The iPhone 5 was the most anticipated Apple handset launch since the iPhone 4.
The 4S offered only an incremental, albeit antenna-fixing, upgrade, and
the fifth-gen iPhone arrives just as many 4 users’ 24-month contract
comes up for renewal.
However, in that time we’ve seen a seismic shift, with competing
smartphones offering quality and desirability to match and even surpass
the iPhone.
With the big boys tempting users away from iOS with the lure of a slick Android experience as found on the HTC One X and the Sony Xperia T or much-improved Windows Phone interface – step forward the Nokia Lumia 920 - it’s crunch time (sorry) for Cook and co.
But wait a goddamn minute. Statistics don’t lie (usually) and, just as we were putting pen to paper, Apple announced that pre-orders for the iPhone 5 hit two million in 24 hours, spanking its previous record of one million in a day for the iPhone 4 and ensuring that many won’t see their new precious until October.
So, with it clearly hooking the gagging mouths of many, how does it perform as ‘the latest iPhone’ and, crucially, how does it match up against the superphone stars of today?
iPhone 5:Hardware
Let’s start with the chassis because, let’s face it, that’s the only distinct visible change to differentiate it from its two previous family members. Grasp the frame in your hand and the first thing you’ll notice is the weight; it’s the lightest iPhone ever.
By a long way. At 112g, it’s 20% daintier than the iPhone 4S, 16% less butch than the Samsung Galaxy S3 and 14% lighter than the HTC One X. Reducing the SIM to weency, or ‘nano’, size has helped, minutely, as has making the shell out of anodised aluminium.
The brace of glass strips adorning the top and bottom of the rear give both the black/slate and white/silver models a premium feel but are actually employed to allow an uninterrupted phone signal. No-one wants another antennagate.
Despite Keynote claims, the 7.6mm-deep iPhone 5 isn’t the thinnest smartphone in the world – the Huawei Ascend P1 S,
Oppo Finder and ZTE Athena are all sub 7mm – but when the depth is
combined with the weight, it feels sufficiently waif-like in the hand.
And we’re not convinced that’s for the good. Of course we want our mobile tech to be light and lithe, but what we’ve loved about previous iGenerations is the weighty, industrial feel, the security of feeling something solid in your pocket (no jokes) and knowing that, if it takes a knock, it’s not going to shatter into a billion plastic pieces.
Don’t get us wrong, it’s a miracle how Apple has shed so much excess podge and millions of people will love the lightweight design, but we preferred the more robust, weapon-like nature of the 4S. A case of Marmite-y opinion, perhaps.
The four-inch screen, which we’ll come onto in detail shortly, is
Apple’s belated nod to the industry trend for bigger displays, and means
the iPhone 5 now stands a proud 123.8mm tall – width remains the same
at 58.6mm.
The extra screen real-estate is welcome, though smaller-handed iPhone users might struggle to reach the standby button with a forefinger while holding it in a natural position. They might even have to stretch for the extra top row of apps. Just hold it a different way, perhaps.
Because various components have been reduced in size, the headphone socket has been moved to the bottom of the device, which comes with its pros and cons. On the plus side, your phone usually goes in your pocket nose first, which means the headphone cable has a clear run out to your ears.
On the downside, the jutting jack interferes with your hand when holding it ‘upright’. Not all apps will use the gyroscope to flip the screen 180-degrees, either, so you’ll have to get used to that.
The bottom-hugging stereo speakers have also been given a boost, the better to annoy old people on the bus as you rattle out Skream’s latest. Do your own iPhone 4S to iPhone 5 sound comparison and you’ll realise the sound is unquestionably fuller and deeper.
Then there’s the Lightening connector. In our testing, we didn’t find it any quicker for transferring content over a cable but we do prefer the new connector in terms of it being a) smaller and b) reversible.
At the time of writing, the Lightening-to-30-pin adapter wasn’t available – it sure ain’t in the box, and it’ll cost £25 on release – so we haven’t experienced how it will cope with existing docks and accessories but it’s safe to say, things could look ugly.
So, onto the screen; it’s still lovely and Retina; it now boasts
326ppi and a resolution of 1136x640; it’s equally as bright and slightly
richer in colour. There’s space for a whole extra row of apps – woop! –
and tasks can still be performed with one hand.
