Iphone 5 Review

Iphone 5.Overview

Iphone 5.Overview

Well, I finally got my hands on making a review of the iPhone 5. As you know, I jumped off the iPhone after the Samsung Galaxy Note appeared: I really liked the hefty screen, and the Android system had become quite a decent operating system by that time. And then, of course, that’s how it all went: Samsung Galaxy S III, then Samsung Galaxy Note II. In short, I never felt like going back to the iPhone: Android, of course, has its certain drawbacks (not particularly critical for me), but the feeling of complete freedom compared to life in Apple’s slingshots and restrictions. It cannot be compared to anything. And what a joy not to see this damn iTunes for months. Only those who have not seen him for months will understand this.

Nevertheless, as you know, I am neither an apple phill nor an apple phobia, so I never say “never”: I carefully study what appears on the market, and if I like some new device more than the one I am using now. There is no problem to replace an old device with a new one, be it an iPhone, a smartphone from Samsung, Sony, HTC, or even a Windows phone or a Bada phone. Don’t care if it would be better than others.

Therefore, I, of course, had to study the fifth iPhone in order to draw a conclusion for myself: is it time for me to return to the bosom of the holy apple church? You never know, maybe the fifth iPhone is really so good that I’ll send my Galaxy Note II to the dustbin of history.

Well, now let’s see what kind of beast it is. At the time of studying this machine, we will try to answer two questions: do I want to change my Note II to a new iPhone, and does it make sense to urgently change the fourth iPhone to the fifth.

And now. Go. Explore the iPhone 5 in all its apple essence. After all, Apple says. This is the best thing that has happened to an iPhone since the iPhone. But they say so about every version, never mind.

Iphone 5

Specifications:

Operating system. Ios 6
CPU. Apple A6, 1200 MHz
RAM. 1 GB
ROM. 16 GB (32 GB, 64 GB)
Display. 640×1136, 4 “, capacitive sensor, Retina display, 326 PPI
Communication standards. GSM 900/1800/1900, 3G, LTE
Interfaces. USB, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0
SIM. Nano-SIM
Memory card. Not
Navigation. GPS / GLONASS
Battery. Li-Ion, non-removable, 1440 mAh
Camera. 8 MP, autofocus, LED flash, HD recording-
Second camera: front 1.2 Mpix for telephony
Dimensions. 58.6 x 123.8 x 7.6 mm
Weight. 112 g
Sensors. Gyroscope, accelerometer, digital compass, light sensor
Declared working time. Up to 8 hours of talk time (3G), up to 40 hours of music listening, up to 225 hours of standby

Dimensions and weight have changed markedly. The phone is 1.7 mm thinner and 32 grams lighter.

What do we have here with iron compared to the four? We have a new processor with hardware, memory has become a gig. The display resolution has hardly changed (and much more, in fact), it only increased vertically along with the change in screen proportions. The front camera has slightly added megapixels. The battery capacity is almost unchanged (1440 mAh versus 1432 for the iPhone 4S). The SIM slot was despicably made in the nano-SIM format: we all remember very well what kind of hemorrhoids Apple created a huge number of users with their damn micro-SIM, and now the world is rejoicing at seeing nano-SIM. I think that in the iPhone 6 we will see a round SIM card: I believe in Apple, they will still find something to surprise us.

In addition, as part of the same tradition of harassment of users, they also changed the USB connector from their usual one, which had not changed from the first iPhone, to a connector called Lightning. And what, the chicken pecks by the grain, Apple squeezes out a billion rubles: 30 bucks for a new wire, 20 bucks for an adapter. Even though it’s a pretty penny, it’s still interesting.

Of course, we understand that the new SIM card format and the new connector are made solely as a relentless concern for users and their convenience, iTunes is in the ditch for these guys.

By the way, all these new SIM cards and new connectors really do not bother those who are really apple. The new nano-SIM, they say, makes better calls. And through the Lightning connector, songs are poured clearly faster. So they will take a round SIM-card and return to the old slot in the sixth iPhone with all their hearts. On a round SIM, they’ll say, SMS is better sent. And the old connector. It’s vintage and a return to Uncle Jobs’ roots. However, there are not so many really violent among apple trees, so let them rejoice, we have something that?

Box now. BLACK R-RNAYA! True, only for black iPhones. White ones are packed in a vulgar white box.

Package contents: iPhone, new EarPods, cable, adapter, brochures, apple stickers, paper clip. By the way, regarding the paper clip, I have a proposal from Apple. If you think about it, users still have a bunch of paper clips from the second, third, third S, fourth and fourth S iPhones. So what the heck wasting precious Chinese metal? Let them use old paper clips! Also if the company makes the slot hole compatible with regular toothpicks. The paperclip will become unnecessary by definition. After all, now compatibility. As it was not, and not. Toothpicks cry, break, but continue to be incompatible.

Please note that the headphones have got their own box. In previous models, the headphones were supplied in the same way as the wire: coiled and sealed with transparent tape. But let’s face it, these old headphones were full of bullshit. And here are the EarPods. Quite another matter. However, we will talk about them a little later, the time for compliments has not yet come.

Appearance and features

It is clear that the iPhone bicycle has long been invented, so expecting something fundamentally new in design is not necessary.

In the front part, practically nothing has changed, except for the change in proportions and the transfer of the front camera slightly higher.

And here is the back cover. Completely different. Now, instead of glass, there is aluminum again, this time. Painted. The glossy glass surface is preserved only on the inserts at the top and bottom.

Since the device is completely black, the aluminum ends were also painted with black paint and did it completely in vain: the entire Internet is full of screams that this paint simply slips when it comes into contact with some objects and the iPhone quickly takes on a homeless look. The web is full of relevant photos like these.

Well, here it should be noted that the smartphone has become noticeably thinner: 7.6 mm versus 9.3 for the iPhone 4S. The new iPod Touch is 6.1mm thin. He is very thin.

Special plastic inserts were made at the ends to get rid of the well-known “try not to hold it this way” effect, in which the cellular signal level dropped noticeably if certain areas were pinched from the phone ends.

There are no changes with the control keys. Everything was as it was. On the left side. Mute button, volume buttons.

At the bottom. Headphone output (before it was at the top, and it’s much more convenient), connector output, speakers.

Right end. Slot for nano-SIM. Be it wrong.

Top end. Power button.

Well, it should be noted that the phone has become noticeably lighter. Only 112 grams compared to 137 grams of iPhone 4. That is, almost 20% lighter.

By the way, laughter is laughter, and the new connector is, of course, much more convenient than the old one. First, it is small enough. Similar in size to microUSB. And secondly, he now does not have parts protruding to the sides from the connector, which create a certain hemorrhoid when using any covers, cradles, docking stations and so on.

Old connector and new connector

Well, the new connector can already be inserted into the smartphone by either side, and not a specific one, as it was in the old plug.

Apple’s display breakthrough comes with its fourth iPhone, which has this gorgeous Retina display.

What could you expect from the fifth? Never mind. They have not come up with anything cooler than Retina, but to increase the display resolution. In general, it makes no sense. True, people expected that Apple, following the newfangled trends, would noticeably enlarge the display, but they only fulfilled their expectations by only half, enlarging the display exclusively vertically, thus changing the format from 3: 2 to the more popular 16: 9.

It is, of course, better than if the display had not increased at all (but then it would be completely incomprehensible why a new model should be released), but worse than if it had increased more radically. However, I express exclusively my own opinion.

On the enlarged display, not all programs are displayed adequately. System applications are already designed for this resolution, and many other applications are displayed in the old format. With black stripes from top to bottom. For example.

But there is also a significant innovation. The sensor layer is now applied to the matrix, that is, the extra glass plate on which the sensor layer was previously applied has been removed. Because of this, there is less glare, and the image looks better: it looks like it is applied to the surface of glass.

Device operation

The desktop of the loaded iPhone looks quite traditional. However, due to the increase in the height of the display, an extra line with icons appeared here. Well, what can I say to that? Extra line. It is never superfluous, I apologize for the tautological tautology.

We will not analyze in detail the work of all applications: they, as a rule, differ very little from the applications of the fourth iPhone. Therefore, we will try to look exactly at the differences.

There are certain innovations in the settings. For example, do not disturb mode. This is useful.

Accessibility options.

