The iPhone 5 Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi, Brian Klug & Vivek Gowri on October 16, 2012 11:33 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Apple
- Mobile
- iPhone 5
Design
Section by Vivek Gowri
The iPhone 4, when it launched, represented a clean break for Apple's industrial design. It replaced the soft organic curvature of the iPhone 3G/3GS with a detailed sandwich of metal and glass, something that arguably brought the feel of a premium device to a new level. Obviously, Apple had their fair share of issues with the design initially, and nothing could match the sinking feeling of dropping one and shattering the glass on the front and back simultaneously, but it was a small price to pay for the jewel-like feel of the device. Combined with the (at the time) incredible pixel density of the then-new Retina Display, the iPhone 4 was a revolution in hardware design. The chassis has aged remarkably well over the last two-plus years, so naturally it's a hard act to follow.
The 5 keeps a similar design language to the 4, keeping roughly the same shape as before but with a taller and thinner form factor. At first glance, the 5 actually looks almost the same as the 4, with an unbroken glass front face, prominent corner radiuses, the familiar home button, a rectangular cross-section, and metallic sides with plastic antenna bands. However, those metallic sides are part of an anodized aluminum frame that makes up a majority of the body, and that's where the industrial design diverges from the 4 and 4S.
In contrast to the predominantly glass body of the previous generation iPhone, the 5 is almost entirely aluminum other than the glass front face and two small glass windows at the top and bottom of the back. It's a return to the original iPhone/3G/3GS-style of construction, with the front glass clipping into a unibody chassis. It's a significant departure from the 4 and 4S, where the stainless steel band in the center was the main housing that the front and rear panels clipped into. That was pretty radical way of doing things, so it's not all that surprising to see Apple revert to a more conventional and less complex method for the 5.
The aesthetic is actually pretty awesome, especially in the black version. The combination of black glass and off-black aluminum (Apple is calling it slate) gives the 5 an almost murdered out look that's three parts elegant and one part evil. The white and silver model has a classy look that's much friendlier in appearance than the black one. The color schemes and overall design aesthetic remind me of the Dell Adamo, one of my favorite notebook designs of all time. The similarities may be purely coincidental, but it's interesting to note nonetheless and should give you an idea of how premium the industrial design is.
All three previous iPhone body styles had very similar dimensions, so the biggest question with the 5 was how much the larger display would do to change that. Unlike many Android manufacturers, Apple still believes in things like small pockets, small hands, and one-handed smartphone usage. With the 5 being vertically stretched but no wider than the previous iPhones, the biggest impact on in-hand feel is actually the thinner body. If you're used to a larger Android or Windows device, the change seems radical, but even compared to the 22% thicker iPhone 4S, it feels a good deal smaller.
It's not just the minimized z-height though, the 25% weight loss is definitely also a factor. Even a few weeks later, I still find it striking how much less substantial it feels than the 4 and 4S. The densely-packed glass body just had a reassuring weight to it that the 5 simply lacks. But as you get used to the new form factor, you realize how far Apple is pushing the boundaries of ultrathin design. When the 4th generation iPod touch came out, I told Brian that I wanted an iPhone with that form factor - well, the 5 is essentially there (0.3mm thicker and 11 grams heavier, but close enough). It's pretty impressive to think about. If you thought the 4S was one of the best phone designs on the market in terms of aesthetics and build quality, the iPhone 5 just pushes that advantage further.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
276 Comments
View All Comments
A5 - Tuesday, October 16, 2012 - link
I don't think there's a good way to measure storage performance on the iPhone. Also not really sure why it matters.repoman27 - Tuesday, October 16, 2012 - link
I timed how long it took to transfer my music library, and clocked 11.1 MB/s writing to the user area of a 64GB model. So no significant change from previous iPhones, and still pretty typical for a smartphone. I'd be interested to get some gauge of the read speeds.And @A5, storage performance affects boot and application load times as well as sync and backup. With a 64GB model, syncing can take quite a while.
name99 - Wednesday, October 17, 2012 - link
Transferring the music library is a LOUSY choice for speed measurement because (depending on your iTunes settings) you may be transcoding all your music to a lower bit rate to fit more on the iPhone; so you are gated by the transcoding performance, not the flash write speeds. I transcode my music (most in Apple lossless on my iMac) to 192kbps AAC for my iDevices, and on my ancient iMac it is the transcoding that throttles performance.A much better situation to look at is transferring large movies. On my devices
- iPhone 4 writes at about 18MB/s
- iPad3 writes at about 22MB/s
Over the last 6 months Anand occasionally has published flash numbers for Android phones and they're generally around half these Apple numbers.
repoman27 - Wednesday, October 17, 2012 - link
Believe you me, I don't allow iTunes to transcode anything, except to ALAC on occasion. But yes, that number I gave was on the low side, but probably more due to it being thousands of files as opposed to one large sequential write.I just transferred a large video file back and forth directly to and from the user storage area of one of my apps, and came up with numbers that are more in line with yours. 23.84 MB/s avg read and 20.05 avg write.
Most MLC NAND modules capable of 20 MB/s writes should be able to do at least 40 MB/s on sequential reads, which leads me to believe that we're still gated to around 25 MB/s by the NAND interface here, which is kinda bogus.
Spunjji - Friday, October 19, 2012 - link
name99, that is not a "better situation" because the performance figures you quote only apply to large block file transfers. It's no more real-world than the figures repoman quoted, which are not "LOUSY". Both are valid, so ideally a proper test should mix both types of data.Furthermore, the idea that your admittedly ancient iMac being crap at transcoding MP3s somehow invalidates somebody else's testing is ridiculous as well. With any decent system that would only be the case if you were shifting data to a device a *lot* faster than any smartphone NAND.
So, you may need to rethink your "victory" a little more.
KPOM - Wednesday, October 17, 2012 - link
I've had my iPhone since 9/22 and there is not a single scuff on it. My guess is that in the rush, some units got through QC, but the phone itself isn't any more prone to scratching in normal use than other phones. Meanwhile, Apple being Apple, they have held up production to improve QC even if it means fewer sales in the short run.rarson - Wednesday, October 17, 2012 - link
You've had it less than a month. There shouldn't be any scuffs on it."Apple being Apple"
Ha! That's a good one!
Spunjji - Friday, October 19, 2012 - link
Trololololol"Mine is fine so everyone else is lying". <- Possibly my favourite bogus argument ever. Apple the generous indeed...
doobydoo - Saturday, October 20, 2012 - link
Because it's so much more compelling than the 'Mine is scratched so everyone elses must be'?lukarak - Wednesday, October 17, 2012 - link
But it doesn't rust. It scratches if it comes in contact with something harder. Just as a car does. Would you buy a car that gets a scratched bumper when you hit a wall? Well, maybe you wouldn't but people do. Regularly.This iPhone is no different than every other iPad, MBP or MBA or the first Al MB. Or any other device constructed from aluminium. They scratch if they are brushed against something. It's just normal.