only 12.8%, which tells me that we're nearing the limit of how efficiently Apple can manage power in WiFi mode. There's a wall that we're quickly approaching with this current architecture.
To measure talk time we play MP3s on repeat into the mic of a phone and use it to call the phone being tested. The process continues until the test phone dies. In this case the screen is allowed to go to sleep, as it normally would be if you were talking on the phone:
Apple promised up to 7 hours of 3G talk time with the iPhone 4. We measured 7.47 hours. That's an increase of 54.9% over the iPhone 3GS. While in a phone call the majority of the A4 SoC is powered down, so the efficiency improvements here have to do with how much less power the A4 consumes while off and the new Skyworks 3G modem (the iPhone 3GS used an Infineon modem).
In our iOS 4 review we looked at the impact multitasking had on the iPhone 3GS' web browsing battery life. I ran our 3G web browsing test while playing music through Pandora in the background. I repeated the test with the iPhone 4 for today's article:
We actually see our largest battery life improvement in this test. With a 57.7% increase in battery life over the 3GS, the iPhone 4 is not only more efficient at idle workloads but also when the SoC is constantly busy. The A4 SoC is rumored to be built on a 45nm process compared to the 65nm SoC used in the 3GS. With a moderate increase in clock speed we should be seeing a lot of the power savings that a full node shrink brings to the table.
The battery life offered by the iPhone 4 is spectacular. My iPhone 3GS could hardly get through a full day of work while traveling, I'd always need to hunt for an outlet before heading into my dinner meeting. I'm about to take my first trip with the iPhone 4 but I get the feeling that I might finally be able to make it through dinner.
Early reports of 20 and 30 hours of battery life are simply exaggerated. They're only possible if you let the phone idle in your pocket for the majority of that time. In other words, if you don't use the phone it lasts for a long time. While that's a testament to the platform's incredible idle power, the real world usage is good enough to stand on its own. It's better than any iPhone or Android phone I've tested thus far.
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Thorvald - Wednesday, June 30, 2010 - link
I understand that you aren't trying to stab at iOS4, but some of these really seem to be a stretch. For example, the iPhone 3G is just about two years old. What two-year old Android phone is running the latest OS with full feature parity as brand-new phones?I am quite sure that someone (with more time on their hands than me) could come up with an equally long list of points where Android falls short of iOS4, especially if we are going to be nitpicky about it.
It would be more nice if there were ways to objectively measure quality of user experience. Specific features are something that can be listed, but implementation counts too.
Spoelie - Wednesday, June 30, 2010 - link
You have to understand that that list was NOT originally compiled as a comparison to Android but was the negative part of a "what can you expect with this upgrade" (positives vs negatives) list. The iOS4 upgrade is offered on the 3G and that's why the point has merit: what does the upgrade mean for 3G users?However I concur it can read as a comparison since most of these points are Android features on SOME phones (social networking integration for example is mostly part of the proprietary custom UIs like HTC Sense and TouchWiz and not part of Android itself).
Personally, since I do have an Android phone, it reads more like a "what would I miss if I made the switch" list. But only some of the points.
darwinosx - Wednesday, June 30, 2010 - link
Thats a really idiotic list composed by someone who knows nothing about iPhones.-Anyone who wants flash on a mobile device is not paying attention.
-Comments on IOS4 on the 3G are silly. Especially since Apple says its not supported except on the 3GS and 4. Funny how they don't comment on how many Android phones are still on 1.6 and will never be upgraded including some pretty new phones.
-"True' multi-tasking? I don't think they understand how Android multi-tasking works. It's certainly not "true" multi-tasking as on a desktop os. It's also highly inefficient and a major cause of poor Android phone battery life.
-Android phones have widgets, which are intrusive and resource consuming because the stock Android OS UI is so awful.
-There are plenty of ways to USB mass storage with the iPhone.
-You can mass mark e-mails as read.
-There are plenty of ways to access the file system not that 99% of users will ever want to.
-You don't need vibration feedback when touching the screen because the iPhone screen, unlike many Android phones, actually reacts easily to touch.
-You can do bluetooth file transfers.
-SMS/MMS has multiple delivery notifications.
-I play Xvid and Divx all the time and there are multiple third party apps for that.
-You can add to the iPhone from other apps including Double Twist and others.