The main benefit is that you can just see more. Web pages are longer, movies are wider, though many we found from iTunes and YouTube still have to be stretched or cropped to fill the screen, the photo viewing area is bigger (just) and Apple’s own, optimised apps make good use of the extra space.
Non-optimised apps are letterboxed, which doesn’t feel right. Hopefully we’ll see a raft of updates soon. Both iTunes and the App Store have also had visual upgrades and look clean when you’re browsing, searching and splurging micropayments.
If you’re a long-time iPhone owner, you might find the elongation
strange at first but you’ll soon wonder how you coped before, as going
back to a 4S feels like watching your old portable bedroom TV. However,
if you’ve had an extensive play with the Samsung S3, HTC One X or Nokia Lumia 900, you still might find it too titchy – it’s noticeably smaller, and that could be a sticking point for potential buyers.
So why didn’t Apple just make the screen even bigger? One theory in this reviewer’s mind is the impact of another device screen size before Christmas. If the iPad Mini was to launch, then it’d need to sit in a gap between the 9.7-inch iPad and 4-inch iPhone 5. Launching a phone with a huge 5-inch-plus screen could tread on the toes of what might be around the corner. Just a thought…
Everything feels slightly slicker when navigating the phone. Apps
appear to load quicker, video feels a touch smoother, video and image
processing is definitely faster.
With the improved A6 processor now powering the visuals, our finger points straight at it, but it’s with new apps that we’ll really see the power of the chip take hold. Real Racing 3 (or any other A6-optimised game) wasn’t available when penning this review, so we’ll have to wait for developers to do their thing before witnessing any major power increase.
The rear iSight camera remains impressive, taking great pictures in
bright conditions. There’s a bigger virtual camera capture button and
video stabilisation seems to have improved.
It now detects faces and auto-focuses in video and allows you to capture stills while taking video. The video-compression algorithm has also improved, reducing the file-size of footage without any discernible reduction in quality, and making for friendlier email attachments.
Low-light image capture improvement was also discussed in the Keynote but we still experienced a fair bit of grain in our testing. The major improvement is with the front camera, which has been upgraded to 720p video, making FaceTime and Skype chats much clearer. Still shots are captured at 1.2MP, so not exactly archive-worthy.
The new Panorama mode is intuitive and produces great results. It doesn’t capture in landscape orientation, which feels counter-intuitive, but the speed at which it processes and pops out a pretty, panoramic shot is impressive.
Though, even with the wider screen, you still have to zoom right in to see what you’ve captured. And while competing phones have had this feature for a while, if anything’s going to be the new Instagram over the coming months, this is it.
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However, in that time we’ve seen a seismic shift, with competing
smartphones offering quality and desirability to match and even surpass
the iPhone.With the big boys tempting users away from iOS with the lure of a slick Android experience as found on the HTC One X and the Sony Xperia T or much-improved Windows Phone interface – step forward the Nokia Lumia 920 - it’s crunch time (sorry) for Cook and co.
But wait a goddamn minute. Statistics don’t lie (usually) and, just as we were putting pen to paper, Apple announced that pre-orders for the iPhone 5 hit two million in 24 hours, spanking its previous record of one million in a day for the iPhone 4 and ensuring that many won’t see their new precious until October.
So, with it clearly hooking the gagging mouths of many, how does it perform as ‘the latest iPhone’ and, crucially, how does it match up against the superphone stars of today?
iPhone 5:Hardware
Let’s start with the chassis because, let’s face it, that’s the only distinct visible change to differentiate it from its two previous family members. Grasp the frame in your hand and the first thing you’ll notice is the weight; it’s the lightest iPhone ever.
By a long way. At 112g, it’s 20% daintier than the iPhone 4S, 16% less butch than the Samsung Galaxy S3 and 14% lighter than the HTC One X. Reducing the SIM to weency, or ‘nano’, size has helped, minutely, as has making the shell out of anodised aluminium.
The brace of glass strips adorning the top and bottom of the rear give both the black/slate and white/silver models a premium feel but are actually employed to allow an uninterrupted phone signal. No-one wants another antennagate.
And we’re not convinced that’s for the good. Of course we want our mobile tech to be light and lithe, but what we’ve loved about previous iGenerations is the weighty, industrial feel, the security of feeling something solid in your pocket (no jokes) and knowing that, if it takes a knock, it’s not going to shatter into a billion plastic pieces.
