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The iPhone 6 is on it's way. But the price tag on that phone will be quite high. And for those who will wait for the price to drop after the iPhone 6 launch or those who just want to buy this pearl right away, this review is for them.
Recently, I got a chance to use an iPhone 5S for a few days. And I thought about reviewing it.
First of, let's talk about the most elegant feature of this phone. The Design.
This phone bears the same base design as it's previous versions. But there are a few things that set this phone apart.
The bezel. The bezel on this phone feels as good as it looks good. Although if you hold it tightly in your hand you can feel the edge quite a bit, but that is still better than the iPhone 5 bezel which featured a more cut and edgy bezel. The bezel sets this phone apart from any other in the market. It reflects light just like a mirror. The fore and back edges of the bezel are cut in a slope like manner. While the sides of the bezel have a dull finish, the edges of the bezel are the reflecting parts of it. For those who have used an iPhone in the past from iPhone 4, will find it much much more comfortable than all the others. The bezel contributed the most for this.
The home button. Another thing that makes the iPhone 5S distinct from the others is the home button. Those who have been using other iPhones in the past may find themselves pressing too hard on the home button for a while because other than the previous versions, this time the iPhone 5S, is featuring a flat home button. And there's a reason why it is that way. We'll discuss that later in the post. The flat home button is also surrounded by a bezel, if I can call it that, which is the same as that on the sides, just circular. Had there not been a bezel around the button the whole phone would have looked boring from the front. The home button will be quite uncomfortable for those changing from the previous versions to this one. To those who have been using Samsung since the day they were born and want to switch to the iPhone for once will find the home button comfortable as they have been using the same thing, except this time, the home button will be round and won't have any sidekicks( menu and back buttons ).
The buttons and ports. There are all in all, 5 buttons on the whole device and one button which can be pressed using a pin and that is inside a little pinhole on the inline SIM tray. The buttons are aptly placed just like it's predecessor and there is not much to comment on that.
The ports on the phone are also surrounded by the bezel like the home button, lightning port and the aux.
The size. As far as the size goes, Apple has been making the perfectly sized phones for a long time now. They started with 3.5" and now after the iPhone 5, they have bumped it up to 4". They did this because every company out there is making such huge phones and people are still buying them. The phone feels snug in the hand because of its size and will be suitable for people with any sort of hands, be it small or big. To all those who will be changing from a huge Samsung phablet, this phone might seem a bit small. I think that phones are meant to be phones and they should be of the same size as the iPhone 5S. I don't want to carry my whole home theater in my pocket. Mobiles are meant for limited tasks, I believe it should stay that way otherwise what else would we need in the world except for a mobile phone?
Other than that there is nothing much different from its predecessor. The flash on the back is dual LED so it is a bit long and I don't mind it at all.
Now that we've done with design, let's talk about it's camera. But before we go any further, I'd like you to see this video. The Camera on the iPhone 5S is just amazing. I don't know any other phone in the market at this time that has the best of every thing in respect of camera. Some have great sharpness but no colour accuracy, some have great colour accuracy but no sharpness, some have a great megapixel count but a little sensor, etc.
Now coming to a feature that has made a lot of buzz, Touch ID. Now this feature has been parodied as well as praised by everyone. Some unlock it using a cat, while some just use their penis, yes, penis. ANYWAYS, leaving that aside, this feature is just a shortcut to everything in iOS and nothing more than that. You don't need to slide to unlock, you don't need to put Apple ID password before making purchases, etc, etc. Although sometimes this may get a little bit annoying. Other than this, there is nothing much to be said about it.
The speed. If Apple says that it is a lot faster, it indeed, is a lot faster. The iPhone 5S beats the iPhone 5 in every aspect and speed is no exception. It is not even like a little difference here and there. It is a lot of it. The iPhone 5S boots up faster than the iPhone 5. It loads apps faster than the iPhone 5. The maximum amount of time that any app took to load on the 5S was 1 second. I am not marketing this device and nor am I some Apple fanboy. But this device just left me spellbound. The web pages load faster too! The animations seem to be smother. The graphics have a little bit of edge over the iPhone 5 I think. I may be wrong on the graphics part though. I actually played a game called Asphalt 8 on the iPhone 5S and it was super amazing, although it has not been optimized for a 64 - bit architecture, the loading time was very less on it. Though the A7 chipset might have just 1.3GHz Dual-core processor, its 64-bit architecture does the magic of delivering speed.
The iPhone 6 is on it's way. But the price tag on that phone will be quite high. And for those who will wait for the price to drop after the iPhone 6 launch or those who just want to buy this pearl right away, this review is for them.
Recently, I got a chance to use an iPhone 5S for a few days. And I thought about reviewing it.
First of, let's talk about the most elegant feature of this phone. The Design.
This phone bears the same base design as it's previous versions. But there are a few things that set this phone apart.
