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
Build Quality Issues, Scuffgate
Section by Vivek Gowri
Despite all of the effort put into the iPhone 5, Apple has had its fair share of growing pains with the 5 design. The main thing here is definitely Scuffgate, which we'll get to in a moment, but it's not just that. My personal unit had an issue with the front glass not being properly mounted into the frame, something I tried to correct by just applying pressure until it clipped in, but it ended up unclipping again after some time. I'm not sure how widespread it is, but worth noting nonetheless. Add in the litany of other issues with the 5, including a fair number of nitpick-level complaints that SNL chose to poke fun at last weekend, and it's clear that this isn't a perfectly smooth launch.
Which brings us to Scuffgate, a two-fold issue that relates to the scratchability (scuffability?) of the new iPhone. Now, iPod users have been used to devices that are near-impossible to keep in decent condition for quite some time now. Any iPod with a chrome back (the first four iPod touches, all classic iPods, 1st and 3rd gen nano) is liable to scratch just by looking at it wrong, and there was actually a class-action lawsuit filed about this some time ago. But an iPhone that scratches easily is a pretty new phenomenon, which is why this is becoming a big deal.
These surface defects are commonly occurring on both black and white iPhone 5s, with the key difference being that the silver metal doesn't show imperfections nearly as much. The raw aluminum colour is a silver that's similar enough that unless you go hunting for it, in most cases you won't notice the texture difference. The black/slate 5s tend to show it pretty clearly though - the bright silver of the raw metal contrasts quite a bit with the dark finish, so even small imperfections tend to be high visibility. If you like to keep your phones naked (without a case or protective skin), I recommend going with the white 5. As sexy as the dark metal casing is, it starts looking a bit more low rent with a couple of scratches in it.
The other problem? People are having iPhone 5s delivered with noticeable scratches and dents, straight out of the box. Mine came with a couple of very minor ones that I only noticed after hunting for them, no big deal, but I've seen some aggrieved owners posting unboxing pictures showing relatively major surface flaws in the metal. In my opinion, this is the more concerning part of the "Scuffgate" equation. It's just not acceptable for significant surface defects to exist on brand new phones out of the box. With that said, I can understand how the 5 bodies are getting scratched in the factories. Let me explain, starting with the electrochemical anodization process for aluminum.
It works like this: the raw aluminum is submerged in an electrolyte through which a direct current is applied, growing an oxide at the anode electrode (the aluminum) and hydrogen at the cathode. Essentially, this is just a controlled electrochemical corrosion reaction. It results in the production of AL2O3, which we know as aluminum oxide (or α-alumina), along with a bunch of hydrons (H+) at the anode, plus dihydrogen gas (H2) at the cathode. The anode reaction looks something like this: 2 Al (s) + 3 H2O (l) = Al2O3 (s) + 6H+ + 6e-. As this process continues, a porous alumina film is created at the surface. This gives the slightly rough texture we're used to seeing on anodized aluminum products, but also allows for coloured dye to be poured in. The dye is then sealed into the material by putting the aluminum in boiling water. Professor Bill Hammack from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign biomolecular engineering department gives a pretty solid rundown of the basics in the video below, if you want a more visual explanation of the process.
Basically, the key to all this is the porous aluminum oxide layer. Based on the voltage, anodization time, and the specific electrolyte solution used, the depth of aluminum oxide created and size of the pores can vary. It's actually also possible to create a non-porous barrier-type alumina if an insoluble electrolyte is used in the anode, but that's a different story for a different time. Also, since this came up during the podcast and in the comments later, it's worth mentioning that aluminum reacts with air naturally to create a very thin oxide layer to protect the bare metal in a spontaneous mechanism known as passivation. By very thin, I'm talking on the ångström level - 50 of them, give or take. That's five nanometers, which is almost negligible, but more importantly, it's nonreactive to air beyond that so there is essentially no corrosion. This makes perfect sense if you think about how bare aluminum or any other raw metal reacts to air in purely physical terms, but it's always good to relate real-world observations to the chemical reactions taking place. Now, back to the various factors that dictate the properties of the anodization process - we don't have access to any of that information, beyond knowing that the specific aluminum being used is a 6000-series alloy. My digging suggests that it is likely some form of 6061, which is composed of 95.85%–98.56% aluminum, along with some combination of silicon, iron, copper, magnesium, manganese, chromium, zinc, and titanium, amongst other elements. It's hard to know exactly what Apple doing, but we're in a pretty good position to make educated guesses as to their methods and intentions.
