Its finally here folks! After months if not years of speculation (rumors starting before the iPhone 4S was out) the iPhone 5 is finally official. Yes its called the iPhone 5 and not the next iPhone or iPhone 4GS as some people were speculating.
The iPhone 5 looks just like the leaks said it would, the chassis is a 7.6mm super thin blend of glass and aluminum making it 18% thinner than the iPhone 4S. Its not just thinner but lighter as well weighing in at just 112 grams.
The screen has finally been upgraded to a 4-inch Retina Display running at 1136 x 640 res which equals to around 326ppi. The display also offers better color saturation with full sRGB rendering greatly improving video quality. The bigger screen and resolution puts the display a bit shy off 16:9 due to which first party apps including Garage Band and iMovie have been updated while older apps will work in a letterbox configuration until they’re updated.
The iPhone 5 now also supports 4G LTE with US carriers Sprint, Verizon and AT&T offering plans. The older HSPA+, EV-DO, EDGE are also available along with 802.11 a/b/g/n WiFi if you want to overspend your wireless budget.
The beast powering the iPhone 5 is the brand new A6 processor which Apple claims is two times faster than the iPhone 4S. The A6 is also 22% smaller making it much more energy efficient. Cupertino’s engineers claim 8 hours of talk time on LTE and 10 hours on WiFi.
The camera on the iPhone 5 is the same as the iPhone 4S except for being a bit thinner. If you aren’t aware its an 8 megapixel 5 element lens and an f/2.4 aperture lens. The major improvement is the much faster shutter speed which Apple claims is 40% faster. The new panoramic photo mode captures and stitches together a 28 megapixel image. The camera just as the iPhone 5 captures video in 1080p. The front camera also got a bit of a boost and now captures video in 720p, perfect to compliment Facetime over that 4G LTE.
The iPhone 5 also upgraded its microphone to five-magnet transducer which greatly improves voice quality on networks which support it.
The dock connector has been upgraded as well, and the pins are down to 8 just as the leaks suggested. Apple’s new 8-pin connector is 80% smaller and is called Lightning. Apple will also be selling an adapter for customers who wish to use the older connector’s accessories with Lightning.
On the software side the iPhone 6 runs on iOS 6 out of the box just as expected.
The iPhone 5 will be available in two colors, Black and White. The prices will stay the same at $199 for the 16GB model, the 32GB will cost $299 and the 64GB $399 so there’s no premium for LTE. Shipments for Shipments in the US, Canada, UK, Germany, France, Australia, Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore start on the 21st while pre-orders start on the 14th of September. Apple will be adding around 20 more markets in the coming months, more details on that later.
So will you be getting one? Let us know in the comments below.