Even though Apple has seen increasing competition from the likes of Android as well as renewed efforts from RIM and Microsoft, the company has still been able to stay afloat the waves of success as the consistently push millions of devices to consumers on a monthly basis.
However, with issues regarding the previous iPhone and competition getting stiffer, Apple was forced to push back the announcement of their iPhone until October. That being the case, the company released the fifth version of the iPhone. Just like many analysts predicted, this is not an entirely new device but rather one that has been refined. Is this phone worth the wait? Read our review to find out.
Design
If you compare the iPhone 4 and the 4S side-by-side, you will be hard pressed to find any differences. In fact the new iPhone 4S is identical to the Verizon iPhone 4 and there is only a slight position change in the volume buttons on the side of the phone. That being said, the phone has gained a bit of weight. Instead of the 4.8oz (137 grams) of the previous phone, the iPhone 4S now has a weight of 4.9oz or 140 grams. Fortunately, the only way you will ever notice this weight difference is if you held both phones in either hands.
Specifications
Although the outside is the same, Apple has done some tinkering with the internals of the device. To start things off the phones processor is now dual-core. The clock speed is running at 800MHz with 512MB of RAM. While the clock speed is slower than the previous iPhone, it is dual core and thus can handle twice the load (theoretically speaking). Instead of having two versions, there will be a single iPhone to rule all the carriers (or so Apple hopes). There is dual-band CDMA with quadband GSM as well as HSDPA+ (14.4Mbps) and 3G.
Unfortunately, Apple is leaving LTE out of the iPhone 4S for now so your fastest data speeds will come from a GSM HSDPA+ carrier. The display is the same 3.5-inch 960 x 640 pixel display as the previous phone. On the other hand, the camera has been increased to 8-megapixels with AF flash and f/2.4 aperture. Video capture has been increased from 720p to 1080p at 30fps. The secondary front facing camera is still 1.3 megapixels but now has 30fps. Last but not least we have the same Micro SIM from the iPhone 4, with Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n, accelerometer, digital compass, gyroscope and now Bluetooth 4.0.
Screen
The screen hasn’t changed a bit from what we first saw on the iPhone 4. Is that a good thing? We’re not sure. On one hand it is apparent that screen size has never been a major issue with Apple when trying to sell millions of iDevice’s. But on the other hand, with a resolution identical to a model released a year ago, we expected Apple to up that seeing Samsung and other manufacturers are teasing 720p screen devices for a year end release.
Camera
While not the best camera we have ever used on a mobile phone, the iPhone 4S does rank among the top. It does not have many of the fine controls we have come to admire from phones like the N9 or HTC Titan, but it does take beautiful shots and the addition of 1080p video capture is welcomed. All in all, Apple has done a good job in the camera department.
Our only gripe comes from the VGA front facing camera which should have been given at least a full megapixel if not two. With most of the high end phones sporting 1.3 and 2.0 megapixel cameras, we are a little disappointed Apple decided not to change out the module.
Software
We won’t delve much into the software changes in iOS 5, but the big news here is speech to text thanks to Siri beta which also lets you command your phone to do just about anything in reason. Better yet, the API will be available to developers so expect to see some interesting applications in the near future that take advantage of this new feature.
Other inclusions include a revamped notification system heavily inspired by Android, iOS Messenger inspired by BlackBerry and deep Twitter integration inspired by Microsoft.
Performance
Thanks to the new dual core processor as well as a dual-core GPU, Apple claims single and double digit performance improvements all around. In our tests, we tended to side with them when it came time for a verdict. If you are into heavy game playing or other graphical intense tasks, you will love the new CPU and GPU. Overall we didn’t have any problems multitasking, and while we still miss the card style multitasking feature of the now defunct webOS, multitasking on iOS has become easier.
Battery
Apple claims the similar if not better battery life over the iPhone 4S’ predecessor. So far we are willing to side with them but we are kind of taken back at the standby time which has been cut down an entire 100 hours. We did notice that when it came to battery life while picture taking or video shooting, the time decreased dramatically faster over the iPhone 4. This is most likely due to the inclusion of a beefed up camera module.
Call Quality
Remember ‘antenna-gate’? Well thanks to dual antennae’s (still located on the outside of the iPhone 4S) the phone will automatically switch between both antennas depending on how the phone is being held. We tried to replicate many of our drop calls we had with the iPhone 4 and for the most part it was hard. We did notice bars drop depending on how the phone was being held, but there si definitely some major improvement over last year’s model.
Conclusion
At last we come to the verdict. Giving the iPhone a final score is hard seeing the device is up to par with most of the phones currently on the market. Unfortunately, most of those phones were released months ago and the newest crop of quad core, 720p screen sporting devices are about to hit the market. The iPhone 4S can definitely compete in the CPU and GPU department even though both have been underpowered. However, software wise, Apple hasn’t brought enough new features to the table to set itself apart.
On the bright side, for the first time since its launch in 2006, Apple is making the iPhone available on the largest selection of carriers worldwide. This should help it better compete with Android who continues to grow.
Is the iPhone 4S worth the upgrade? Unfortunately, the answer is no. If you are hell bent on sticking with Apple, wait till next year when the iPhone 5 is released. If you’d rather look around, we hear the Nexus Prime will be packing some great features.
At any rate, whether you decide to buy in or buy out, this is the best iPhone ever and Apple has done a good job of refining the experience. Unfortunately, they have not done much to reinvent the experience and that is something that is needed if they want to continue successfully competing with the likes of Google and Microsoft.