Apple iPhone 5 revie

                                            

            

While we are eager to get started on battery life testing, that'll happen late tonight after a full day's worth of use and a recharge cycle. Meanwhile, we went straight to work on performance testing. As we've mentioned before, the A6 SoC makes use of a pair of Apple's own CPU cores that implement the ARMv7 ISA. These aren't vanilla Cortex A9s or Cortex A15s, but rather something of Apple's own design. For its GPU Apple integrated a Powers SGX543MP3 GPU running at higher clocks than the dual-core 543MP2 in the A5. The result is compute performance that's similar to the A5X in Apple's 3rd generation iPad, but with a smaller overall die area. The A6 has a narrower memory interface compared to the A5x (64-bits vs. 128-bits), but that makes sense given the much lower display resolution (0.7MP vs. 3.1MP).

                              

Baertty performance

What can we say: It’s “okay.” Apple has improved many things with the iPhone 5, but battery life isn’t one of them. Like the iPad 3, the new iPhone holds a charge well when idling, but when you’re using it, don’t expect an improvement in battery life over the iPhone 4S. We’ve only been using it a few days, but it hasn’t impressed us at all. With moderate use (not much downloading, but a lot of emailing and browsing), we’ve managed to make it through a normal 12-hour day, but never without being down to the wire.

Apple claims the phone will get about 8 hours of constant use. We’re hoping the next iPhone packs in more than a 1,440mAh battery, as most Android competitors have batteries in the 1,800mAh to 2,100mAh range. Competitors like the Galaxy S3 and Droid Razr Maxx definitely outshine Apple in the battery department.

Specs and performance

We can’t pit the iPhone 5 against our usual benchmarks for Android phones, but we wouldn’t subject you to that boring pissing contest anyway. Suffice it to say, it feels fast. From unlocking to loading apps and crunching 3D graphics, Apple’s new processor is up to the task in a way that previous iPhones have not been.

As best we can tell (Apple isn’t completely forthcoming with all specs) the iPhone 5 runs on a 1GHz dual-core Apple A6 processor, has 1GB of RAM, and comes with 16GB to 64GB of internal flash memory, with no microSD slot. Other specs include an 8-megapixel rear camera with LED flash, a 1.2-megapixel front camera, an 1136 x 640 pixel 4-inch LCD screen, and a 1,440mAh battery, which we’ll get into shortly.

Camera

The iPhone 5 has an 8-megapixel camera -- the same basic resolution as the iPhone 4S, though Apple has made tweaks to the technology within. This phone performs better than the iPhone 4S in low light, has better video stabilisation and produces more vibrant colours, though the change is subtle.

Check through the following comparison shots, which show iPhone 5 and iPhone 4S photos of the same subjects in the same conditions. While I think the iPhone 5 photos are slightly brighter and more colourful, you'd be hard pressed to split them.