Don’t get us wrong, it’s a miracle how Apple has shed so much excess podge and millions of people will love the lightweight design, but we preferred the more robust, weapon-like nature of the 4S. A case of Marmite-y opinion, perhaps.
iPhone 5:Specification
The extra screen real-estate is welcome, though smaller-handed iPhone users might struggle to reach the standby button with a forefinger while holding it in a natural position. They might even have to stretch for the extra top row of apps. Just hold it a different way, perhaps.
Because various components have been reduced in size, the headphone socket has been moved to the bottom of the device, which comes with its pros and cons. On the plus side, your phone usually goes in your pocket nose first, which means the headphone cable has a clear run out to your ears.
On the downside, the jutting jack interferes with your hand when holding it ‘upright’. Not all apps will use the gyroscope to flip the screen 180-degrees, either, so you’ll have to get used to that.
The bottom-hugging stereo speakers have also been given a boost, the better to annoy old people on the bus as you rattle out Skream’s latest. Do your own iPhone 4S to iPhone 5 sound comparison and you’ll realise the sound is unquestionably fuller and deeper.
Then there’s the Lightening connector. In our testing, we didn’t find it any quicker for transferring content over a cable but we do prefer the new connector in terms of it being a) smaller and b) reversible.
At the time of writing, the Lightening-to-30-pin adapter wasn’t available – it sure ain’t in the box, and it’ll cost £25 on release – so we haven’t experienced how it will cope with existing docks and accessories but it’s safe to say, things could look ugly.
iPhone 5:Resolution
So, onto the screen; it’s still lovely and Retina; it now boasts
326ppi and a resolution of 1136x640; it’s equally as bright and slightly
richer in colour. There’s space for a whole extra row of apps – woop! –
and tasks can still be performed with one hand.The main benefit is that you can just see more. Web pages are longer, movies are wider, though many we found from iTunes and YouTube still have to be stretched or cropped to fill the screen, the photo viewing area is bigger (just) and Apple’s own, optimised apps make good use of the extra space.
Non-optimised apps are letterboxed, which doesn’t feel right. Hopefully we’ll see a raft of updates soon. Both iTunes and the App Store have also had visual upgrades and look clean when you’re browsing, searching and splurging micropayments.
So why didn’t Apple just make the screen even bigger? One theory in this reviewer’s mind is the impact of another device screen size before Christmas. If the iPad Mini was to launch, then it’d need to sit in a gap between the 9.7-inch iPad and 4-inch iPhone 5. Launching a phone with a huge 5-inch-plus screen could tread on the toes of what might be around the corner. Just a thought…
iPhone 5: Performance
Everything feels slightly slicker when navigating the phone. Apps
appear to load quicker, video feels a touch smoother, video and image
processing is definitely faster.With the improved A6 processor now powering the visuals, our finger points straight at it, but it’s with new apps that we’ll really see the power of the chip take hold. Real Racing 3 (or any other A6-optimised game) wasn’t available when penning this review, so we’ll have to wait for developers to do their thing before witnessing any major power increase.
iPhone 5: Camera
The rear iSight camera remains impressive, taking great pictures in
bright conditions. There’s a bigger virtual camera capture button and
video stabilisation seems to have improved.It now detects faces and auto-focuses in video and allows you to capture stills while taking video. The video-compression algorithm has also improved, reducing the file-size of footage without any discernible reduction in quality, and making for friendlier email attachments.
Low-light image capture improvement was also discussed in the Keynote but we still experienced a fair bit of grain in our testing. The major improvement is with the front camera, which has been upgraded to 720p video, making FaceTime and Skype chats much clearer. Still shots are captured at 1.2MP, so not exactly archive-worthy.
The new Panorama mode is intuitive and produces great results. It doesn’t capture in landscape orientation, which feels counter-intuitive, but the speed at which it processes and pops out a pretty, panoramic shot is impressive.
Though, even with the wider screen, you still have to zoom right in to see what you’ve captured. And while competing phones have had this feature for a while, if anything’s going to be the new Instagram over the coming months, this is it.
iPhone 5: iOS 6
The iPhone 5 has iOS 6 as standard. But, at this point it’s difficult to see where the unique differences are between it running on an iPhone 4S and iPhone 5. You can read our in-depth iOS 6 review but everything we’ve seen works on both.Leave your comments down------------------------------------------------------------------------------
