The Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg is out with his review of Apple’s iPhone 4 and in a nutshell he’s upbeat about the device, which remains best in class. The big problem: The iPhone is on AT&T’s network.
Simply put, Mossberg throws AT&T under the bus (WSJ version). He hugs the iPhone, loves the design, talks about elegance and functionality. And then opens fire on AT&T.
Mossberg argues that iPhone desperately needs a second network in the U.S. Here’s a key excerpt in the long review:
Both Apple and AT&T told me they worked to make the iPhone 4 do a better job with AT&T’s network. For example, the phone itself is surrounded by a prominent stainless-steel trim piece that acts as a large antenna. And Apple said it also tuned the phone to try to grab whatever band on the network was less congested or less affected by interference—to stress the quality of a signal over its raw strength. AT&T said it, too, made some changes to its network with the new iPhone in mind.
But, in my tests, network reception was a mixed bag.
In a nutshell, the iPhone 4 has better connectivity—calls are louder and clearer. But AT&T still drops calls and has no signal in some areas.
Apple said there’s a bug that has to do with the way the bars are shown. So AT&T may have appeared to have no service, but it really did. The takeaway: Apple’s iPhone 4 is a sweet smartphone—still shackled to AT&T.
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Other reviews that all fall on the glowing side:
And the video:
- Engadget’s iPhone 4 review
- NYT: New iPhone Arrives, Rivals Beware
- USA Today: Apple makes all the right calls on iPhone 4
And the USA Today video:
