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
Video: Finally High Profile H.264
Section by Brian Klug
There are a few things different with video capture on the iPhone 5 thanks to improvements to both the ISP inside Apple’s A6 SoC, and also software UI changes. First off, because the iPhone 5 display is now 16:9, there’s no cropped view by default or aspect-correct view with letterboxing for video capture. Instead the iPhone 5 video capture window takes an iPad-like approach with transparent UI elements for preview and shooting video.
What’s new is the ability to take still images at 1920x1080 while recording video by tapping a still image capture button that appears while recording. This is a feature we’ve seen onboard a ton of other smartphones and works the same way here. Note that you can’t magically get a wider field of view or the whole CMOS area while shooting video, it’s essentially dumping one frame from video capture as a JPEG instead of into an H.264 container.
In addition the iPhone 5’s tweaked Sony CMOS still uses a smaller center region for video capture. The difference in field of view is pretty big, but nothing that users haven’t already dealt with in the past.
The iPhone 5 brings two main things to video capture. The first is improved electronic image stabilization tweaks and improvements to ISP. The difference is visible but not too dramatic unless you know what you’re looking for. I would wager most users won’t notice a huge step forward from the 4S but if you’re using an iPhone 4 this will be a marked improvement.
The other improvement is video encoding. The iPhone 5 now shoots rear facing 1080p30 video at 17 Mbps H.264 high profile with CABAC. This is a huge step in encoding from the relatively absurd 22–24 Mbps baseline H.264 that the iPhone 4S would shoot at 1080p30. The result is vastly more quality per bit on the iPhone 5, for a big reduction in storage space per minute of video. I did some digging around and found that the A6 uses an Imagination Technologies PowerVR VXE380 for encoding and VXD390 for decoding, which is what I thought was in the previous SoC as well but perhaps wasn’t clocked high enough for encode at high profile. This brings the iPhone 5’s encoder on paper up to match what I see other smartphones running their 1080p video at as well (17 Mbps high profile).
On the front facing camera Apple is shooting 720p30 at 11 Mbps H.264 baseline, as opposed to the VGA at 3.5 Mbps that the 4S shot. Interestingly enough both front and rear shooting modes still are just mono audio, 64 kbps AAC. I would’ve liked to see stereo here since almost all the competition is shooting stereo, and it’d put those 3 microphones to use.
To get a feel for video quality, I stuck my iPhone 4S and iPhone 5 in my dual camera bracket with pistol grip and made a series of three videos. I then combined them and put them side by side for ease of comparison. I’ve uploaded the result to YouTube, but you can also grab the original videos (548 MB zip) if you’d like from the site directly without the transcode.
Overall the most dramatic improvement is the front facing camera, which is obviously night and day. Better image stabilization is noticeable while I’m walking around being intentionally shaky, but nothing hugely dramatic. The main rear facing video improvement seems to be an increase in sharpness (watch the power lines and wires in the native resolution version) and slightly wider field of view. That’s to say nothing of the fact that this quality comes at a bitrate that’s lower than the previous version but with better encode settings.
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Sufo - Tuesday, October 16, 2012 - link
Agreed. If his goal is to fly the flag for apple (who clearly need no flag flying - look at their stock prices, but i digress...), and discredit its detractors, he's doing an awful job. But then again, I do detect a whiff of troll.Spunjji - Friday, October 19, 2012 - link
Word.doobydoo - Saturday, October 20, 2012 - link
Bragging? About being an engineer?LOL
dagamer34 - Tuesday, October 16, 2012 - link
If you wanted a "should I upgrade to this phone" review, there are hundreds of those reviews online. But AnandTech is pretty much the only place where you get a definitive review worth reading 5 years from now. They leave no stone unturned.Arbee - Tuesday, October 16, 2012 - link
Agreed. "Should I upgrade" is covered by literally dozens of newspapers, TV shows, and websites (Engadget, The Verge, Gizmodo, All Things D just to name 4). AT is the home of the 15+ page deep dive, and they do it just as well for Androids and Windows Phones.Also, I'm completely positive that if you sent Brian a GS3 with the iPhone 5's camera he'd write about it in exactly the same way. 2 weeks ago DPReview covered the iPhone 5's camera in a very similar way (including the same suggestions on how to avoid the problem, and a demonstration of inducing similar artifacts on the iPhone 4S and a couple of Android handsets). Optics is not a soft science, there is no room for fanboyism.
