Apple’s latest smartphone creation, the iPhone 5, brought a lot of mixed feelings to fans and haters alike. A lot of fans are miffed with the poor quality check Apple did here but having sold over 5 million units in the first three days (a million more than the 4S) of its release proved that the company is still doing things right.
We were able to play with an iPhone 5 unit recently to see what’s this hype is all about. If there’s something else more to the name and prestige an iPhone can bring.
You all probably know the basics. It’s thinner, lighter and taller than previous iPhones. It has the same consistent, premium craftsmanship that is familiar to those who owns an Apple device. Everything blends well with the design, the nano-SIM slot on the right side, the speaker grills on both sides of the new Lightning connector, and all the buttons looks and feels high-quality. The physical buttons despite their sizes doesn’t feel awkward to press having just the right height.
The iPhone has been the laughingstock in the smartphone world when it comes to screen-size so the 4-inch screen on the iPhone 5 was a welcome and much-needed change.
I’ve been using a 4.3-inch phone for the longest time and switching back to a 4-inch one despite it’s narrow profile did not take a lot of time to get used to. Shape of the screen reminded me of the Samsung Wave and it’s tall but narrow screen. Although I would prefer it to be a bit wider screen for surfing, retaining the screen width was a smart choice so that even girls with tiny hands won’t have a hard time doing one-handed texting. Oh and for viewing widescreen videos too.
The back featured the aluminum finish which looks like something you don’t want to slide over a table. The 8-megapixel camera lens at the back is the same as the iPhone 4S but with just a teeny bit improved processing due to the more powerful A6 chip. What has improved is the camera up front which can now do FaceTime HD.
Again, I really didn’t spend much too much time with the iPhone 5 even if I could because there’s nothing much to go about it. It doesn’t offer anything really revolutionary. The Flyover Mode in Apple Maps is cute but doesn’t do much for international audiences functionality-wise. Even though iOS 6 has a bunch of features to offer, there’s not one that is exclusive to the iPhone 5.
So would I choose an iPhone 5 over other phones? You bet! Although for techies like me, the Android OS is more suitable due to its superior flexibility, most of the times I don’t need to do much on my phone except call, text, e-mail, e-books, and take decent photos. So might as well go with a phone that brings instant prestige. I guess Apple’s push to a bigger screen on its iPhone sealed the deal for me.