When connecting a Google account, as usual for an iPhone, it is better not to connect it like Gmail, because this will not sync contacts.

It must be connected like MS Exchange (here I described the technology): then everything will be synchronized, but without notes, which, in my opinion, no one needs for nothing, they are painfully poor.

Phone and messages. Not changed.

The browser also hasn’t changed much. At this resolution, the pages get a little better in landscape mode, but in portrait mode with the same Galaxy Note II. There is no comparison.

Here, look at the page Lenta.Ru in this iPhone.

And she is. In Samsung Galaxy Note II (I increased in proportion to the difference in display sizes).

In the iPhone in portrait mode on the same site Lenta.Ru you can’t really read anything, but on Note II. Can.

The mail has barely changed, and for it, enlarging the display does nothing. Except that the list of email headers fits one more.

Added one more line of tasks when viewing in month mode.

The application has become more beautiful and more convenient.

At the kiosk, publications are shown with black bars on top and bottom in portrait mode.

As you know, there was a big scandal with the new maps in iOS 6: Apple rushed to release its application and at the same time removed Google maps to death, which could not even be downloaded from the iTunes Store. At the same time, the new cards from Apple were very “raw” and contained numerous errors.

However, Apple has started to polish these cards very actively, and at the moment they look pretty good.

For many cities, excellent 3D maps with all buildings are available in satellite mode.

For Moscow, however, such a charm has not yet been received (by the way, in Google maps too).

Also, these maps have good navigation: I would not say that it is inferior to similar navigation from Google or from “Yandex”.

The application itself has not changed, however, it has become much more convenient to watch on this screen format: after all, modern films have long been released in 16: 9 format.

In addition, with the new processor and graphics subsystem, the iPhone can handle any format, up to 1080p, without any problems. It is, of course, understandable that on such a High Definition screen it does not make much sense (although the difference from 576p is still very noticeable when viewing), but Apple is soon promising a Lightning-HDMI cable, and this is already changing things a lot. Then movies in FullHD can be displayed on the TV panel screen.

Fullhd

Film in normal definition

The iPhone camera has always been great. Perhaps the best of all smartphones. The only thing she really lacked. This is the rate of fire. And this problem was fixed in the new iPhone: now the camera starts up much faster, coming to readiness in exactly a second, and the shooting process itself goes very quickly. You can snap a bunch of frames in a short period of time.

This is what her interface looks like.

Finally, a circular panorama mode has appeared: the phone must be held vertically and the program shows you how to move it to take pictures.

Here is the finished panorama (clickable).

Unfortunately, I had very little time to test the camera. Apple claims it has improved its performance in poor lighting conditions. I honestly did not notice this. In low light, as usual, the picture makes a lot of noise, well, and often there is not enough exposure to shoot from hands without “shaking”.

Nevertheless, for a smartphone, it shoots very decently, with autofocus it rarely misses (especially if you do not fuss), sets the white balance very well.

Here are some pictures with little or no selection and no processing. Shooting at home was done in very poor natural light, outdoors in the evening in bad weather.

And here is an example of shooting.

Itunes Store

As you know, quite recently a real miracle happened: now not only programs and podcasts are available for Russia in the iTunes Store, but almost the entire range of multimedia, except for books: films, music, and so on. And this is really good: it is very convenient to purchase any media content through the iTunes Store. In addition, for example, for films, you can select the desired resolution (a regular resolution costs three times cheaper than FullHD), as well as rent a movie.

This is how it all looks in iTunes on a computer.

And, of course, you can purchase all sorts of media from the iTunes Store directly through your phone.

Purchased disc

Music and headphones

Many journalists, reviewing the iPhone 5, are delighted when describing the new EarPods headphones.

What can I tell you about that? They do it correctly that they go in: the headphones really turned out to be just awesome, I will definitely buy them for myself for use with android smartphones.

Earpods have a very unusual shape: it turned out to be a cross between inserts and plugs.

But form is form, and what about sound quality? So, I don’t know how they did it, but the sound quality for this type of headphone is simply amazing. I compared with all sorts of branded in-ear headphones of about the same price category (EarPods in the States cost 30). These headphones have a much better sound: excellent volume, very clear high frequencies and absolutely wonderful bass for this format. If you also consider that these headphones are simply included with the smartphone. Here you can take off your hat in front of Apple: none of the manufacturers equip smartphones with headphones of this quality.