rarson - Wednesday, October 17, 2012 - link
I totally disagree. He brings up a completely valid point because Anandtech usually separates the reviews from the in-depth tech examinations. There's absolutely no need for the review to be 20 pages when most people are looking for benchmarks and hands-on impressions. Considering the fact that going this in-depth made the review late, it makes no sense at all.At least half of this information in this article doesn't even fall under the category of a review.
darkcrayon - Tuesday, October 16, 2012 - link
I think this type of review (hell, the site in general) is directed at people that want the maximum amount of compiled nitty gritty techy details... Notice his review was weeks after the larger more general consumer oriented sites. I think anyone wanting to know whether they should upgrade, that isn't interested in the technical details of the A6, would be better served reading those reviews anyway.Anand has said in previous reviews that he felt that iOS was intended to be more of an "appliance" OS. It's a pretty apt comparison of the two actually. That focus is why you can side load and more easily put custom software on Android, and also why you'll need anti-malware software for it before long as well. The point of an appliance is to have a reliable, consistent device that you spend more time using than tweaking.
daar - Wednesday, October 17, 2012 - link
Point taken, darkcrayon.I prefer AT's reviews because they do a thorough and unbiased job at detailing/benchmarking and comparing different products. The suggestion was that the info about the SoC be split on it's own. If Intel released a new chip, call it i9, and the first sample was from an Alienware notebook, I would simply be suggesting that the technical info about the chip have it's own post and not be combined with the review of the notebook is all.
I find it a bit strange that people are suggesting to go to other websites when I made the comment of comparisons to other products, and quite unlike most posts in AT reviews. If I make a comment about a few ATI features not being compared with Nvidia's, I would have been surprised to have people to tell me to go visit Tom's Hardware or the like.
Not to say there wasn't any comparisons, but rather in contrast to say, for example, the One X review where Brian made the comment of how the construction of the device felt better than the GS3. It felt like punches were being pulled in this review is all.
phillyry - Sunday, October 21, 2012 - link
Anand,I would like to know, however, how an Android device serves more as an all purpose device than an iPhone.
Did you mean because of its customisable skins or because it can do some things that an iPhone cannot - presumably because of Apple's strong hold ('death grip') on the OS?
This is pretty important to me because I am near the end of the term of my agreement and am in the market for a new 'phone'. I've considered W8P for precisely this reason but am waiting to see if they flop or not. I've always thought of Android as pretty darn similar to iOS but with slightly different interfaces and less user restrictions.
Is there some other factor that makes an Android any more like a pocket computer, like the future x86 W8P phones will presumably eventually be, and less like an iPhone than I have imagined?
phillyry - Sunday, October 21, 2012 - link
I also took notice of it when Anand referred to the iPhone as an appliance. Your remark saying, "The point of an appliance is to have a reliable, consistent device that you spend more time using than tweaking" would be comforting but I don't think that that's quite how Anand meant it. I was actually quite put off by the term because I think that he meant that the iPhone is made to be more of a tag along device that goes with your other Macs and plays a support role rather than a stand alone device. He pretty much says as much.Like I said, I found this a bit off putting but I think he's just saying how he sees it in terms of the respective companies' product lines and agendas. It actually makes a fair bit of sense. I found that when I got an iPhone it made me want an iPad. And then when I got an iPad it made me want a MacBook. Call it what you will but I remember thinking that they should be able to make it so that I can do everything I need to on an iPad but distinctly felt like I really needed a MacBook to really do all that I wanted. It could be argued, along the lines of Anand's original comment, that this is Apple's approach / business model.
It also points to a distinction between Apple and the other big player that no one in this forum is talking about - Microsoft. Windows 8 appears to be meant to be the exact opposite of this approach. Instead of one device for each purpose it's one device for all purposes. It will be interesting to see if Microsoft's approach with Windows 8 will turn things around or simply flop, at least on the handheld device side of things.