Ouch. No sooner did Verizon Wireless announce its CDMA version of Apple’s iPhone than Consumer Reports magazine called it “middle-aged,” suggesting that potential buyers might want to hold out for a younger model.
The long-anticipated Verizon iPhone 4 unveiled in New York last week has two important changes from the one launched by Apple last summer: An antenna configuration likely to avoid reception problems that plagued the AT&T handset, and the ability to tether other devices as a Wi-Fi hot spot.
Cooler Version?
Other than that, at nearly seven months old, the iPhone 4 is over the hill, says the Consumer Reports Electronics Blog, and “may be quickly replaced by a newer, cooler version more quickly than is customary even for the die-young life expectancy of most smartphones.”
Apple has released a new iPhone every summer since 2007. To help clear older inventory, Apple and AT&T sometimes drop the price of older models, as they did last week, cutting the iPhone 3GS price by half to a just $49. But the iPhone 4, already a top seller, is expected to get another huge spike in sales with its release on a network with a high customer satisfaction rating.
While noting that Verizon “remains among the most satisfying (among the major providers that offer contract service)” compared to AT&T, which Consumer Reports readers rated lowest, the magazine noted that the current iPhone is a 3G model in an increasingly 4G world, unable to navigate Verizon’s much-touted Long Term Evolution network that is about to open to a limited number of smartphones.
It also packs a puny 3.5-inch screen as a large share of smartphones are offering displays larger than four inches. CDMA phones, Consumer Reports noted, also can’t surf and call at the same time and don’t roam in foreign countries as well as a…