The bezel. The bezel on this phone feels as good as it looks good. Although if you hold it tightly in your hand you can feel the edge quite a bit, but that is still better than the iPhone 5 bezel which featured a more cut and edgy bezel. The bezel sets this phone apart from any other in the market. It reflects light just like a mirror. The fore and back edges of the bezel are cut in a slope like manner. While the sides of the bezel have a dull finish, the edges of the bezel are the reflecting parts of it. For those who have used an iPhone in the past from iPhone 4, will find it much much more comfortable than all the others. The bezel contributed the most for this.
The home button. Another thing that makes the iPhone 5S distinct from the others is the home button. Those who have been using other iPhones in the past may find themselves pressing too hard on the home button for a while because other than the previous versions, this time the iPhone 5S, is featuring a flat home button. And there's a reason why it is that way. We'll discuss that later in the post. The flat home button is also surrounded by a bezel, if I can call it that, which is the same as that on the sides, just circular. Had there not been a bezel around the button the whole phone would have looked boring from the front. The home button will be quite uncomfortable for those changing from the previous versions to this one. To those who have been using Samsung since the day they were born and want to switch to the iPhone for once will find the home button comfortable as they have been using the same thing, except this time, the home button will be round and won't have any sidekicks( menu and back buttons ).
The buttons and ports. There are all in all, 5 buttons on the whole device and one button which can be pressed using a pin and that is inside a little pinhole on the inline SIM tray. The buttons are aptly placed just like it's predecessor and there is not much to comment on that.
The ports on the phone are also surrounded by the bezel like the home button, lightning port and the aux.
The size. As far as the size goes, Apple has been making the perfectly sized phones for a long time now. They started with 3.5" and now after the iPhone 5, they have bumped it up to 4". They did this because every company out there is making such huge phones and people are still buying them. The phone feels snug in the hand because of its size and will be suitable for people with any sort of hands, be it small or big. To all those who will be changing from a huge Samsung phablet, this phone might seem a bit small. I think that phones are meant to be phones and they should be of the same size as the iPhone 5S. I don't want to carry my whole home theater in my pocket. Mobiles are meant for limited tasks, I believe it should stay that way otherwise what else would we need in the world except for a mobile phone?
Other than that there is nothing much different from its predecessor. The flash on the back is dual LED so it is a bit long and I don't mind it at all.
Now that we've done with design, let's talk about it's camera. But before we go any further, I'd like you to see this video. The Camera on the iPhone 5S is just amazing. I don't know any other phone in the market at this time that has the best of every thing in respect of camera. Some have great sharpness but no colour accuracy, some have great colour accuracy but no sharpness, some have a great megapixel count but a little sensor, etc.
But the iPhone 5S has a great measure of everything. It features a larger sensor size than the iPhone 5. The iPhone 5 and the iPhone 5S may have the same megapixel count but the pictures vary a lot. ( iPhone 5 sensor size and pixel size respectively - 1/3.2" & 1.4 µm and iPhone 5S sensor size and pixel size respectively - 1/3" & 1.5 µm)
The iSight camera sets everything by itself for you. It assesses the conditions and based on them the kind of shots that it needs to take are done. The features of this camera are just amazing. There is nothing good that just reading about the camera will do. You won't believe. You have to see for yourself to judge.
The panorama on the iPhone 5S is just amazing. It takes more shots now, which means it has a higher fps, and is a lot more smoother than the iPhone 5. The stitching on it is just amazing. You no longer have to worry about doing it slow so that it doesn't show a warning. You just move your phone around. No worries. Just don't make a circle out of a panorama.
There is also a square mode on it for the Instagram lovers. It is a blessing for the Instagram selfies and other shots that you would want to put on the Instagram. You can do it without worrying if you'll have to crop anything important or not.
I know that is just an iOS 7 camera feature, but the way in which it maintains quality is amazing.
The camera also delivers more stable shots than the iPhone 5. So anyone with shaky hands should not have a problem with it. But you also can't be running and taking pics at the same time. There is still a long way to go before we get there.
The low light performance of the iPhone 5S is also better. It has an f/2.2 aperture and uses a lower ISO of 640. So if you're not a tech head and have never used a DSLR or a high level point and shoot, let me explain that to you. You can skip through the bold text if you know what aperture and ISO is.
Aperture is the size of the hole that is open after half the lenses that decides the amount of light that goes to the sensor. The lesser will be the value after "f", the more will be the size of the hole. This simply means that the smaller the no. after "f" the more brightness will be there in the picture. This also means that the lenses and sensor will get more light in low light conditions and will deliver better low light performance. A higher aperture would be f/6 and a lower would be f/1.4 for example.
ISO is the sensitivity of the sensor that is inside the camera towards light. The more the ISO the brighter the picture. Now this has a few losses, if you increase the ISO, the pictures will turn out to be noisy, while if you decrease the ISO the pictures turn out to be great in quality.
