Consumer Reports rate many Android phones better than the iPhone 4S

Whether you put much weight in the reviews in Consumer Reports or not, the fact that they operate independently of any company whose products they review and that they don’t accept any products they review as gifts (they buy every product they review) in order to maintain impartiality, plus the fact that they have over 7 million subscribers, when they rate one product over another it’s kind of a big deal.

Consumer Reports doesn’t ‘recommend’ the iPhone 4 due to it’s signal strength issues inherent in unfortunate design where it’s signal is killed by holding the phone in your hand. Small problem. The new iPhone 4S however they do recommend.

Here’s the kicker though, and one that may be an eye opener for some who are blinded by Apple’s great marketing – they rate a wide range of Android phones carried by AT&T, Sprint and Verizon, all HIGHER than the iPhone 4S. Yes, you read that right. Consumer Reports in their impartial and objective reviews recommend a number of Android phones with higher ratings than the iPhone 4S. Android phones rated high than the iPhone 4S include:

  • Samsung Galaxy S II
  • Samsung Galaxy Infuse 4G
  • LG Thrill 4G
  • Galaxy S II Epic 4G Touch
  • Motorola Photon 4G
  • Samsung Epic 4G
  • HTC Evo 3D
  • Motorola’s Droid Bionic
  • HTC Thunderbolt
  • LG Revolution
  • Samsung Droid Charge

… that’s a lot of phones to choose from that in their impartial review are better than the iPhone 4S.

No iPhone 5, it’s just an iPhone 4.1

Well looks like my guess yesterday was right on the money – Apple held their eagerly awaited press conference today and did they announce the new iPhone 5? No, it’s an iPhone 4GS, or something with some similar combination of letters, like 4.1 or something like that. Given the lack of anything revolutionary that people were hoping for, it’s barely anything that deserves a 4.1 nametag anyway.

The odd thing is there were several case manufacturers who tried to get an early jumpstart and get their new cases for an iPhone 5 out ahead of the crowd, despite the fact that there was no iPhone 5 announced. Some were even based on dimensions larger and thinner than the announced iPhone 4S, which makes you wonder if something else was planned but it’s been delayed for some reason, or maybe will be coming next year? By then they’ll be quad core phones already out there, so Apple better have something special cooking for the iPhone 5 when it does arrive.

Apple’s new iPhone annoucement this morning

To be honest I’m only mildly curious, but not really interested at all. cnet have live coverage here. Rumor has it the new phone will look pretty much like the iPhone 4, so nothing exciting there. Hope they do have something amazing up their sleeve to announce, because the rumors so far don’t sound that impressive. Like I said a couple of days ago, it sounds more like an iPhone 4.1.

4G data support? Er, yeah, everyone else has had that for the past couple of years. When this goes on sale there’s going to be people wandering about saying ‘wow! look at how fast the data is!’. Yeah, just like my phone was 2 years ago. And if it’s only 21Mbps HSPA+, that’s so yesterday too – there’s already phones shipping with 42Mbps HSPA+ support. Come on Apple, you’re slipping. Let’s see something amazing.

What would make me buy one? Flash support. Java support. Not gonna happen. So not gonna buy one.

New iPhone announcement tomorrow

I get the feeling that the iPhone 5 will not be much more than a incremental refinement of the iPhone 4. From the suspected changes, it doesn’t sound like anything more exciting than some me-too technology catch ups, like support for HSPA+ for faster data speeds and voice recognition. Nothing that you can’t already get on other phones.

Has Apple slowed down it’s iPhone and iOS development? If there’s nothing more than these changes coming then this next iPhone is nothing more that an iPhone 4.1 really. Not that I’d want one anyway. The day I buy an iPhone will be the day it supports Java, and that’s not going to happen anytime, if ever.