Well, the rumors were true. The iPhone 5 is real, and it is taller. It’s 18 percent thinner than the iPhone 4S and 20 percent lighter. That is pretty damn impressive. It has a 326 PPI Retina display, and it has a resolution of 1136 x 640 on the four-inch screen. Unsurprisingly, that is a 16:9 aspect ratio. This allows a fifth row of icons per home screen.
All of Apple’s apps have been updated to take advantage of the new size, but any third party apps that haven’t been updated to the new resolution are run at their same 960×640 resolution with black bars on the top and bottom. CNN and OpenTable have already updated their apps to take advantage.
Not only does the display have 44 percent better color saturation, making for more accurate and sharper images, but it also has a layer removed. The touch sensors are directly on the display itself. Impressive.
The iPhone 5 has all of the same radios the iPhone 4S had, but it now also includes HSPA+, DC-HSDPA, and LTE! The United States will get the LTE iPhone on Sprint, Verizon, and AT&T. Canadians will get Rogers, Telus, and Bell. The iPhone 5 also supports dual band 802.11n, so Wi-Fi surfing will be faster too!
Also debuting in the iPhone 5 is the brand new Apple A6 system on a chip. This will mean both the CPU and GPU will see a two times improvement. Not only that, but it is 22 percent smaller than the A5.
The battery life is pretty impressive. Both 3G and LTE browsing sits at eight hours while Wi-Fi browsing is ten hours. An impressive 225 hours of standby means you won’t have to worry about charging all the time.
Despite the slimming effect of the iPhone 5, the camera is actually getting better. It will support shooting at up to 8 megapixels (3264×2448). It sports a hybrid IR filter and five-element lens as well. This means it will have a greater dynamic range by two f-stops. It also sports a new image processing chip with the A6, so we can expect much better photos with our iPhone 5s. Even better? Panorama support is built right into the device! It shoots video at 1080p, and it has better image stabilization and face detection. Heck, you can even take photos while you’re recording video.
The front-facing “FaceTime HD” camera now supports 720p video, has backside illumination, and sports face detection as well. Even better, it has three high quality microphones for noise cancellation on calls.
Say goodbye to the 30-pin connector. Now we have “Lightning.” It’s an all-digital 8-signal connector with an “adaptive interface” and it’s even reversible! HOORAY! For those of us with lots of 30-pin connectors lying around, an adaptor will be sold.
The device will be available in both black and white versions. Interestingly, the black model will have a black trim, and the white will have a silver trim. This makes the two models pretty distinct.
Good news, the price remains the same. The iPhone 4 is free with contract, iPhone 4S is $99 with contract, and the iPhone 5 starts at $199 with contract for the 16 GB model.
Pre-orders start on Friday, and the phones will ship a week later. Whew! The US, Canada, UK, France, Germany, Australia, Japan, Hong Kong, and Singapore will get the iPhone 5 on September 21st, and over 100 countries will have the phone by the end of the year. Over 240 carriers!
Source: The Verge
