The iPhone 5s Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on September 17, 2013 9:01 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Apple
- Mobile
- iPhone
- iPhone 5S
Battery Life
Brian did some excellent sleuthing and came across battery capacities for both the iPhone 5s and 5c in Apple’s FCC disclosures. The iPhone 5 had a 3.8V 5.45Wh battery, while the 5s boosts total capacity to 5.96Wh (an increase of 9.35%). The move to a 28nm process doesn’t come with all of the benefits of a full node shrink, and it’s likely not enough to completely offset the higher potential power draw of a much beefier SoC. Apple claims the same or better battery life on the 5s compared to the iPhone 5, in practice the answer is a bit more complicated.
Unlike previous designs, we’ve never had a half node shrink for an s-SKU. Both the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4S stayed on the same process node as their predecessor and drove up performance. In the case of the 3GS, the performance gains outweighed their power cost, while in the case of the iPhone 4S we generally saw a regression.
The iPhone 5s improves power consumption by going to 28nm, but turns that savings into increased performance. The SoC also delivers a wider dynamic range of performance than we’ve ever seen from an Apple device. There’s as much CPU power here as the first 11-inch MacBook Air, and more GPU power than an iPad 4.
To find out the balance of power savings vs. additional performance I turned to our current battery life test suite, which we first introduced with the iPhone 5 review last year.
We'll start with our WiFi battery life test. As always, we regularly load web pages at a fixed interval until the battery dies (all displays are calibrated to 200 nits).
The iPhone 5s regresses a bit compared to the 5 in this test (~12% reduction despite the larger battery). We're loading web pages very aggressively here, likely keeping the A7 cores running at their most power hungry state. Even the 5c sees a bit of a regression compared to the 5, which makes me wonder if we're seeing some of the effects of an early iOS 7 release here.
The story on LTE is a bit different. Here we see a slight improvement in battery life compared to the iPhone 5, although the larger battery of the 5s doesn't seem to give it anything other than parity with the 5c:
Our cellular talk time test is almost entirely display and SoC independent, turning it mostly into a battery capacity test:
You can see the close grouping of the smaller iPhones at the bottom of the chart. There's a definite improvement in call time compared to the iPhone 5. We're finally up above iPhone 4S levels there.
Our Egypt HD based 3D battery life test gives us the first indication that Rogue, at least running fairly light code, can be more power efficient than the outgoing 5XT. Obviously the G6430 implemented here can run at fairly high performance levels, so I'm fully expecting peak power consumption to be worse but for more normal workloads there's no regression at all - a very good sign.
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helloworldv2 - Wednesday, September 18, 2013 - link
A good review would compare to the best in class, i.e. the Lumia 1020. Of course it would wipe the floor with the 5S, so that wouldn't be very good for Anandtech if they want to maintain good relations with Apple and all that..darkcrayon - Wednesday, September 18, 2013 - link
I think Apple is satisfied with their performance in the 5s form factor and understands it's a reasonable compromise vs sticking what looks like a section of an actual camera to the back of the phone, making an awkward 1/2 inch lump. And of course as an overall device the 5s it's much more advanced in other ways.Gridlock - Wednesday, September 18, 2013 - link
So Apple should have sent Anand a 1020?Or maybe Nokia PR should be slightly more awake.
120fps and 1024 available flash tones beats a Quasimodo Nokia for me.
Fleeb - Wednesday, September 18, 2013 - link
But in photography, in camera flash should only be used as a last resort.Petrodactyl - Monday, September 23, 2013 - link
if you're using remote flash with your phone camera, you're an idiot - and likely a bad photographer, to boot. Please try to stay within the realm of reality. Thanks.akdj - Wednesday, October 9, 2013 - link
It was an excellent review---and not just 'based' on photographic prowess. Is there a blog you've got going that provides 'good reviews'? I'm honestly interested because I found this one incredibly well written...and even responded, by the admin of the site---directly to you. He Didn't Have Your Beloved 1020. That said---plenty of comparison reviews if ALL you're interested in is the photographic abilities of the 5s. (There's a WHOLE lot more 'most' folks are seeking from their chosen phone). That said---Apple has always, for the time, provided top notch---maybe not always #1---but easily and consistently in the top 5 performers (including older models while a new one is released)...not to mention, the popularity to both developers and photo share sites speaks volumes to it's ubiquity. DPReview.com has an excellent and specific write up JUST for your helloworldv2 on the abilities (and downsides) to the iPhone 5s. Seems like an 8 or 10 page write up with plenty of comments for your to participate in as well. Seems like a better idea than coming in to a (possibly the most detailed on the net as well as insightful) site and bitching about one of the MANY functions of your 'pocket computer' review. Only so much time that can be set up to review each subject...and a finite amount of product---I'm sure in the lab hanging around, as well as the public choice...again ubiquitous---to choose Apple or Android en masse vs. Windows handsets at this point. If photography is your 'thing' (I shoot professionally, BTW)---grab a nice point and shoot. The Canon S110 or the new Sony RX100v2 are incredible performers....then you can own a decent phone too and not have to compromise!J
abrowne1993 - Wednesday, September 18, 2013 - link
Fair enough. I hope Brian gets the chance to do a comparison on here.bootareen - Tuesday, September 17, 2013 - link
There definitely is a display lottery. I've gone through around 7 iPhone 5's with different problems, but all had an interlace/scan line issue which is exactly what it sounds like. Even if you are further away from the screen and can't see the scan lines per se, the screen is noticeably less comfortable to look at and focus on with your eyes compared to a normal screen.Have you heard of this Anand, and are you aware of what would cause this issue?
fokka - Tuesday, September 17, 2013 - link
i can't really wrap my head around how the iphone can compete with high end android phones so well, even beating them by considerable margins in many benchmarks, although "only using a dual core" which is probably not even clocked as high as, say, a snapdragon 800?apple has put an emphasis on gpu-performance for a long time now, but seeing them on top so often and combining that with good battery life, all while using a miniscule battery (by android's standards) i have to say they are doing an astonishing job.
too bad i don't like apple software (and pricing).
Impulses - Tuesday, September 17, 2013 - link
The Moto X competes well with all the current quad cores too, it's not that big of a rarity... The fact that they can optimize for battery life better isn't that shocking either, it's the same deal as OS X... When you're only testing against a dozen models or so versus thousands you can do a lot more in this regard.