While it doesn’t include a radical new design, as some might have hoped, I find the iPhone 5 to be an impressive new iPhone, and a solid upgrade to the iPhone 4S, providing speed enhancements, better graphics, an amazing new camera and more. As such, I’ve assembled a list of five reasons you might consider upgrading.
Improved Processor & Graphics Performance
Now that Apple has included their new A6 processor in the iPhone 5, the device is now much faster and more powerful than the iPhone 4S. The A6 chip offers up to twice the processing and graphics performance as the iPhone S, enabling developers to take their apps to a whole new level.
Thinner and Lighter
During the introduction of the new phone, Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing, described the iPhone 5 as the “most beautiful product Apple has ever made”. The iPhone 5 has an anodized aluminum body and is 18% thinner than the previous generation, with a profile of just 7.6 mm. It is 20% lighter than the iPhone 4S, and was billed by Schiller as the world’s thinnest smartphone.
The handset weighs just 112 grams.
Taller Screen with Much Better Color
The iPhone 5’s screen is a Retina Display (of course), at 326 PPI. The resolution is 1136 X 640, with a 16:9 aspect ration for the 4-inch display. Schiller says it’s a right size that should fit comfortably in a users hand. It will also fit an extra row of apps, and because it’s now a 16 x 9 widescreen display, will be even better for movies!
Every Apple app has been updated to take advantage of the additional real estate. More content is viewable in apps such as Safari, more messages in Mail, more appointments in Calendar. Third-party apps not updated for the new screen will be “letterboxed”, placed in the center, with black bars on either side.
The new screen also has 44% more color saturation, and has the touch sensors integrated directly into the screen itself. This removes a layer from the screen, allowing the device to be thinner than ever.
Better Battery Life!
Despite the inclusion of a faster processor and graphics chip, and 4G LTE wireless data, Apple still managed to improve the battery live! The iPhone 5 is rated for 8 hours of 3G talk time, 8 hours of LTE browsing, 10 hours of WiFi browsing, and 10 hours of video.
Improved 8MP Camera With Panoramic Photo Mode
The new camera on the iPhone is 8 MP, with 3264 X 2448 resolution. It includes backside illumination, Hybrid IR filter, a five element lens, f/2.4 aperture, and is 25% smaller. Apple has put a lot of effort into improving the camera over the iPhone 4S.
The camera includes dynamic low light mode, precision lens alignment, sapphire crystal, and has sSpatial noise reduction. It also has smart filter, better low-light performance, and faster photo capture (40% faster),
Panorama photo ability is now included. The mode allows the user to join widescreen photos to create seamless transitions between them and obtain a single image as a result. Schiller displayed an image that went up to 28 megapixels thanks to Panorama mode.
Ultra-fast LTE Data, Dual-Band Wireless
Apple has also included support for faster data, including LTE. The wireless networking system uses HSPA+, DC-HSDPA, and LTE, supporting 7 different bands from GPRS to LTE. It uses a single chip for voice and data, and a single radio chip. It also now supports dual-band WiFi – a first for the iPhone!
These are only a few of the reasons I plan to upgrade to the iPhone 5. Is there anything I missed? If you’re planning to upgrade to the iPhone 5, what are you most looking forward to?
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