“Yes, it’s finally here. After almost four years of endless gossip, analyst forecasts, and so-called leaks, the Verizon iPhone is a reality,” Kent German reports for CNET Reviews.
“Verizon’s iPhone bears all the familiar Apple-style trademarks. It’s the same size and weight (4.5 inches tall by 2.3 inches wide by 0.37 inch deep; 4.8 ounces), it has nearly identical external features, and you’ll find that gorgeous Retina Display,” German reports. “We’re still not fans of the sharp edges and glass back, but there’s no denying that the iPhone 4 remains an eye-catching device.”
MacDailyNews Take: iPhone 4 feels like a precision instrument. CNET is used to plastic-covered devices.
German continues, “Performance was better in most regards… The Verizon iPhone 4 has much in common with its AT&T counterpart, but varying features and different performance give it enough room to stand apart. It won’t vastly change your iPhone experience, but we welcome the consumer choice that it brings.”
Read more in the full review here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
CNET regurgitating its review of the AT&T iPhone 4 and spewing the same vomit on the Verizon iPhone 4 review.
If anyone actually believed that the Apple would allow the Verizon iPhone to be ANY different than the one on AT&T (or any other carrier of the world), he has no clue about how Apple works and thinks.
The only difference between the CDMA and GSM iPhone is the simultaneous talk and data problem. EVERYTHING else is completely dependent on the carrier network, and has nothing to do with the hardware differences.
Original iPhone 4 (the one from last summer) works perfectly on vast majority of carriers around the globe. AT&T has become notorious for their coverage and service in large American cities, but pretty much every other mobile operator in the world has apparently provided consistent service for vast majority of users.
This review compares the iPhone on Verizon vs. on AT&T, but the review looks like a comparison between the CDMA and GSM models, implying that the CDMA model has better performance, where in fact it is not the phone, but the carrier, whose performance is poor.
I saw on Google News that some sites are still trying to stir up the failed “iPhone 4 bad antenna” scandal, saying it’s “still not fixed” in the Verizon version, as if it was ever really a problem.
I’d provide a link, but I didn’t bother clicking and don’t remember the site.
——RM
@vasic
CDMA2000 and GSM both have the limitation on simultaneous voice and data. The original iPhone was GSM only, and it couldn’t do voice and data over the cellular network at the same time either.
Starting with the iPhone 3G, iPhones had support for UMTS (3G) networks, which do allow voice and data at the same time.
If you go into your AT&T iPhone 4, and select “General/Network/Enable 3G” and set it to “Off,” you’ll turn off the UMTS transceiver, and only use the GSM transceiver. Once you do that, you won’t have simultaneous cellular voice and data.
People get the technology confused. AT&T and T-Mobile use two different network technologies: GSM for 2G, and UMTS for 3G. They are not compatible, which is why these phones require a chip that supports the two different standards.
Verizon uses IS-95 for 2G, and CDMA2000 for 3G. Neither of those standards supports simultaneous voice and data at this point.
Either way, if your iPhone says “3G” a the top of the display, you aren’t on a GSM network.