iPhone 5

[Blitz187]

Please find an Android phone with a screen and camera that compares to the iPhone. I'm a tech person but I also appreciate these media aspects of the iPhone quite a bit.

And if you suggest a Samsung phone, you are clearly color blind.

I would have a look at the new Sony Xperia T (or TX in the US I think). Has a dedicated shutter button and the 13MP sensors are quite good for a phone and very close to iPhone level IMO. I just got a HTC One X last week and was pretty disappointed in the camera... The rest of the phone is just sublime. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that before the One X, I had a Sony Ericsson Xperia Ray (8MP Exmor Sensor) and the phone itself was CRAP, but the camera was simply amazing compared to my new One X. Also the new LG Optimus G has the same 13MP Sony sensor in it and is also a spec monster to boot.... might be worth checking out both those Android phones if you put the quality of the camera high on your list of wants. 👍

- PS. The new Sony also has the new S4 Dual Core processors with Krait architecture, which are on par or even beat the current quad core processors on the market... The LG has a quad core variant, so will be blazingly fast.

 

[Sprite]

Test image in low-ish light with high reflective parts and fine detail with dark contrasting background. The iPhone 5 faired well I think.



Link to full size (3264 x 2448)

 

[20832]

So, I finally got a review from another opinion from a good friend of mine, and he regrets switching from the 4S to iPhone 5

He says, that the battery charge decreases over night 11% without any usage + 3G cannot be switched off. Then he has some serious problems calling other people because the phone either needs extremly long to build up the call or ends without any reasons the call. And he definetly sees a lot of problems with the overall feel of the phone, as it feels cheap and the home button even does a glottal stop.

Not what I'd expect from a phone in that price range.

 

[Sprite]

Sounds like your friend isn't having a good time. So far this phone beats my iPhone 4 hands down.

 

[20832]

Unfortunatelly it's the most common reaction.
I also think, that iOS 6 causes a lot of problems.

And current sales also confirm, that people aren't too thrilled about the Fiver.
Even though they've sold about 5 Million units, it's a huge step below the expectations and a major let down comparing it to the First Day Sales of the 4S.

But anyway, my friend would give anything to switch his phone back with his girlfriends, who now owns his "old" 4S, but she doesn't want the iPhone 5

I really have to compare it with my S3 to really see, how good/bad the iPhone has become.

 

[Sprite]

I've found it to be very fast and Siri is great (didn't have it on the 4). Network connections wifi 3G ect are fantastically fast.

 

[20832]

That the iPhone 5 is on a whole different performance level is undoubtful. You have a new CPU, more RAM etc.

But again, it doesn't seem so "round" as the 4S. I'm pretty sure, that the 5S (or whatever it will be called) will work a lot better as this is mostly a more developed product.

 

[Sprite]

It sure is a leap over the 4 but it still retains 99% DNA from the 3 & 4 that I've had. Software is the big change for worse and better. Maps is a bit rubbish but I'm sure that will get better over time, no native YouTube app is great because the old one was dated, I like Siri and I can see me using it quite a bit.

The big difference is speed in connectivity, it flys on the wifi network at home and out the 3G is very quick. I can't wait to try LTE at the end of the year.

I do have a lot of cash invested in iOS. I was a bit gutted today though, I updated my 4 to iOS 6 when it came out and it was compatible with the iTunes version I have installed, now when I plugged in my 5 it said I needed to update iTunes, thing is I can't as I'm using Leopard, I'm just glad I turned on iCloud and stored my contacts in the cloud.

 

[Moglet]

Its simple,

Apple wants to have turn by turn and google wasnt ready to give it to them and so Apple decided to go thier own way and produce the dog that is Apple Maps.

Linky

I had assumed for years that Apple had turn by turn navigation on their devices! Now I know why my Apple fanboy friend looked so annoyed when we needed sat nav while out visiting a new place; he had to ask me to do it on my phone. I thought he was just trying to preserve his battery.