Truly an idiotic list.
bplewis24 - Wednesday, June 30, 2010 - link
Whether or not the list is idiotic, you just solidified your own standing with this post. I'm not sure why I even bothered posting to such an idiotic retort.Brandon
mesiah - Thursday, July 1, 2010 - link
lmao, not to sound like an android fanboy, or even an apple.... haterboy (hmmm new term there.) But your reasoning for alot of those missing features just further backs up the apple fan stereo type.Any time an apple device lacks a feature its because "That feature is not needed.' "That feature is useless." or how about "Anyone who wants ___ isn't paying attention."
But when the next gen phone comes out, and it finally does have those features. You know, the ones everyone else already had and you said you didn't need. You know, like... a camera. You then talk about how your new feature reinvents the phone its self. How "no one has ever done it like apple did."
Seriously, its pathetic. I know every phone out there has flaws. I also know there are plenty of things apple gets right with the iphone. I will even go as far to admit that smart phones wouldn't be where they are today if it weren't for the iphone. But you people need to admit when you are missing features you should obviously have simply because the all knowing Steve doesn't think you need them. But then again, coming from a company that can admit no wrong, even when their products have a serious design flaw such as the new antenna issue, I can't really expect the followers to act any differently than the ceo.
"If you want flash you aren't paying attention. If your reception went through the basement you don't know how to hold a phone. And if the AT&T network sucks its because you and all the other people are actually trying to use it."
strikeback03 - Thursday, July 1, 2010 - link
One of my friends on facebook posted a screenshot of one of iOS4's great new features......you can change your wallpaper. Really?
bregalad - Wednesday, June 30, 2010 - link
-There are two main reasons to keep Flash off mobile devices: battery life and mouse-overs, a commonly used Flash feature that doesn't work on a touch OS. Given the choice between incomplete support for a resource intensive plug-in and all-day usefulness I'll take that all-day battery life.-Multitasking approaches still up for debate
-iOS 4 runs slowly and lacks features on older hardware - agreed, but does Android do any better? Does your carrier even allow you to upgrade your OS or do you have to get a new phone?
-Given how much battery life iOS 4 stole from me I really wish there were quick toggles
-I don't live in any social network. I rarely even launch the facebook app.
-Something akin to home screen widgets would be very nice
-Every iPhone and iPod touch has the same sounds, it's terrible in an office with lots of them.
-Agreed on the mass marking as read
-Access to the file system is another thing Apple is philosophically opposed to. The iPhone is supposed to be an appliance not a computer.
-Early iPods had disk mode which was very useful. I wish Apple wouldn't be so inflexible.
-You want tactile feedback and all day battery life? Maybe next decade.
-File transfers assumes you have access to the file system and aren't trying to transfer DRM'd files. Not going to happen.
-I don't know about you, but I've never needed to mass delete contacts from any phone or computer. Do you suffer from multiple personality disorder?
-Better notifications of all types would be welcome.
-Smart dialling would be a good feature addition
-An app whose sole purpose is to play "illegally" downloaded files. Yeah, Steve's going to approve that one 'real soon now'.
-The dependency on iTunes is a philosophical one. Steve believes your computer is your digital hub, that it contains the master copy of all your stuff. By definition your phone, with its limited storage capacity, contains a subset of that data. I think that makes sense for the vast majority of the public. You're a niche Apple doesn't want to deal with.
Griswold - Wednesday, June 30, 2010 - link
Must be nonsenseday today.And before you say it, yes I got a 3G and I will replace it with a i4 when they're available around here instead of an android phone as I originally planned, but for other reasons than the fictional ones you just stated.
Bateluer - Wednesday, June 30, 2010 - link
Agreed, there are several Android phones that are out now that offer parity with the iPhone 4, and several within 2 months of release that will handily surpass it.As usual, Anand's reviews were very well written and detailed, but I'll still pit my year old Moto Droid against any iPhone product. :p
JAS - Wednesday, June 30, 2010 - link
As Anand pointed out in his review, the Google/Android operating system feels more like using a computer; and the iPhone (iOS 4) operating system feels more like an appliance. The Android OS is apt to appeal more to the geek than to the "normal mainstream consumer," just as Microsoft Windows is a favorite of people who like to tinker with their computers.For better or worse -- each person has to make their own judgment -- Apple's products are defined as much by features that are purposefully withheld as by the cool innovations that are added.