September 13, 2012

After months of rumors and leaked details, Apple has finally announced the iPhone 5 at its media event on Wednesday, September 12, 2012. The iPhone 5 release comes just over 11 months after the iPhone 4S was released.

Apple’s new iPhone comes with a vast number of new features that make it worthy of Apple’s new slogan, “The biggest thing to happen to iPhone since iPhone” We’ve made a quick run through of the iPhone 5′s coolest features.

4-Inch Display

Since the release of the original iPhone in 2007, Apple has been using a 3.5-inch display for both the iPhone and iPod touch. However, the iPhone 5 now touts a 4-inch screen with a 16:9 aspect ratio. The new iPhone’s resolution has increased to 1136 x 640 while the pixel density remains at 326 ppi. Apple has announced that all of its pre-loaded apps have already been optimized for the iPhone 5. Apps that are not yet optimized for the iPhone 5 will have black bars on the top and bottom of the display. When viewing widescreen HD videos, however, users will be happy to see that the entire display can be utilized to show the video (without those annoying black bars seen on the previous iPhones). The iPhone 5 also have 44% better color saturation than the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S. The increased height on the screen also comes with an additional row of icons in the home screen.

LTE

Aside from the new display, LTE is likely one of the best new features on the iPhone 5. Foreshadowed by the new iPad’s inclusion of LTE back in March, this was actually quite expected by many. LTE coverage will be available from all three major carriers in the United States (AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon).

In terms of LTE coverage, Verizon definitely wins the top spot while AT&T comes in at a close second. Sprint, however, comes at a distant third with very limited LTE coverage in the United States. Sprint has claimed that major metropolitan areas will be covered in the “coming months” but really offers no set expectation.

Customers who enjoy the ability to browse the internet while engaging in phone calls may want to stay away from the Sprint and Verizon offerings of the iPhone 5. Only the AT&T iPhone 5 will be able to use the internet while being on an active phone call. Even so, customers will not be able to use LTE service on AT&T but instead, the slower 3G network. Users will still be able to use Wi-Fi connections to access the internet while on phone calls.

Faster Processor

Whereas the iPhone 4S features the Apple A5 processor and the new iPad features the A5x processor – the iPhone 5 comes with the new Apple A6 processor. The A6 claims to be up to twice as fast at the A5 while being smaller than its predecessor. The A6 is also 22% smaller than the A5 processor and is more efficient on battery usage.

Improved Battery Life

Apple claims that we’ll up to 8 hours of talk time on 4G LTE, 8 hours of 3G / 4G LTE web browsing, 10 hours of video playback, and up to 40 hours of music playback. The iPhone will also have up to 225 hours of standby time.

Thinner and Lighter

We can’t say it any better than Apple does.

… the new A6 chip is up to 2x faster than the A5 chip but 22 percent smaller. Even with so much inside, iPhone 5 is 20 percent lighter and 18 percent thinner than iPhone 4S. – Apple.com

“Better” Camera

The iPhone 5 comes with a 25% smaller camera that claims to be a big step up from the iPhone 4S. While the camera on the iPhone 5 remains at 8 megapixels, like the iPhone 4S, you can expect better images in worse lighting conditions. Apple also includes a Panorama picture-mode on the iPhone 5.

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