How is that new fancy phone?

I lay here in bed, slamming my fleshy stubs of thumbs onto the face of a brand new iPhone 4. The only thing keeping the poor machine from shattering under the scrutiny of my pounding is some so called “Gorilla Glass.” Whether or not this magical material is any more awesome than what was on older iPhones is not for me to say (I haven’t dropped it). But what I can tell you is that – coming from only owning the 2G iPhone – this new phone is pretty great.

I have no reservations about telling you that I make no apologies for Apple. I honestly think they are generally and wholly too smug for their own good and it is very aggravating sometimes. I get physically stressed out when I go to an Apple store because everything inside it pure chaos acting under the cloak of hipness and “look how busy we are!” With that said, though, I will give credit where credit is due: they mostly make great things.

I wanted to get that out of the way before I talk about the reception thing for a couple of sentences and how it is absolutely, positively a thing. Yes, I know Apple already said it was a thing, but even though they told you it was a thing they sort of try and play it off like it’s also not really a thing, but it’s a thing, trust me. You can absolutely kill the reception with little effort. At least, the reception according to the bars.

Does that destroy how great the phone is? Nope. Not for me, at least. I can kill the hell out of my reception, but you know what? Of the calls I have made with the phone, they were all clear and I had no problems having a nice conversation with them. This is with but a paltry two to three bars, as well. The antenna issue is an issue, but it seems to be a drastically overhyped issue so far as I have experienced. Moving on.

I was one of the unlucky few, the loser who could only afford the crappy crappy Jesus phone (the 2G) and not the better Zombie Jesus phones (the 3G/3GS). Now I have this iPhone 4, which I will call the Jesus-Riding-A-Dinosaur phone, and jumping from the first to the fourth does make a pretty incredible impression.

So what do you notice first? It’s very dense in the hand; you know, like holding lead shaped like an ice-cream sandwich. The edges are sharp and if I didn’t know better I would assume the phone would simply cut my arm off if I happened to drop it in an unfortunate way. The one, most used button that offers you the most tactile feedback seems to travel a little less than it used to, not that that really means anything. The top button and side buttons are clicky as hell and that is great. The mute button, that little devil who used to tilt back and forth, now slides with a lateral motion. Overall it’s sexy as shit. Hardware discussion OVER.

When you click that round button that has a square on it, and you do the slidey thing, you will then notice a super sexy screen. I had played with a unit for just a few minutes before I bought mine and at that time the screen really did not blow me away. I don’t think the short time with it let me really get a good feel for it. The screen really starts to grab you when you read things on it. Just looking at it at an arm’s length doesn’t really do it, but going through a couple of webpages will show you the way. Although I am not too keen on the title of it being the “Retina Display,” it does what it does as advertised. When can I get this crap on my 27″ iMac? The one app that I really enjoy using is the DC Comics app. Super sharp, pretty comics are awesome on it and it’s great. That’s just a great application anyway, but that’s for another day.

After you calm down from that, it’s the speed, bro. The speed. It’s snappy as heck. Peggle, your favorite metal ball shooting game and mine, for example, would have a big, fat loading screen for quite some time on my 2G iPhone. Here, though, on the new hotness, no loading screen at all. It goes straight for the gold. This is a thing that I like. The snappiness is aided by the new “multi-tasking,” which makes apps sit in the background and chill while you do other things. It’s nice, but I find myself overly worried about those apps in there when I think the whole point was to not have to worry about them. I do wish I could keep some apps from never staying in there when I’m done with them. Take the clock, for example; I don’t need that that always in my task manager. Go away on your own, Clocky!

And those are my firstish impressions of this phone. I really don’t feel like writing any more about it because you have most likely read everything you’ve wanted to know at this point. Also, I want to go get a sandwich. Just know that while there is an antenna thing going on there, for me it’s not a deal-breaker, ladies. It’s just something you’ll have to accept until next year. I may write more impressions when I’m not inundated in sandwich-time!