iPhone 5s review :
The Apple iPhone 5s is the Cupertino brand’s latest flagship, sporting Touch ID, a better camera and iOS 7. Is it worth an upgrade just yet?
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Launching 2013's most anticipated smartphone comes with its perils and pleasures. Simultaneously launching a second handset targeting a completely new demographic, for the first time in your company's history, is brave as it is hazardous. However, as we've come to expect from the most Marmite tech company in the world, if anyone can pull it off, it's Apple.
Since the iPhone 5s and cheaper iPhone 5c were unveiled, we've spent every waking (and sometimes sleeping) minute putting the first iOS 7-out-of-the-box devices through their paces. The iPhone 5s is Apple’s most powerful phone to date and potentially the most game-changing iPhone it’s launched in six years. We say potentially as, for it to change the way we think about mobile, Apple's going to need a helping hand along the way. We'll come onto that. With big name rivals like the HTC One, Samsung Galaxy S4 and Sony Xperia Z to compete against, the new iPhone certainly has a lot of work to do… iPhone 5s: Features
Unquestionably, the standout features of the iPhone 5s are its newest hardware inclusions and upgrades, namely Touch ID, the M7 motion co-processor, 64-bit architecture and the all-new iSight camera. These are not only what differentiate it from the previous iPhone 5, but justify its place as the flagship iPhone when compared to the iPhone 5c.
Now, fingerprint scanning is a pretty boring subject and our only real day-to-day experience of using the technology is with those digit readers built into laptops – a slide-to-unlock affair that worked 60% of the time. So, when Apple bought AuthenTec, spawning rumours of similar technology being integrated into its devices, we weren’t exactly enamoured. However, Apple has done its age-old trick of turning a dull feature into something resembling sexy. Introduced to replace passcode authentication for unlocking the phone and making iTunes purchases, Touch ID is a joy to use. The sensor is built right into the Home button and registration of a thumb, finger or both – five digits can be registered – takes about a minute using a most-pleasing enrolment system. Once recorded, Touch ID has 360-degree, readability of registered digits, meaning it’ll unlock your phone no matter what way up you’re holding the handset. The key selling point, however, is the simplicity and speed of identification.
Check out our iPhone 5s Touch ID demo walkthough video:
You don’t have to use Touch ID, but after a few hours with it, the mere thought of entering a four-digit passcode to unlock the device seemed so passé. And this is so easy.
For some – 36%, according to a McAfee study earlier in the year, including this reviewer and Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer – Touch ID could be the first time security of any kind will be used to protect entry to their phone. It's all seamless, efficient and totally Apple. Apple is keen to point out that it doesn’t store fingerprint details in iCloud or any of its remote servers. It’s all contained within the hardware, meaning nobody can get at your data. Even the NSA.
While this is great news for security, we can’t see Apple opening up Touch ID for third-party development anytime soon. So forget your dreams about online fingerprint banking (Barclays declined to comment on its plans) and real-life retail payments. We'd have also liked the option to open different apps with different digits. Maybe in the next iOS 7 upgrade.