A diagram showing the four steps of pore formation during the aluminum anodization process. The blue indicates the electrolyte solution, the light gray is the aluminum oxide, and the dark gray is the base aluminum. E indicates the flow of electrons. (Source: University of Halle-Wittenberg)
Apple has been anodizing handheld devices since the iPod mini debuted almost a decade ago, but obviously the process has been updated in the intervening years. The last notable change was a switch to an anodization process that resulted in denser pores around two years ago - it first showed up in the 2011 MacBook Pros and the iPad 2, eventually spreading to the rest of the lineup. The iPhone 5 takes that to a whole new level, with even finer and denser pores than I've seen used on any Apple product in the past (pore density is inversely proportional to pore size.) It's also a thinner metal than we've seen Apple use before. The material thickness for the iPhone 5 is just significantly thinner than they use on iPads or MacBooks, or even the old iPods that used anodized shells (iPod mini, 2nd, 4th, 6th generation nano, the last few iPod shuffles).
Which brings us to the next key detail with the anodization process: typically, the thickness of the anodization adds about half that thickness to the total aluminum thickness. So if you had an aluminum plate that was 1mm thick and added a 0.2 mm oxide, post-anodization, you would end up with a total material thickness of 1.1mm. With Apple trying to maintain as slim a profile as possible, it's in their best interests to have a relatively thin anodization. Given the graining of the anodization and based on what I've seen from scratching up my own iPhone 5, I think Apple's anodization process results in a super-thin alumina, something on the order of less than a hundred microns, at most; I'm estimating around 50-75um. (I'd also just like to note that in the process of this review, I took a jeweler's screwdriver to the back of my previously pristine iPhone 5. I love you guys, don't ever forget it.)
The oxide is even thinner on the bands, particularly the chamfers, which are just painted metal. So while the entire thing is easy to nick, it seems easiest to scratch off lots of paint on the bands, as well as the various metal edges. The soft-anodized surface is just a magnet. And the thing is, I'm not even sure they have the material thickness to oxidize more of the surface to get a more durable finish. The entire phone is so thin, and especially on the bands, I can't see a way for them to corrode any more of the aluminum than they already have without it raising questions about structural integrity. So, without very special care inside the factories, it's pretty easy to see how defects could occur. The rumors of Apple tightening down on quality control inside the iPhone 5 assembly factories comes as no surprise, since the 5 really does need extra attention to make it out of the factory unscathed.
So, are there any solutions to Scuffgate? Not really, or not anymore than there were with Antennagate. If you owned an AT&T 4, your only options were to put a case on it or just deal with the potential dropped calls. Here, your only options are to put a case on it, or just be very careful and deal with the potential scratches. If your phone came with defects out of the box, I'd just try returning it in hopes of getting a closer-to-perfect replacement unit. In the meantime, Apple needs to implement some controls internally to ensure that shipping devices don't contain any major surface-level defects. Maybe put some of those 29-megapixel cameras to good use. If Apple really wanted to fix it, they could put some sort of scratch-resistant polymer coating over the bare metal, but that'd absolutely ruin the surface feel. If I was Jony Ive, there's no way I'd let that happen, so until Apple changes up the design (like building antenna diversity into the CDMA 4 and 4S), we've just got to deal with it.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
276 Comments
View All Comments
name99 - Wednesday, October 17, 2012 - link
If you want to read non-technical reviews, there are a million other sites you can go to, from NYT and WSJ to Engadget and TheVerge.The WHOLE POINT of people reading Anand's reviews is to get tech details we don't get elsewhere.
Perhaps as a followup you might want to suggest that John Siracusa in future limit his OSX reviews to a single letter-sized page?
rarson - Wednesday, October 17, 2012 - link
No, it's not the "WHOLE POINT," the whole point is that reviews are reviews and tech articles are tech articles.GotThumbs - Tuesday, October 16, 2012 - link
"Those longing for an HTC One X or Galaxy S 3 sized device running iOS are out of luck. "I find it hard to believe there is even one person that is in this group. Apple's walled garden is mostly OS and portal based (Itunes).
Especially with Apples maps being sub-standard.
Please stick to facts.
