I was digging though my desk drawer for something and found my old first gen iPhone. Ever since I got my iPhone 4 a few months back, it’s been languishing in that drawer. I was bored so I decided to plug it in and play with it a bit. Right away I was struck with just how old it felt.
The first I noticed was the screen. I always thought the whole “Retina Display” thing was pretentious, but there’s something to be said about it. Over the past few months I’ve gotten spoiled on the iPhone 4’s screen and hardly even notice it anymore. It became pretty apparent when the old one finally turned on though.
(Click to enlarge. You know, so you can actually see the difference.)
For fun I decided to do some speed/performance tests. Talk about an unfair advantage. It was like a race between Michael Phelps riding a dolphin and Helen Keller riding Stephen Hawking. In the wheelchair. Backwards. With bricks tied to her feet. Also Michael Phelps just had sex with a mermaid.
Wait, where was I going with this again…?
Oh yeah. The iPhone 4 absolutely blew the old one away. To try to even the score a little bit, I took the 4 off wifi and just used 3G. Still no contest. It was kinda sad, to be honest.
The one thing that the original iPhone seemed to have the advantage was the white balance on the camera. I’m not exactly sure why, but pictures in my room with the 4 tend to look yellow while the original was fine. For reference, here’s a side-by-side shot of my very messy desk.
In good lighting though the difference is clear. Here’s a picture I took in a bowling alley the first day I got my original iPhone, vs a similar picture in that same bowling alley shortly after I got my iPhone 4.
Three years doesn’t seem like a long time but in the world of technology it’s huge, especially in phones. I used to love that phone and thought it was absolutely amazing. Now it’s obsolete and sits in my drawer. I can imagine writing this same post a few years from now about how the iPhone 4 is an ancient piece of shit.
tl;dr the newest iPhone is better than the first one. Go figure.
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