Unless you’ve been hiding under a large and heavy rock, you’ve no doubt heard Apple’s unveiling of their new iPhone… the iPhone 4.
The event didn’t quite have the full impact thanks to some party poopers leaking the look of the device a few weeks back . However, under it’s shiny veneer lurked a few interesting features that could potentially make the iPhone 4 a mighty gaming platform.
First up is the display. That state of the art glass covering protects quite easily the best quality display to feature in a hand-held yet. Called ‘Retina display’, it’s four times the definition of the 3GS display, and most evident with text, gives the viewer a print-like experience of 326 pixels per inch. For gaming this means crisper and better visuals at 960 x 640 and an 800:1 contrast ratio for rich blacks… think iPad quality but in the palm of your hand.
But what is going to drive these fancy graphics?… Apples custom A4 chip that’s what. A smaller version of the chip that appears in the iPad will power games capable of high texture detail and geometry that will out perform the PSP without breaking a sweat.
Your time gaming will increase too. The smaller chip allows for a bigger battery. In fact the battery takes up most of the iPhone 4′s internals, giving you around 7-10 hours of gaming as opposed to 3-5 on the 3GS (depending on a game’s load on the processor of course).
The big surprise was the unveiling of a full gyroscope. Paired with the accelerometer, this 3 axis gyro gives far more motion precision such as user acceleration, angular velocity, and rotation rate. Basically it’s like having a 6-axis PS3 controller and Wii motion-plus built in, for an even better gaming experience.
Lastly and not to be forgotten are the dual cameras. Featuring a 5 megapixel camera on the reverse capable of 720p video, the iPhone 4 also sports a front facing camera. We’ve seen many Apps already make use of augmented reality on the current generation of iPhone, but with the extra camera the possibilities are endless. How about face recognition for example? allowing for an in-game character to react to your expressions!
iPhone 4 is due out in the US on June 24th, and around the rest of the world in July-September.
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