 

[shmogt]

Ok I wanted this phone and was pretty excited to get it but it's a minimum of $50 a month and the plans are god awful. Decent ones are $80 a month. Damn you Canada for being the most expensive cell phone bills and minimum 3yr plans. I am forced to get the Galaxy SIII on the greatest plan ever by WIND for $29 unlimited everything.

 

[nick09]

I'd like to add to my first post in this thread. I learned today that one of my teachers who owns a iphone 4 will be going back to his Android Droid after his contract ends. His reasons was not to conform to mainstream(mainly in his job as 8 of his coworkers own a iphone and 2 don't) and two, he hates how unusable Siri is. He uses Siri on the road and when he makes a voice to text, Siri would only make 1/3rd of a text correct. I did talk to him about the iphone 5 and how he thinks about. He said he wasn't impressed by it and would rather go back to android.

 

[nealcropper]

Ok I wanted this phone and was pretty excited to get it but it's a minimum of $50 a month and the plans are god awful. Decent ones are $80 a month. Damn you Canada for being the most expensive cell phone bills and minimum 3yr plans. I am forced to get the Galaxy SIII on the greatest plan ever by WIND for $29 unlimited everything.

Well I have an iPhone 4s and O2 wanted £200 to upgrade me, I told them to go get ****ed. My 4S is jailbroken why would I pay £200 to downgrade!?

 

[Joey D]

I'd like to add to my first post in this thread. I learned today that one of my teachers who owns a iphone 4 will be going back to his Android Droid after his contract ends. His reasons was not to conform to mainstream(mainly in his job as 8 of his coworkers own a iphone and 2 don't) and two, he hates how unusable Siri is. He uses Siri on the road and when he makes a voice to text, Siri would only make 1/3rd of a text correct. I did talk to him about the iphone 5 and how he thinks about. He said he wasn't impressed by it and would rather go back to android.

People use Siri? It's pretty useless and all I've used it for it mild amusement.

 

[nealcropper]

People use Siri? It's pretty useless and all I've used it for it mild amusement.

I don't think I have ever used Siri for anything? And to think that the biggest differnce between the iPhone 4 and the 4S IS siri.

EDIT: my post count is 1985 and that is my birth year!!!!

 

[The Gran Finale]

One mans trash is another mans treasure. I use Siri all the time. I mostly use it for sending texts while driving, getting directions and weather forecasts, setting alarms, creating calendar events, and now with iOS 6 I look up sports stats a lot (I wish it knew F1, but oh well.)

Anyway, I've had the 5 for a week now and can't imagine going back to the 4S. The extra half inch of screen really makes a difference for me. Other than the new dock connector, I don't see a drawback to the 5.

Also, to the guy whose friend said that the iPhone 5 felt cheap; did your friend give any reason? At the risk of sounding like a fanboy, the phone is made of aluminum and glass. How does that feel cheap? I mean, I know some people don't like iPhones, and that's obviously ok. But I've never heard the reason of it having a cheap feel.

 

[Conza]

Ok I wanted this phone and was pretty excited to get it but it's a minimum of $50 a month and the plans are god awful. Decent ones are $80 a month. Damn you Canada for being the most expensive cell phone bills and minimum 3yr plans. I am forced to get the Galaxy SIII on the greatest plan ever by WIND for $29 unlimited everything.

Better phone better price.

I want to make a retraction, earlier I claimed that the iPhone 5 was the best phone on the market, I was well mistaken, the best phone right now is the Galaxy S3 with 2GB of ram and 1.4GHz DC, vs the iP5's 1GB and 1GHz DC, technically speaking it has less processing power per pixel than a Galaxy S II. Real dissa... no, I expected them not to conform to increasing their underlying technology, I can't let myself be dissappointed.

 

[Sprite]

I had assumed for years that Apple had turn by turn navigation on their devices! Now I know why my Apple fanboy friend looked so annoyed when we needed sat nav while out visiting a new place; he had to ask me to do it on my phone. I thought he was just trying to preserve his battery.