The headphones are equipped with a remote control with a built-in microphone, so it’s also a headset.

The application for listening to music in iOS is traditionally cool and convenient, so listen to music on your iPhone. Great pleasure.

Speed

This is a really powerful and fast smartphone. Geekbench 2 gives it 1,658 points. That’s a lot (details). Compared to the completely non-braking iPhone 4S, the increase was almost twice.

Purely practically, the sensations are excellent: applications just fly, swiping and other movements on the screen are incredibly smooth. Android before that, of course, still float and float. In this operating system, the movements are much more angular.

Battery life

As before, the battery of the iPhone is enough for a full day of active use: all wireless networks, phone calls, browser, reading, applications, a little, a little play, listening to music, reference books are turned on. over, for several days of such use by the evening, the battery showed a level of 30 percent, so there is still a certain margin.

Now for the tests. They were carried out with automatic brightness control enabled, but the brightness slider was set to 60%. (In general, in iOS, automatic brightness adjustment is remarkably made, which also depends on the set level. But in Android, automatic adjustment still works just ugly, I always turn it off.)

Wi-Fi is on, the page reloads in the browser once a minute. Nine hours thirty minutes.

All wireless networks are turned off, a serial of normal resolution is played in the player in a loop. Eight hours twenty minutes. Iphone 4 in the same conditions lived up to nine.

All wireless networks are turned off, a book is being read in iBooks. A little over ten hours.

Well, what can I say? With a larger display and a more powerful processor, the battery life has remained almost unchanged. What’s more, tests show that iPhone 5 running iOS 6 with Phones turned on battery life longer than iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S by optimizing power consumption. (However, you need to understand that the use of 3G affects the battery life (it actively “eats” the battery), as well as the signal level: as you know, the worse the signal, the faster the battery is discharged.)

Honestly, I wanted to swear. And the display has hardly changed, and the new connector, plus this stupid nano-SIM, and it seems what is the point in all this. However, I really liked the new device. There are a lot of pluses in it, let’s list.

Reduced thickness by almost 2 millimeters. This is essential. The phone is sleeker and fits better in the hand.

Weight reduction by 32 grams. Very much felt.

The display came to a 16: 9 aspect ratio. Finally.

Overall performance more than doubled.

Earpods headphones. Just wonderful!

The camera has become noticeably faster.

No, of course, if you have an iPhone 4 or 4S, it hardly makes sense to strive to immediately change your iPhone to the fifth one. In the end, compared to 4 or 4S, the innovations are not significant enough to pay a substantial sum for the joy of owning them. But if we consider the iPhone 5 as a separate new model, we must admit that the phone turned out to be very successful. Not without some claims, but this cannot be called a failure.

Well, I will answer the question whether I had a desire to change the Galqaxy Note II to the iPhone 5. No, it never appeared. Maybe I would have made it the second phone, but that is also out of the question. Due to nano-SIM. Because I am not going to hemorrhoid with the replacement of the micro-SIM Moscow and Spanish numbers with nano-SIM. What the hell to me?

Competitors

The iPhone 5, by and large, has one but very scary competitor called the Samsung Galaxy SIII. Like last year, Samsung made a showing people in line for iPhone 5s jealous of Galaxy owners.

Eldar and I will likely prepare a detailed comparison of the iPhone 5 and Samsung Galaxy SIII in the near future.

Voice quality

In this respect, the new iPhone is good, probably also due to the fact that I used the MegaFon nano-SIM with it. I don’t know how the Beeline managed to spoil the opportunity to make a gift to all owners of the device. But in MTS and Megafon they did not doze, already on September 21 I had such a card in my pocket. It is inserted in the usual way, on the right end there is a slot, it must be pushed out with a paper clip from the kit or with another handy item. I didn’t manage to insert the card right away, I had to twist the slot in my hands for a few seconds. I really do not advise you to try to make a nano-SIM from a micro-format card, it is better to just exchange it or wait for them to appear at the operators (Beeline, I am sending you a ray of greetings again).