So compared to the iPhone 5, the iPhone 5S has a better low light performance. As the iPhone 5 had a f/2.4 aperture and an ISO of 800.
Other than the physical factors of the camera itself, the iPhone 5S has a dual tone LED flash. This shouldn't be confused with dual flash, which is just flash of the same colour but brighter. What this dual tone LED flash does is that it first fires the white flash and then the somewhat yellowish coloured flash to balance out the brightness and delivers much more natural pictures. This doesn't sound to make such a difference but it surely does and the problem of the overpowering flash is also eliminated by this.
The Slow Motion capability. The Slow Mo is what Apple has touted a lot about this phone. But it is not what you think it is if you just hear from someone who says that it has slow motion video.
What it does is that it slows a segment of your video but not the whole video. After you take a video, you have the option to make it slow mo for a part. But the slowed down video is not in full HD. It has to be in 720p as it shoots 720p at 120fps by default. It surely looks good but for those who are addicted to FULL HD might be disappointed.
The burst mode on the device is also very good. It takes shots at 10fps which means that it takes 10 shots in one second. This does not mean that the photos are shaky. They are totally crisp and there is no lag at all.
Now coming to a feature that has made a lot of buzz, Touch ID. Now this feature has been parodied as well as praised by everyone. Some unlock it using a cat, while some just use their penis, yes, penis. ANYWAYS, leaving that aside, this feature is just a shortcut to everything in iOS and nothing more than that. You don't need to slide to unlock, you don't need to put Apple ID password before making purchases, etc, etc. Although sometimes this may get a little bit annoying. Other than this, there is nothing much to be said about it. But in my opinion if you're an iPhone 5 user and you want to upgrade it because of the speed then don't go for it. It is not a difference without which you can't survive.
Other than these necessary features that one looks for in a mobile device I don't find that there is any other thing that you would want to consider while buying it. Although I found that maps were a bit improved this time. You would not want to consider that.
If you would like to add anything more that you think should be here, please feel free to comment below.
Here's a list of specifications :
Camera - 8 MP, 1/3" sensor size, 1.5 mu meter pixel, 1080p@30fps & 720p@120fps video
Weight - 112g
Display- 4", 640 x 1136 pixels resolution, ~326 ppi pixel density
Storage - 16/32/64 GB options, 1 GB RAM DDR3
Chipset - Apple A7 64-bit
CPU - 1.3GHz Dual-Core Cyclone ARM v8,
GPS - A-GPS with GLONASS
Colours Available - Space Gray, White/Silver, Gold
Hope you liked this post.
Follow me on Twitter - @aryanshmalviya
Like us on Facebook - The Gadgetier
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IMAGE CREDITS - http://www.jeyyu.com/2014/03/applein-son-bombasi-iphone-5s-inceleme.html, http://www.cnet.com/news/iphone-5s-beats-galaxy-s4-as-top-smartphone-worldwide/, http://edition.cnn.com/2013/12/03/tech/mobile/apple-iphone-fingerprint-scanner/, http://www.apple.com/in/iphone-5s/#Forward, https://www.apple.com/in/iphone-5s/camera/, http://www.cultofmac.com/251349/qualcomm-exec-soft-fired-after-calling-64-bit-a7-chip-a-gimmick/
Other than these necessary features that one looks for in a mobile device I don't find that there is any other thing that you would want to consider while buying it. Although I found that maps were a bit improved this time. You would not want to consider that.
If you would like to add anything more that you think should be here, please feel free to comment below.
Here's a list of specifications :
Camera - 8 MP, 1/3" sensor size, 1.5 mu meter pixel, 1080p@30fps & 720p@120fps video
Weight - 112g
Display- 4", 640 x 1136 pixels resolution, ~326 ppi pixel density
Storage - 16/32/64 GB options, 1 GB RAM DDR3
Chipset - Apple A7 64-bit
CPU - 1.3GHz Dual-Core Cyclone ARM v8,
GPS - A-GPS with GLONASS
Colours Available - Space Gray, White/Silver, Gold
Hope you liked this post.
Follow me on Twitter - @aryanshmalviya
Like us on Facebook - The Gadgetier
Follow me on Google+ - The Gadgetier
IMAGE CREDITS - http://www.jeyyu.com/2014/03/applein-son-bombasi-iphone-5s-inceleme.html, http://www.cnet.com/news/iphone-5s-beats-galaxy-s4-as-top-smartphone-worldwide/, http://edition.cnn.com/2013/12/03/tech/mobile/apple-iphone-fingerprint-scanner/, http://www.apple.com/in/iphone-5s/#Forward, https://www.apple.com/in/iphone-5s/camera/, http://www.cultofmac.com/251349/qualcomm-exec-soft-fired-after-calling-64-bit-a7-chip-a-gimmick/
