So how many of you are going to ditch your pockets cams now that the iPhone 4 is out

I have Verizon and plan on getting Samsung's Windows Phone 7 later this year.
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might happen once the phones start doing 1080

and support SDHC cards for external storage.

LAME Apple! It's about time Jobs realizes the entire world doesn't revolve around his head (I own two iPhones and love them, BTW).

I've got some buddies with 'droids and those things do incrediable stuff. If it weren't for the app-store and the jailbreak community being so big, I'd probably jump ship now that 'droid has active-sync. The cameras on those things are unbelievable. Granted, I don't have my iPhone4 yet so that may not be fair to compare them sight-unseen on the 4. I'm still waiting to see how the jailbreak shakes out before I hand-off my 3Gs to the wifey.

SO tempted to finally jump ship from Verizon but then I hear a story like this...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ytech_gadg/ytech_gadg_tc2844

"Poor iPhone 4 signal? You're holding it wrong, Jobs says..."


and it just really rubs me the wrong way.

Yea. Jobs needs a sign for that one. LMFAO!!!

AND... some engineers ought to be FIRED. How unforgivable is this! Antenna reception so poor that placing your HAND in the wrong place on a PHONE causes a problem. Unbelievable!

I have the new IPhone 4 and it's great. It does take great video in well lit areas, but not so great video when the lights dim. I never really expected it to, but it is better than any other phone I've ever used. This is my 2nd IPhone and both my wife and I find it to be far better than any phone we used on Verizon. It was only the Iphone that got us to move from Verizon.

I think the still pictures this phone takes are truly amazing and a fair substitute for point-and-shoot digital cameras. I don't think it's a substitute for a camcorder though. But it is a camera/camcorder that you have with you all the time and as such, does a nice job.

With that said, the reception issue is real and I've experienced it. Although I've never dropped a call yet with the IPhone4, in certain areas I can see a drop in signal when I hold it with my left hand. In the vast majority of areas I never see it. In fact I thought I didn't have issue until this morning when I was in an area that did manifest the problem. I was still able to use the phone perfectly fine, but apparently something is going on. Steve Jobs' response to this issue has been nothing short of absurd.

Anyone thinking about ditching their camcorder or still camera for any phone lost the sense of reality. Phones are nice when you've got nothing else with you,but that's it. I've played with Sony Vivaz which they tout as amazing,and it's nice.. For a phone. But it struggles even with 720p at a very sunny day. Picture is nice, but - no (optical) zoom, stutters at panning and faster motion,has problems with focus,etc. For the price of these phones,they try to be everything,but can't manage anything. They are second or third device in anything they do (except phone function ofc.), and for people that can afford them (and associated expenses) real camera / camcorder should always be first choice

re: Jobs' response to whether it is a design flaw. "Nope. Just don't hold it that way."

This is the modern version of the old Henny Youngman joke:

Patient: Doctor, doctor, it hurts when I do this.
Doctor: Don't do that.

I purchased the first generation iPhone-got it the day after it was released-in 2007 and purchased the iPhone 3GS last year since I was at the end of my 2 year contract and this phone was a lot better than the first generation iPhone. When I saw the keynote at WWDC this year-available at Apple.com-where they introduced the iPhone 4, well I was blown away and got on the preorder. I'm still waiting for the iPhone 4 to be delivered and I'm at a point where I'm actually considering canceling my order. First off the iphone shot 720p videos that I've seen look pretty bad-washed out colors, tendency to overexposed and the annoying stutter on pans-secondly the antenna issue, together these two issues are compelling enough for me to reconsider getting the iPhone 4. So what does it do better than the current iPhone 3GS that I have, well since I upgraded to iOS4 my 3GS's battery life is terrible so having the iPhone 4 with it's longer battery life will help here-

