Apple iPhone 4S: Thoroughly Reviewed
by Anand Lal Shimpi & Brian Klug on October 31, 2011 7:45 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Apple
- Mobile
- iPhone
- iPhone 4S
Display
Though many expected Apple to redesign everything around a 4“ display, the display on the 4S superficially identical. The 4S includes the same size and resolution display as the 4, namely a 3.54” IPS panel with 960x640 resolution. We’ve been over this a few times already in the context of the iPhone 4 and the CDMA iPhone 4, but it bears going over again.
In retrospect, moving up to 4“ would’ve gone against Apple’s logical approach to maintaining a DPI-agnostic iOS, and it makes sense to spread the cost of changing display resolution across two generations, which is what we see now. While Android is gradually catching up in the DPI department, OEMs on that side of the fence are engaged in a seemingly endless battle over display size. You have to get into Apple’s head and understand that from their point of view, 3.5” has always been the perfect size - there’s a reason it hasn’t changed at all.
I’ve been through a few 4s myself, and alongside the CDMA iPhone 4, have seen the white point of the retina display gradually shift over time. While I don’t have that original device anymore, even now the 4S seems to have shifted slightly compared to a very recently manufactured 4 I had on hand, and appears to have a different color temperature. We’ve been measuring brightness and white point on smartphone displays at a variety of different brightness settings, and the 4S isn’t spared the treatment. I also tossed in my 4 for comparison purposes. The data really speaks for itself.
The first chart shows white point at a number of brightness values set in settings. You can see the iPhone 4 and 4S differ and straddle opposite sides of 6500K. I would bet that Apple has some +/- tolerance value for these displays from 6500K, and the result is what you see here. Thankfully the lines are pretty straight (so it doesn’t change as you vary brightness), but this variance is why you see people noting that one display looks warmer or cooler than the other. I noted this behavior with the CDMA iPhone 4, and suspect that many people still carrying around launch GSM/UMTS iPhone 4 devices will perceive the difference more than those who have had their devices swapped.
The next two charts show display brightness at various settings for solid black and white on the display.
The 4S and 4 displays follow roughly the same curve, however there is a definite shift in contrast resulting from higher black levels on the 4S display. I’ve seen a few anecdotal accounts of the 4S display being less contrasty, and again this is the kind of shift that unfortunately happens over time with displays. I’ve updated our iPhone 4 result on the graph with the latest of a few I’ve been through.
Unfortunately the 4S falls short of the quoted 800:1 contrast ratio, whereas the 4 previously well exceeded it (the earliest 4 we saw had a contrast value of 951). Rumor has it that Apple has approved more panel vendors to make the retina display, I have no doubt that we’re seeing these changes in performance as a result of multiple sourcing.
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a5cent - Wednesday, November 2, 2011 - link
Nobody will use it to support Windows Phone. Ryan was certainly talking about Windows 8 and tablets. WP8/Apollo will run on Qualcomm's S4 SoC and on nothing else. An OS that can make assumptions about the hardware it is running on can include performance optimizations that would be impossible to do otherwise, and is also much easier to test. Apple and Microsoft seemingly agree that this is the better approach.Penti - Wednesday, November 2, 2011 - link
Actually they will of course, see Brians latest pipeline post http://www.anandtech.com/show/5038/stericsson-anno...Windows Phone 7-series devices need DirectX/3D and SM3.0 support, it has been discussed before and it's precisely this that prompts them to release products on 544. ST-E will produce SoCs for Windows Phone in cooperation with Microsoft and in partnership with Nokia which they have supplied before and has an extensive partnership and relationship with. At least they would hardly care for Windows 8 when choosing parts. They will hardly support DX9 and SM3 on Mali-400. They wouldn't bother if it was just for Windows for ARM any way. Even though Ryan referred to Windows 8 it doesn't make my post any less relevant and justified.
dagamer34 - Monday, October 31, 2011 - link
My best guess is that other SoC vendors would have had a hard time selling a SoC with that big a GPU until Apple did it. They don't want to loose the "speeds and feeds" game. We'll probably see more chips with larger dies in the future to compete with what Apple comes out with.Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, November 1, 2011 - link
This is extremely accurate. The best thing Apple could have done for competition was ship an iPad with a 122mm^2 SoC inside.Take care,
Anand
Penti - Tuesday, November 1, 2011 - link
Not to mention every other application for ARM SoCs in this multimedia heavy world. It's more the tablet itself that drove this as well as other media player applications and all the other applications that aren't as power constrained as mobile phones. That was set out for for some time.mashimaroo - Monday, October 31, 2011 - link
i gave my spare case to my gf thinking it would fit right on until i noticed the vibrate lock switch was moved. My friends thought it was a defect but i knew there was no way. Unfortunately i had to buy another case after already shelling out $700. =( still im happy. The mirror ability is great and i can watch all my shows straight off my iphone to my aaxa p4 pico projector. All i had to get was the vga cord from the apple store for another $30.pretty much plug and play after though. ANGRY birds 80 INCHES instead of 3.5 inches. I'll admit its pretty fun to watch the giant birds fly across my walls.
kishorshack - Monday, October 31, 2011 - link
Really loved this reviewkudos to anandtech team
medi01 - Tuesday, November 1, 2011 - link
1) Ridiculous BS sentences about "improved vibration" that obviously come straight out of Apple's marketing mouth2) No real comparison vs competitors (guess what, AMOLED screens wipe the floor with iphones, no wonder)
No real comparison, but thorough kissing all over apple's butt. Formidable review, indeed....
doobydoo - Tuesday, November 1, 2011 - link
If there weren't charts showing the faster CPU/GPU combination as compared to all the other Android competition.If there wasn't a thorough analysis of the screen, showing that the iPhone 4S trades blows (winning and losing) vs the best Android can offer 9eg EMOLED).
If there wasn't a thorough analysis of wifi speed, battery life, as compared to other Android phones...
You would have a formidable comment, indeed....
rd_nest - Tuesday, November 1, 2011 - link
Where did it show faster CPU?