It's never been there, done get me wrong I've used google maps on an iPhone 3 & 4 to get me around and find places but it really isn't the best experience. When all is said and done the iPhone isn't the most complete package of a phone, but what it misses it sure makes up for in other areas.

For those who don't like Siri I can understand this, if you speak too quickly it can't understand, I asked about "Leeds United" and it gave me "Leads United" then brought up some stats for some random American legue of what sport I have no idea. It does do some amusing and rather human things though, I asked "what size are my partners boobs" it returned with "I don't know, but I can search the web" so I asked it to search and it returned "I bet you do" and didn't run the search. Also +1 on the F1 results.

As for the look and feel of the phone, well it's a stunner, very understated as at first glance it's could be any other iPhone, but upon closer inspection the shiny and beveled edges are a sparkly touch, one any lady might like and it add that whif of expense. The you have the all glass front, and by George it's a cracker, bends the iPhone 4 over a barrel and sticks it to him good. And last but no least the aluminium and glass back, for me it's nice to look at but just too slippy and I feel like I'm going to drop it all the time.

The camera is also a nice thing to use, it's very quick and focus is very fast. HDR is still as subtle and useless as before (give me more control apple) but the panorama feature is a well implimated and easy to use. I've always used a separate app for pano's but now I need one less app. Images it spits out look very swish and colourful (sometimes a little too much) but most of the time natural and focus is spot on.

Network connections on the 5 are the real winner for me, because coupled with better page rendering and video handling it's one snappy web experience and makes the 4 and my 1st gen iPad seem dull and sluggish by comparison. I can't say more because it's just allot faster, bring on LTE as that will be beyond great.

So would I recomend an iPhone 5? Well yes and no, if you have a 4s then the speed gains might not be as apparent as jumping froma 4 or 3s ect. But you might just for the other stuff like bigger screen, slimmer and less weight. If you have an old iPhone 4 and less then it's definatly worth the upgrade, for every aspect of the phone. Could this swing some Android or windows phone users? It's possible but I think at the end of the day if you enjoy using what you have and you have it set up how you like it the. Why change? Also one thing I haven't mentioned is the ecosystem if your like me and have some cash invested in said ecosystem then change isn't an option if you want to keep what you have, now if developers had their own independent store instead of walled gardens then switching between OS's might not be a pain, as I buy Angry Birds and I get access to all OS's versions, so I switch from iOS to Android and just hit up the store and download my software again and hey presto I have my apps back.

 

[Moglet]

I have to agree with you on how it feels to hold, the entire thing feels very solid and well put together. The side buttons are especially nice to use.

 

[20832]

Also, to the guy whose friend said that the iPhone 5 felt cheap; did your friend give any reason? At the risk of sounding like a fanboy, the phone is made of aluminum and glass. How does that feel cheap? I mean, I know some people don't like iPhones, and that's obviously ok. But I've never heard the reason of it having a cheap feel.

As I assume and pretty certain that you mean me by that comment, you should've just read a little bit more down below.

[...]and the home button even does a glottal stop.

Again, I have to point out, that this is the opinion of my friend (!) not mine.
I'd rather make an impression of the phone myself to conclude a resumé about the phone. I hold it for a couple of minutes and it didn't felt cheap (because it is made out of pretty decent materials) but again, stuff like this glottal stop seriously makes me think about Apple's philosophy in quality and about the overall quality. Take note, I definetly believe, that these are specific problems of one maybe two phones, but not the overall product. But then there's this whole "Scuffgate" thing and THAT is something that is unexceptable in my point of view, especially in that price range of Phones, and please don't come and say "Well, they replace it."

Yes, they will. But is it too much to ask, to have phone that works as good as it can be right out of the box, without having the trouble with scratches and noises from "cheap" workmanship? I don't think so.