Next in the handful of hardware advancements is what could turn the iPhone 5s from an evolutionary upgrade to a revolutionary game changer. Like the GPU that bears the graphical strain from a computer's processor, the new M7 Coprocessor takes the weight of motion measurements - compass, accelerometer and gyroscope - away from the all-new A7 CPU. Apple claims this will provide a 6x power saving for (iOS 7-updated) apps that record motion - Nike+, Strava, Moves, etc - but this dedicated chip can also tell what state of movement you're in and will adjust the iPhone 5s accordingly. To test this, we used Apple Maps to plot an A to B route that required driving and walking. Upon reaching our destination, and exiting the car, the navigation switched from car to foot, taking us down one-way streets that wouldn't have been possible in a motor. If the Coprocessor is clever enough to know where you are and what you're doing (to an extent), it could pave the way for the next wave of apps and features. One example we were given was this: if your iPhone 5s is put in a gym locker while you pump iron, it knows that a) you're not using it b) there's no network coverage c) it's stationary. The iPhone could then power itself right down, switching off 3G/4G, the screen and so forth until the time it’s picked up again, where it would come back to life, ready to take that call from your PT asking why you sat in the sauna for two hours rather than making yourself sick doing burpees. With a whole new data stream open to developers, it won't be long before a new breed of M7/iOS 7 apps appear in the App Store. What's more, if there's one emerging area that the M7 would supplement perfectly, it's wearable technology. iBand before Christmas, then? Another improvement that could pave the way for Apps 2.0, is the A7 CPU/64-bit architecture combo. On paper, Apple claims the power couple will deliver speed twice that of the A6 chip and vastly improved OpenGL ES 3.0-compatible graphics. At the time of writing, no 64-bit games or apps were available. The Infinity Blade demo we saw at the iPhone 5s/c launch admittedly looked outrageous in terms of graphical prowess but, while Apple says iOS 7 was built with 64-bit in mind, the spec bump won't be apparent until developers start taking advantage. However, Apple's in this for the long game and will soon have all its devices - iMacs, iPads, iPhones - and operating systems - Mac OS and iOS - all running under the same programming banner, which will no doubt please developers. Moreover, no one else is doing that. Apart from Samsung, who was quick to confirm its next raft of smartphones would be 64-bit. As another spec-war begins, we can report that the A7 chip has definitely made the Camera app a lot zippier on the iPhone 5s. Real-time previews, on-the-fly effects processing, slo-mo, autofocus (see more in iSight, below) are faster and free from lag or judder. For us, this app demonstrates the most noticeable speed improvement in the iPhone 5s's armory. iPhone 5s: Camera
The other evident area of improvement over the iPhone 5 and differentiation between the 5c lies with the new iSight camera. Rather than upping the megapixel count, to match that of the Sony Xperia Z and Samsung Galaxy S4 and the staggering 41MP on the Nokia Lumia 1020, Apple has opted to increase the 8MP sensor by 15% and individual pixels to 1.5 microns. The aperture has also had a spec bump to f/2.2, increasing light sensitivity by 33%.
While that's all well and good on paper, it's in the wild where these claims count. Mercifully, in Apple's case, the results are noticeable. We've already said how the A7-powered Camera app zips along like a greased squirrel, now we'll make a claim of our own and say that pictures taken with the iPhone 5s are the best we've ever seen on any iPhone to date. There's a new sense of depth to shots, especially with close-up subjects, while low-light photography now produces photos worth keeping. Another fresh string to the 5s bow is the upgraded flash, which Apple's marketing team has named 'True Tone'. Without getting geeky over gamut, the flash works out the intensity and colour temperature for the environment it's about to shoot in, resulting in brighter background definition and more natural colour tones in shots. It works. We're impressed.
iPhone 5s camera test video:
Other iPhone 5s-specific camera features include; auto image stabilisation (steady), 3x video zoom (bit blurry), 30fps panorama with varying light control (megabyte-y), burst mode at 10 photos per second (cheeky) and, best of all, slo-motion video capture, which is absolutely brilliant. It’s the iPhone 5s's Panorama moment and you can expect to see your social feeds filling up with quarter-speed 120fps 720p footage very shortly.
The fact that the iPhone 5s can process it all on the fly is testament to the new A7 chip. Video quality is outstanding and, even if capturing your child's meteoric face-plant (we speak from experience), all emotional guilt is washed away as you become Spielberg for a second, seizing every last crunch in superb clarity and detail. Disclaimer: no children were harmed in the testing of this iPhone. Another vast improvement is with the front-facing FaceTime HD camera. An improved backside illumination sensor improves video calls in lower light and still shots look cleaner than ever. Video records in 720p. At the time of writing we couldn’t stream Slo-Mo video to an Apple TV from the iPhone 5s but were reassured that an update would fix that. iPhone 5s: Screen
Swanking the same 4-inch, 1136x640 at 326ppi screen as its predecessor, and matching that of the 5c, the iPhone 5s display feels small in comparison to the Samsung Galaxy S4 (5-inch), the HTC One (4.7-inch) and the Sony Xperia Z (5-inch).
