I don’t know :\ How hard do they test the units? If I have some scratches on mine but send it in for a home button replacement, will they fix the scratches too? If not, I might be getting someone else’s scratched phone. Also, battery capacity is very hard to measure on an iPhone. The replacement will only have the same warranty as the original, which for me is until the end of July.
They completely replace the outside. I wouldn’t sweat the battery life, at WORST it’s only been in use less than a year.
They’re squared off rather than rounded around the back. They’re chunky looking compared to predecessors. I have yet to see anyone with one that’s not in a case, which makes it even worse. I don’t like them, its my aesthetic choice.
That’s cool - I was just curious about the “clunky” description, since they’re technically smaller and thinner (on average). I still have my 3G, but I like the way the 4 sits flat and doesn’t rock.
Comparing the 3G/3GS to the 4, bear in mind the 3 series has the curved polycarbonate back, and that back makes it a little “chubbier” around the middle of the back, wheras the 4 series has a flat back, the 3 series is a hair thinner near the edges of the bezel, but at it’s thickest point at the apex of the curved rear cover, the 3 series is thicker
Oh, and I found a cool replacement back for the 4 series, the VoBack, they make a bunch of different replacement back covers (warning, installing one may in theory void your warranty), I like the black metal one myself, it fixes a couple minor quibbles i have with the iPhone 4…
1; it has no Apple logo or iconography on the back, I’ve always hated the brashness/boldness of the Apple logo on the back of the iPhone, it always seems to be saying “I have an iPhone LOOK HOW COOL I AM!!!”, I’d prefer a simple, understated, matte black or gray Apple logo that’d only be there if you were deliberately looking for it, I didn’t buy an iPhone so I could try to “impress” people with my “coolness”, I bought an iPhone because it does what I want it to do, and it only has to satisfy/impress me, I don’t need a garish logo on the back of my phone bragging what brand of device it is…
2; I’m always a little concerned with the potential for glass breakage, and since the 4 has glass on the front and back, it’s got a 50% higher chance of one of those glass panels breaking if the phone is dropped, it’s why I put the phone in an Otterbox immediately after purchase, to protect it from accidental damage, something the OB excels at, by replacing the potentially fragile glass rear cover with metal, I will reduce the chance of glass breakage by 25%
One thing to bear in mind, if you watch the video of Jon Ive talking about the development process of the 4 series, you’ll notice he compares the 4’s glass panels to sapphire glass, which is also used on high end watches like Rolexes, Sapphire glass is extremely scratch resistant (my Luminox sport watch has a sapphire crystal, no scratches, and I don’t baby it), however, it trades scratch resistance for shatter resistance, sapphire glass is far more prone to being cracked/broken/shattered than regular mineral glass…
so, it follows logically that the glass used in the 4 series would have a similar tradeoff…
rumors have been flying that Apple uses Gorilla Glass in the iPhone 4 series though, I doubt it, as there have been documented issues of glass breakage on 4’s, if GG is supposedly “unbreakable” (as a tech, however, I can assure you that NOTHING is “unbreakable”, it’s just a matter of how much force you use against it), if you notice in the video where the guy is breaking the sodalime glass panels, he’s using a rounded punch, I would want to see how GG would respond to a sharply pointed punch that would concentrate all the force in a tiny area…
I’m sure GG could not withstand a shot from my 7.62mm (.30 caliber) Mosin Nagant 91/30, or even my .17HMR Savage rifle, heck, it probably would fail with a standard .22LR round as well…
Also, if I installed a VoBack on my 4, the stupid “vanity window” on my Otterbox case would finally be useless, the only point of the window in the back of the OB case is to show off the Apple logo so you don’t lose “bragging rights” having your iPhone secured inside an OB…
I’m starting to feel the itch, but I’m also wanting to wait for the iP5, but I’m also a cheap bastard and usually buy the refurbs…