Anyway, the only real problem I see with the iPhone 5 so far is iOS 6 as it definetly limits the phone, it just doesn't seem to "on - the - level" with the Hardware, that this phone offers.

 

[Takumi Fujiwara]

So I got a chip. Small but still annoying. I think I might have to switch to a case that provides more front coverage. (This one is open at the top and bottom.)

Used the maps a bunch this weekend. Having a dedicated GPS wouldn't make much of a difference, the issue is with searching, not directions. The phone did a fine job of getting me to a known address and GPS performance was pretty impressive. Relatively low battery consumption for a phone being used as a GPS, too. Search is pretty bad, though.

I also messed with the new pano feature, which is pretty cool.


iPhone5 pano inside the teahouse at the Huntington's Chinese garden. by MaxArcher, on Flickr


iPhone5 Pano outside the teahouse at the Huntington's Chinese garden. by MaxArcher, on Flickr

 

[acascianelli]

I preordered on the 14th, and mine still hasn't even shipped...

 

[shmogt]

I preordered on the 14th, and mine still hasn't even shipped...

Too bad you don't live in Canada. A company here called Fido will pay you $50 if they don't give you your phone with in 15days.

 

[acascianelli]

Too bad you don't live in Canada. A company here called Fido will pay you $50 if they don't give you your phone with in 15days.

I've been calling around to all the Best Buy's, Apple stores, Sam's Club to see if ANY of them have some in stock. They all claim that none of them do. One of the Apple stores said they usually get a few everyday, but there gone within 30 minutes of opening. And they won't hold one for me to swing by and pick one up.

 

[F1]

This thought came to me earlier on today so thought I would be as well to post it. Sorry if anyone else has said this as well!
So, I was thinking about the lighting connection which is meant to be better than the old 30-pin. Therefore, why do you not get USB 3.0 with it as well?

 

[bevo]

Used the maps a bunch this weekend. Having a dedicated GPS wouldn't make much of a difference, the issue is with searching, not directions. The phone did a fine job of getting me to a known address and GPS performance was pretty impressive. Relatively low battery consumption for a phone being used as a GPS, too. Search is pretty bad, though.

I haven't had the same results with the maps app. So far it's got me lost 2 out of 3 times I've tried to use it. It tried to lead me to the complete opposite part of town today that I needed to get back on the highway. Instead of making lefts it was telling me to go right. It did actually have the right roads just had me turning the wrong ways on them.

When we tried to use it in cincinnati, it was to slow to update and we kept passing turns. It was even connected to LTE there and still couldn't keep up. I'll probably just print off directions like the old days (heaven forbid I actually use a real map) and use them for awhile when it's someplace I don't know at all until they either get it working better or I find a better free app.

 

[shmogt]

This thought came to me earlier on today so thought I would be as well to post it. Sorry if anyone else has said this as well!
So, I was thinking about the lighting connection which is meant to be better than the old 30-pin. Therefore, why do you not get USB 3.0 with it as well?

It's not better at all it's the same thing just smaller. The only reason they made it was because it saved space to make the phone smaller and because people were building fake cables. Now customers are forced to buy their cables or converted for the old ones both of which are expensive and have special chips inside which I hear are supposed to be tough to copy to make cheaper versions.

 

[Daniel]

F1's not talking about the Lighning/Thunderbolt, more the USB side of it. If Apple decided to create the "better" lightning, why not use the "better" USB 3.0?

 

[mattythedog]

I'm not actually sure the Lighting connector is any faster, just smaller. So changing to USB 3.0 when everyone has 2.0 sockets would be more cost for everyone, when the connector isn't even faster.

 

[Sprite]

Who needs cables anywhoo? rock it like a boss and go wirless.

Ok yes people will need to have cables and I agree its just as slow as USB2. I have no idea why apple didnt go down the rout of thunderbolt or USB3, maybe the $'s swayed thier opinion.

 

[Zenith]

That and I believe all the new Apple computers are still in the dark ages of USB 2.0 while everyone else has upgraded to 3.0.