I travel a lot and have bricked several iPhone 3GS by I think plugging them into a Kensington AC/DC charger and using the DC adapter in the car, or it could be something in my itunes music backup, the issue is very strange. The phone will discharge if I use it on a cross country flight, once I'm in the rental car I'll plug it in and the phone will not power back on, it's happened to 3 phones so far, and the commonality is that the DC car adapter was used in all three cases. What was interesting about the last time I had this problem was that at the Topanga Canyon Apple Store's Geninus Bar the phone came back to life, but I still went with a replacement. And to make matters worse there was a gentleman there with an iPod that had the same issue, so I think it's definitely a bug and the DC automobile chargers in some way exacerbates it; by the way since the phones were covered under warranty Apple replaced all three no questions asked with brand new phones-

so I want to avoid using DC chargers from now on. I carry around a USB battery that can recharge the 3GS at least 3 times so that's what I use now. The resolution of the display is a lot higher than what I have on the 3GS, and the speed of the A4 although to be honest the iPhone 3GS is fast enough for most of things that I use it for. So the battery issue is my only problem and I could probably go back to the older software by doing a restore.

Wow sorry for going off on a tangent there, but I'm going to start carrying around my FlipHD from now on since I don't expect to be using the iPhone 4 for videos. I have another day to think about canceling the order, at this point I would say I'm 50/50 on getting the new iPhone 4.

I've had a 3GS, so IMO the following are the advantages of the 4.
* Much nicer screen, higher rez
* Much nicer still pix than my 3GS. Low light still sucks as the pix are over-saturated and too 'golden'.
* With good lighting, surprisingly good HD which actually looks decent on an HDTV. As with stills, low light sucks but videos are fairly bright.
* A bit better battery life, but I need to get a better handle on that with more use
* Quite a bit quicker downloading pages with heavy graphics

The disadvantages at this point prior to any fixes by Apple:
* Reception can be significantly affected when holding it in your left hand. Either all phones are not affected or those reporting no issues haven't been in areas where this issue would manifest itself. To me this is unclear.
* I find the switch for the ringer/vibrate to be a bit harder to toggle.

The reception issue concerns me. The question is would one recommend the iPhone 4? I don't know, it's a tough call this time around.

Saw this elsewhere, found it kinda funny.



Anyone here with still image samples from the iphone 4, I'd be interested to see them.

-Suntan

Here's one that I downsized to fit per AVS specs:

How does it fare with pastels under indirect light?

Yes, I know I've used a parallel with "full size" cams, but - it's still the same. Pocket cams still shoot better videos, have optical zoom (EDIT: oops! don't.. at least not ones you've mentioned, sorry), won't stutter at panning, etc. If iPhone was same quality, than fine.. but it isn't. not even compared to cheap <200$ cams. Still cams of the 200$ range will shoot better video than iPhone (probably).

I thought this thread was about video, not still photos (and reception, and screen, etc)

IF we can talk about camcorders that double as cameras, then we can talk about phones that double as cameras and camcorders.

I'm not sure I've shot pix like that.

Lux, the daylight videos are actually surprisingly good. I had a Panasonic Z7 that I returned and I feel the outdoor videos from the IPhone were actually better. I felt a bit too much motion stutter from the Z7. However, as you mentioned, panning smoothly is pretty difficult with the I4.

Where the IPhone falls down is low light video. As far as the pix goes, they can be bright in low light, but too grainy for my taste. Good light videos like the one I shot at the car dealer can be almost 'shockingly good'. I can display them on my 60" Pioneer Kuro and they're very sharp with very nice colors.

I believe that metallic, contrasty, reflective colors are easier for a sensor to reproduce.

The typical "Flip" style camcorders have a slightly better lens/sensor combination than a high-end cellphone like the iPhone 4, the Droids, etc. The difference is not profound, and none of these support optical stabilization, zoom, etc. Of course, most of the modern "Flip" devices (and the clones) will do a 1080/30p capture, while the iPhone (and most other modern smartphones) will do 720p. And even that's questionable... the 720p may be overcompressed compared to the Flip.

