Gadgetory

hi I'm Ken Sherman senior editor for cnet.com today we take a first look at the Verizon iPhone for indeed I was very happy when Verizon and Apple announced this phone in early January sure it's great that ATT is no longer the exclusive carrier but I'm more excited that long discussed rumors finally been put to rest so what is the Verizon iPhone well the answer is the Verizon iPhone is almost the same device as AT&T counterpart there are a couple of differences and one that's pretty important but it's still the same phone in most regards I'll start with the one difference in the design to accommodate the CDMA antenna the bringer switch has been moved slightly closer to the volume rocker also the gap that's currently on top of the AT&T handset has been moved to the top left side Apple would have discussed the specifics of the redesign but employment area testing we did an account of the death group that we found on the AT&T iPhone unfortunately though the antenna change means that many current iPhone cases like these here won't fit so they need to buy new ones also because it runs on CDMA the Verizon iPhone doesn't have a SIM card slot otherwise the Verizon handset is exactly the same you'll find the same controls camera features headset charger Jack's speaker and microphone and Retina display verizon says it will carry the white iPhone but we still have no idea when that will be last time I heard was just signed in the spring now inside the Verizon iPhone is one major difference unlike the AT&T handset the Verizon iPhone can function as a personal hotspot for up to five devices you will need to activate the hotspot functionality with Verizon first but once you do it will appear in the settings menu so after you set a password and you turn on the feature you can get started you can connect devices through Wi-Fi Bluetooth and also a USB cable it's really nice as you can use all three connection types at once another difference is the Verizon iPhone currently runs iOS 4 to 6 while in comparison the 18 T iPhone runs iOS 4.2.1 Apple said 42.6 is a version unique to the Verizon handset and the only change that brings our CDMA support and hotspot feature the other features in the device are exactly the same so expect to see no changes from the AT&T phone of course there are a few things the Verizon iPhone can't do unlike a TTS handset it can't perform simultaneous voice and data if you're on Wi-Fi it does do that but if you're on a cell network now and it doesn't offer global roaming for Gia some networks also the Verizon is growing its LTE 4G network it's currently Verizon iPhone tops out at 3G we're still in the midst of testing the device you'll have to read the review for our full performance analysis voice quality however we noticed few differences but this is preliminary testing so we want to emphasize that whatever our results though I have to stress that you shouldn't expect the Verizon iPhone to be a miracle device you'll see differences no doubt but don't expect it to completely cure your reception woes you're still using a cellular network that will vary according to your location interference and how many people using it at one time the expectations for Verizon iPhone are immensely and ridiculously high and this handset I have to say runs a big risk of not living up to him that's why it's important to keep those hopes in check just recognize as a phone it's still going to have problems once in a while more importantly though the less smartphone landscape is very very different than it wasn't 2007 when the first iPhone went on sale not only are there are many other hand fantastic smartphones on the market but also there are a lot of people that are perfectly happy with their non Apple device and don't want to buy one the iPhone is on a new care that's great there's more customer choice and it remains a very good phone but it remains just one player in a very competitive field I'm Ken Sherman here with a first look at the Verizon iPhone 4