Last Updated on September 21, 2024 by Mathew Diekhake
The consensus of the new mobile from the Cupertino company is that it gives out more while being physically less. It is seen right from the get-go when just looking at the new iPhone 5. It is noticeably thinner, so much so that it’s officially the world’s thinnest smartphone. It still keeps the traditional iPhone shape of being flat and rounded.
While on appearance lets take a look at the iPhone 5 screen. The screen is 4 inches and comes with an aspect ratio of 16:9 with a screen resolution of 1136×640 but the most impressive screen feature of the iPhone 5 comes in the form of the 326 ppi which is visually impressive in itself. Now let’s compare that with the older iPhones.
The older iPhones all had 3:2 aspect ratio. All of the third Gen iPhones including the iPhone 3G and the iPhone 3GS had a 3.5-inch, 480×320 resolution gave out a 163 ppi display. Next came 2010 and the birth of the iPhone 4 which had the retina display, but would you believe that the screen size and the aspect ratio stayed the same? Well, that was the case, but it is well disguised with the improved 960×640 resolution at 326 ppi display. It was this that effectively made the pixels disappear from the eyesight and gave off a better finish.
It’s the dawn of a new age this time around with the iPhone 5 where Apple has changed the screen size and the aspect ratio for the very first time in history, extending it from 3.5 to 4 inches and aspect ratio from 3:2 to 16:9.
Some call the iPhone 5′s screen too big, but that opinion is not the greatest. The Galaxy S3 introduced the world to the big screen, and that screen arguably was too big. iPhone recognised it, but they still may have felt inclined to increase their size at least a bit. If it wasn’t going to match, the Galaxy s3 or beat it in size, it was going to attempt to beat it with reason, and that’s what Apple did. Apple now claims that the 4-inch screen is the perfect compromise making it all round machine to suit people’s needs, and personally, I think they got that right.
The iPhone 5 screen is bigger compared to 4S from last year. It isn’t giving any more bulk even though it is larger in display size. That is where people start to say OK; this is enough, the machine is too big. It’s often the bulk that people don’t want, but when it comes to sliding an extra half-inch into the pocket depth wise, I don’t think you will get too many complaints.
So how did Apple manage to make a device with better specs while still managing to make it thinner at the same time? You can thank all new in-cell technology for that. The in-cell technology allowed Apple to combine what would normally be two layers into one with the in cells’ ability put a touch sensor into the LCD display, something that was impossible before today.
The iPhone 5 now comes with 4G speeds. While it’s true not the world is caught up in the 4G way of thinking just yet with many rural places not having any benefit what-so-ever, if you are a city goer or live in surrounding areas, there most is some great rewards in the way of download speeds. If you are one of the lucky ones, you will easily noticeably see the difference to the point of wondering how you ever used anything else.
If you are into taking photos, the iPhone 5 is the iPhone, you want. It is where statistics can be a bit deceiving. On paper, you wouldn’t be silly for thinking the new iPhone 5 cameras didn’t get much of an upgrade. However, I can assure you it most certainly did. The new iSight and Facetime cameras got a tremendous boost with a thing called dynamic low light mode, creating what Apple swear to be three f-stops better performance and from taking a look, I wouldn’t bet against that either. Without going into the too much technical talk, the A6 processor also gives the camera a boost. It has the extra ability to scope out surrounding and adjust to them as required. The main benefit here being the great colours it brings out, but it also makes for faster photo taking bringing out the photographer in all of us more. Last but not least, let’s go back to the theme of the iPhone 5 – does more but is less –, and the camera is no different with it also being 25% smaller than that of the iPhone 4S.
We’ve so far covered the appearance and visuals, not let’s take a look at the audio. The iPhone 4S was great when it brought out the inclusion of two mics, and it was great while it lasted, but now the iPhone 5 has three microphones. The first two is still in the same positions, and the 3rd tucked away between the iSight camera and the LED flash area. On top of having the three receivers, all of them are multifunctional too! The main speaker being the one at the bottom has received an upgrade with now featuring a five magnet transducers. Last but not least in the audio department is new ear pods finally included by Apple. These ear buds I know have been long overdue with the old ones driving many people insane, so this addition has made a lot of happy faces.
The Apple spokesmen’s didn’t speak on the battery when the iPhone 5 first came out. It had many people worried about how bad, or how much Apple hasn’t focused on improving it.We can safely say this isn’t the case now that time has passed by us. Whether the speaker simply forgot about that part of the speech or not, I’m not sure, but there is no reason not to talk about it. The talk time doesn’t receive much of a boost but where it’s impressive is the standby time. The old iPhone 4S has a standby time of 25 hours. This new smartphone has a standby time of a whopping 225 hours! It also excels in Internet usage time that has gone up by two hours.
If you are worried about compatibility, you have some merit to that argument. When it comes to apps and things of that nature its true not all of them have yet passed over or upgraded to support the new visual display of the iPhone 5 but that doesn’t mean you can’t still use them. For the most part, though, apps have passed over hundreds of thousands already supporting the iPhone 5 new screen ratios.
All-in-all, the smartphone, looks like a great phone over its predecessors, and if you’ve got the money, there’s no reason not to switch over.