The quality of speech transmission is excellent, and I can say the same about the connection. In the office, in a special place where there were always glitches during a conversation, the iPhone 5 feels quite normal. And in this place with the iPhone 4S I tried different cards. The problem of signal loss when you cover the bottom of the device with your hand is a thing of the past, now you don’t think about it. The interlocutor’s voice sounds natural, the volume is high, and you can also be heard perfectly. The noise canceling system works well.

Here I will also say that due to weight reduction, vibration is felt much better, the device literally jumps in your pocket and on the table. You can do without calling. Strange, but not a single new ringtone appeared for the iPhone 5, and the wallpaper remained the same.

Let me remind you that the iPhone 5 initially supports LTE, but again, not about our honor. In the literal sense, this is an international phone, look at the declared characteristics:

• GSM model A1428: UMTS / HSPA / DC-HSDPA (850, 900, 1900, 2100 MHz); GSM / EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz); LTE (Bands 4 and 17)
• CDMA model A1429: CDMA EV-DO Rev. A and Rev. B (800, 1900, 2100 MHz); UMTS / HSPA / DC-HSDPA (850, 900, 1900, 2100 MHz); GSM / EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz); LTE (Bands 1, 3, 5, 13, 25)
• GSM model A1429: UMTS / HSPA / DC-HSDPA (850, 900, 1900, 2100 MHz); GSM / EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz); LTE (Bands 1, 3, 5)
• 802.11a / b / g / n Wi-Fi (802.11n 2.4ghz and 5GHz)
• Bluetooth 4.0 wireless technology

Two words about Bluetooth, it has already become a parable, but you cannot send a file or receive a file. Apparently, we’ll wait a couple of years. The weird Bluetooth 4.0 profile is very good for use with sports accessories, and I look forward to seeing Apple go back to making its own wireless add-ons. GPS and GLONASS supported, here’s the joy,

Memory

There are three versions, 16, 32 and 64 GB, I have about 30 GB of photos on my iPhone 4S and I really don’t want to throw them on a laptop. So I would recommend buying one version of the iPhone 5 or another depending on how much content you have. You can check it in the settings (“General / About this device”).

Performance

It uses the A6 processor, a new solution for Apple, which we will also see in the new iPad. In my opinion, all benchmarks create a false impression, but especially for parrot lovers, I measured the performance in the GeekBench 2 program on the iPhone 4S and on the iPhone 5. The first device has 627 points, the second one has 1636 points, you can see the details in the screenshots, but the difference is noticeable to the unarmed look. Games and programs start up faster, Safari toggles and turns two times faster, the speed is noticeable in Yandex.Navigator. And you get used to these improvements very quickly, the iPhone 4S after the “five” seems slow.

Iphone 5 review

Music

The iPhone 5 has a louder speaker, or just the sound is different, has become more spacious, although it is hardly worth saying this in relation to a smartphone. Many people use the iPhone as a kind of speaker, you can listen to music in the bathroom or in the office, for these purposes it will do just fine. As for the sound quality, any iPhone is a reference smartphone in this parameter, and if you choose a headset, and if you use music in ALAC, and if you screw on an amplifier like Sony PHA-1, then even the most complete audiophile will be satisfied. I tried to compare the sound of iPhone 4S and iPhone 5 using EarPods, the same compositions, there is a difference. The iPhone 5 has a louder sound, and noticeably louder. At the same time, there is no loss of quality, disruptions. Let me remind you that in my review of the iPhone 4, I once said that the sound became much better compared to the iPhone 3Gs, and I can say the same about the iPhone 5. You may not notice the difference at first, but then if you return to the iPhone 4S, you will instantly feel it. It is often impossible to listen to music at full volume, it is harmful to health. I really want to believe that the sound in the iPod Touch will be the same.

Well done at Apple to stay true to themselves. In my opinion, the iPhone 5 is currently the best music smartphone on the market in terms of all characteristics. By the way, here are the supported music formats:

Audio formats supported: AAC (8 to 320 Kbps), Protected AAC (from iTunes Store), HE-AAC, MP3 (8 to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, Audible (formats 2, 3, 4, Audible Enhanced Audio, AAX, and AAX), Apple Lossless, AIFF, and WAV