Though there's no 720p mode for the Droid yet (the hardware supports it, the CPU/DSP may not be enough to encode it well enough), the SD recording is not only very good, it's considerably better than many consumer DV camcorders. Now, my "pocket video camera" is a Sanyo FH1, which is going to completely blow away any of these on quality, low-light, etc.

But the main premise of these devices (which, for some crazy reason, we still call "phones") is one device: I have phone, internet, photo, video, GPS, game machine, guitar tuner, etc. in one single device. The only reason to carry a "Flip" is exactly this same thing.. you have it when you need it.

So no, the iPhone4 is not in the same class as a real camcorder like the Sanyo, not even comparable to a DV camcorder if zoom is any concern. But neither is a "Flip". Which is why I don't have one, and use the smartphone if I find I need photos or videos and I'm not carrying one of my half-dozen-plus camcorders or still cameras.


Probably not... the iPhone 4 is really just catching up to a half-dozen other phones. The Nexus One did HD video last year, for example. Most of the new HTC phones do, too... they're all 720p so far, while Flip did push forward to 1080p recently. And they're also kind of a different market... a Flip device is $100-$200. An iPhone is $200-$400... plus another $1700-$2000 over the next two years. If you have an iPhone, you probably don't buy a Flip, but no one buys an iPhone as a replacement for a Flip.

And I don't think HD is the reason, either.. the 3GS, and most other smart phones, have done increasingly better SD video for some while now. If I have a 3GS, I'm not going to buy a Flip either. They've lived with this for awhile.

I think what's got to worry the Flip folks much more if the iPod. Today's iPod Nano does SD video... it's not great, but neither is the Flip. If Apple puts the iPhone 4 video into the next iPod Touch, then all of a sudden you can get an PDA-style iPod for $100-or-so more than a Flip. That, I think, would be their big problem. And no one buying these things is all THAT concerned about video quality.

It's done equally as well outdoors with natural material such as grass, skies etc.

Outdoor videos are also excellent, but the lack of IS is a real detriment. But the sharpness, colors and detail are surprisingly good coming from a camera phone. Certainly the best I've seen from a device such as this.

Doesn't it already have IS? Or is that only the forward facing Webcam?

No image stabilization at all.

Just stumbled on this old thread....(hi Ken!)

I picked up the iPhone 4 a while back (love it!). While it is advertised as shooting "HD" video I wasn't expecting miracles from a camera phone. I just wanted "good enough" video so I could, for instance, have a quick camera on hand to grab family moments on video etc.

I've been extremely impressed with how sharp and vivid the video is simply on the iPhones amazing screen. But I recently added Apple TV to my system and have begun streaming videos from my iMac to my home theater Projection room. One of the major jaw-droppers is how damned good the videos taken from my iPhone look on a huge screen! As long as the lighting is good, especially outdoor stuff, it's just amazingly sharp, detailed and vivid...some of it almost window-like on the big screen. Holy cow.
I can't believe what they can cram into a phone these days.

'Course it's hardly perfect. Low light stuff is grainier and less sharp. (Although significantly better than my old Sony DV cam in low light!). Colors are pumped up. Contrast easily blows out. And motion is more jittery than on a good camcorder. (It's only 30fps for one thing).

But still...wow...colour me very amazed for this swiss army knife device.

Cheers,

I'm not going to ditch my SD cam or pocket cam even the iPhone 4 capable of recording HD video.

Never. How's never for you?

I have a Canon HF100 and a Motorolla Droid (1) and you can try and pry either of them out of my cold, dead, fingers before I would ever touch an iTurd 4 or let any Apple crap near my PCs.

Not gonna happen...

Seggers

LOL. I own PCs and Mac and it's funny how the anti-apple brigade so reflexively denigrates and bemoans apple that they end up a worse and more grating presence than the apple fanboys.

Tsk Tsk....