Screen quality is pin-sharp but, after watching films on bigger handsets, you really notice the drop in size. However, the Retina screen really shows off iOS 7’s brighter, more vivid UI. iPhone 5s: Size and build
The iPhone 5s is basically a supercharged iPhone 5, so the weight, size and overall build are pretty much identical – 7.6mm deep, 123.8mm tall and 112g in bulk. That makes it slimmer than the HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S4, but not quite as slender as the world’s slimmest smartphone – the Huawei Ascend P6, which measures in at 6.18mm.
It’s still lightweight but feels reassuringly premium with its three colour variants - Gold, Silver and Space Grey – adding to the mix and differentiating it once more from the colour-coordinated 5c. The Gold finish may be too bling-y for some but if it suffers the same chamfered edge scuffing as its predecessor, a lighter colour will conceal it better than the darker Silver and Space Gray. Aesthetically, however, we prefer how the 5c matches its case colour to the iOS 7 background. Apple is selling its own dyed leather iPhone 5s case in a multitude of shades for £35, which turns it into a 5c-looking device, but if we’re splashing out more bunce on the flagship model, we’d rather forgo the jacket and show it off. iPhone 5s: Performance
While we continue to getting used to the new OS, using the iPhone 5s is a joy. Multi-tasking is quick, navigation is innate and it still feels slicker than Android orWindows Phone.
Restoring backed up content from your old iPhone is a matter or time, rather than effort (about three hours until all apps were re-loaded – we have a lot), and if you’re used to iOS 6, you’ll pick up the new phones and start using them immediately without much fuss. We did experience a couple of glitches in Mail and the Camera app, which caused the iPhone 5s to crash – time will tell as to whether it’s a persisting problem. Phone calls are clear and we didn’t experience any call-dropping in our testing. Many apps will need updating asap, however – Google’s Gmail app still displays the old iOS 6 keyboard, for example. Sound quality is on par with the iPhone 5, but wireless connectivity (Bluetooth and Wi-Fi) seems to be a bit more stable than before - Personal Hotspot connected a lot quicker, too. The iPhone 5s is available in 16Gb, 32Gb and 64Gb versions iPhone 5s: iOS 7
Within the iPhone 5s and each new device shipping with iOS 7, you get Apple’s iWork apps - Pages, Numbers and Keynote – for free.
Swiping down on the homescreen now reveals the Search bar, while swiping apps up while in multi-tasking view will close apps. Swipe up on the homescreen and you’ll now be presented with a handy shortcut of features ranging from activating Aeroplane mode to adjusting brightness to turning on the torch. While there isn’t much in the way of iPhone 5s-specific iOS 7 features apart from those already mentioned, the new iPhones are clearly designed to compliment iOS 7 in terms of colour (the 5c) and the power (the 5s). iPhone 5s: 4G
The iPhone 5s has a wider range of LTE bands that every UK provider should be able to support. We tested the 5s on EE’s 4G network and, like the iPhone 5, experienced blisteringly fast internet connections and downloads.
Of course, your actual speeds will depend on a wide breadth of parameters, but you should hope to achieve uploads and download speeds in excess of 15/20Mbps. The pace of LTE really proves its worth when using FaceTime HD and streaming content. iPhone 5s: Battery
Apple quotes ten hours talk time on 3G, 250-hours in standby, ten hours of internet use on 3G, LTE and Wi-Fi, with video playback running to 10 hours and audio stretching to 40 hours.
In our real-world testing, we found the iPhone 5s mimics that of its predecessor – great in standby, draining when using 3G/4G and performing graphically intensive tasks. For example, we started the day (10.20am) with 82% of battery and after a 20-minute TomTom navigation, an hour’s worth of on/off slo-motion and regular video and photo capture, and a bit of web surfing, by 12.37pm we were down to 4% and in desperate need of a recharge. As previously mentioned, app developers will need to take advantage of the new hardware to help reduce energy consumption. For now, it looks like you’ll need a portable battery pack in your pocket if you intend on hammering your new iPhone 5s all day. In terms of battery, there’s very little between top-tier smartphones like the HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S4 – you can pretty much expect a day’s use out of all of them, unless you're the most intensive of users
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