Apple’s new iPhone 5s is set to go on sale this Friday, Sept. 20, and the phone is already generating a lot of buzz. The 5s is the more advanced of two new Apple iPhones, and offers a lot of technical advantages over the iPhone 5c also launching the same day. Apple has worked some behind-the-scenes magic with its latest and greatest, and made some design changes for the better, too, all of which adds up to a new smartphone market king.
- 4-inch, 1136×640, 326ppi display
- 16, 32, or 64GB storage
- A7 processor (64-bit)
- 8MP iSight camera (rear) with 1.5 micron pixels, 1.2MP FaceTime HD camera (front)
- Dual-band 802.11n Wi-Fi
- Up to 13-band LTE support
- Bluetooth 4.0
- MSRP: 16GB for $199 on contract/$649 unlocked; 32GB for $299 on contract/$749 unlocked; 64GB for $399 on contract/$849 unlocked
- Product info page
Pros:
- Fingerprint scanner is intuitive/more convenient than passcode
- Big performance boost vs. iPhone 5
- Camera is epic
Cons:
- Flash photography can’t be saved by dual-LEDs
- Premium price
The iPhone 5s inherits the design legacy of the iPhone 5, which means aluminum, chamfered edges and glass. But unlike with previous “s” class updates like the 4S, Apple has gone further, updating the look of the phone as well as its internals. For the sliver model, that just means an updated home button to house the new fingerprint scanner, but there’s an all-new gold finish, and a “space gray” version to replace the black model of the iPhone 5s.
It’s hard not to wax too poetic about the iPhone 5s design; the color-matched conductive ring around the home button/fingerprint sensor adds a lot to the overall good looks of the device, and the new space gray finish that I reviewed is more visually striking than the black it replaces. It also seems more resistant to wear, as the iPhone 5 in black scratched when I even thought about it encountering some grit, while the 5s finish remains impeccable after a week of use.
Last but definitely not least is the iPhone’s new Slo-Mo camera mode. The feature works by filming at 120fps in 720p, then playing content back at 30fps, resulting in a slowed down playback that you can tweak with a built-in timeline slider. The effect is extremely impressive, but trying to take it off your phone requires that you slow down the footage again manually in software like FCP X, although an update that preserves the effect for iPhoto could conceivably be on the way. You can also share the video as-is from your device itself via the iPhone’s share menu, and this is far and away one of the most impressive new features on the iPhone. It might actually get me shooting video on my device, which is saying something since I don’t usually do that.
I do take a lot of pictures, and generally speaking I carry at least an advanced pocket camera like the Sony RX100. But Apple’s really done some amazing work here; the quality of still captures from this phone is excellent, as you can see from the unedited examples below. The FaceTime HD camera on the front is also much better for making video calls, which will also help make FaceTime a more enjoyable experience.
Apple’s A7 processor is, like many of its predecessors, designed for future applications, and as such won’t really show its true potential during an initial week of usage. That said, it’s already plenty impressive. General performance is perceptibly improved, with apps launching quicker, camera and other functions recycling with less downtime, and just overall helping the phone to feel fresh and new.
All iOS 7’s new visual tweaks don’t make the 5s so much as blink.
iOS 7 brings a lot of visual flourishes, transparency effects and animations to Apple’s mobile software, and the A7 has clearly been designed from the ground up to ensure that all of those added visual tweaks don’t make the device so much as blink. Add to that the ease of use and consistent performance of the fingerprint sensor, and you’ve got a phone that behaves like Apple wants its hardware to, offering a pleasant and worry-free user experience.
LTE gets up to 13-band support depending on model, and that makes the 5s the perfect world-travelling phone. As with the iPhone 5c, I tried an EE UK LTE data sim and found it worked instantly with my unlocked U.S. model iPhone, though roaming agreements mostly don’t include LTE as of yet so your actual mileage may vary when on vacation.
Apple’s iPhone 5s has a lot more moving parts and a big beefy new processor, but it’s advertising slightly better battery life than the iPhone 5. In practice, it does indeed beat its predecessor in terms of general usage. A full charge was good for around 15 hours of actual usage, with over a day and a half of standby time, with a heavy usage period that involved a lot of video viewing on a plane bringing that down to just shy of a day with nearly 11 hours actual active use. It’s very close to what I experienced with the iPhone 5c, and shows that both these new phones have made some good changes with regards to power management.
Some of that could be attributable to iOS 7, but Apple’s new M7 coprocessor is also a likely cause. The real test will be longer-term, when we see the CoreMotion API used in tandem with the M7 to increase the power efficiency of third-party apps; small gains all around could add up to sizeable ones for the overall iOS user experience.
With the iPhone 5s, Apple once again wins the right to claim the title of best smartphone available. The hardware may resemble its predecessor in many key ways, as with the 4-inch Retina display, but it improves dramatically in areas like the camera where it makes the most difference to every day users, and in the addition of the fingerprint sensor, which is already a feature I miss when I switch back to older generation devices or the iPhone 5c. And thanks to the 64-bit A7 processor, this phone, more than any iPhone before it, is likely to be the device that grows more appealing as the software ecosystem catches up, which is great news for buyers looking for something that isn’t so easily replaced by the next big thing that comes along.