A5 - Tuesday, October 16, 2012 - link
If you don't want any editorial judgement or statements, there are plenty of places where you can just read a spec sheet and benchmark results.Omophorus - Tuesday, October 16, 2012 - link
I think the opposite is more likely... or at least I fall into that category.Mobile computing device aside, Android 4.0+ is shockingly much nicer to use (and this coming from a long time iPhone user) than iOS 5 or iOS6.
If I could get the iPhone 5 handset, maybe with slightly better anodization, running Android 4.0+ I'd be in hog heaven.
After playing with an iPhone 5, I really dig the hardware, but found the software woefully lacking.
crankerchick - Tuesday, October 16, 2012 - link
I think you and the original commenter missed what the statement was saying. It said, "HTC One X or Galaxy S3 'sized' device..."Specifically, a larger screen iPhone, is where I think they were going with the statement, especially given the context of the paragraph where the statement was made.
That said, I'm very much in the same camp as you. My number one device would be an iPhone-size and iPhone-build device running Android (but with a few tweaks since we are talking the ideal device). In fact, that is part of the reason I have an iPhone now and my Galaxy Nexus is sitting in a drawer by the bed--it's just too big and battery life is awful. I want a 4-4.2" 720p screen that doesn't have last year's hardware inside. The One S comes closest, but it's not on VZW to my knowledge, and it's still not "the best" hardware available, which you need with Android, especially on a manufacturer's skinned device.
perpetualdark - Monday, October 22, 2012 - link
What about the Incredible 4g? I think this phone was overlooked because of it's proximity to the S3 release and the fact that the market is generally trending toward a nearly 5" display..I like this phone because it has the current generation of technology, is pretty darn thin, has a replaceable battery, has the 4" display (ie I am not holding a small tablet to my ear or carrying it in my pocket), and is, more importantly, android.
Yes, the SLCD display may not be quite what the apple display is on paper, but to be perfectly honest, I have never noticed the differences.. Perhaps in a test environment, or to someone who calibrates displays all day, the Apple display would be better, I just don't see it.
The s4 processor is not only fast, but plenty efficient, and the battery lasts easily 2 full days of heavy use. I can use it to read a kindle book for 6-8 hours over 2 days, talk a few hours, surf the web a few dozen times, text a few hundred texts, and even play games for an hour or two before I run out of battery. I have yet to go below 40% in one 24 hour period of time with the exception of using it with GPS and maps up.. the gps on 100% burns up the battery fast.
gig of ram, 8 gigs on board storage, 32 more gigs with the sd card, etc, plenty of storage. 8 megapixal camera on back and a vga camera on front.
ICS, LTE, Beats Audio, pretty much all the latest in tech..
No, it can't quite compete with the S3, but it is pretty close to a One X in a 4" package and the closest thing to a One X you can get from Verizon, and honestly the phone that SHOULD be compared to the iphone5, given it is the only one with the current generation of hardware that is the same size. Sure, the iphone5 has an edge on the inc 4g in terms of tech specs, but when you add cost to the mix, the playing field is more level there as well, and to be honest, in real world applications the differences are going to amount to very small percentages.
What people really want is a phone that fits their needs. Usually the most important things are screen size, OS preference, cost, and battery life. Performance is ONLY an issue when there is a problem with it.. Like when the iphone 4 dropped calls and couldn't do internet when you touched it.. The difference from the S4 to the A6 in real world application is a second or two in loading an app.. if even that.. most of my apps open instantly and with chrome and a good 4G connection I am betting that side by side loading web pages would be nearly identical. Specs are cool when comparing e-peen size but otherwise don't mean much in application.
Not everyone is interested in big screens for a phone. Not everyone is interested in having a flexible OS. Not everyone is interested in the latest tech. Not everyone wants to spend a fortune on a phone that is, in practice, marginally better than what they have already. Not everyone is interested in bleeding edge technology. Sometimes you are looking for the phone that best suits YOUR needs. For me, that is an android platform, small form factor to fit in my front pocket comfortably as well as in my hand. A processor that was fast but power conservative. A battery that lasted a full day with reserve to spare, and could be used for 2 or 3 days if conserved well, AND could be swapped with a fully charged battery when travelling. I also like a phone that I can drop and scratch and not notice the dings and scratches.. since I put it in my pocket, I don't want to add a bulky case to keep it safe.. (I have dropped this phone dozens of times and 24" away you would never know it). I like to only pay $6.99 for insurance and be able to replace it if lost or stolen or broken for less than $100 ($12 per month for apple with $170 replacement deductible). And I like that I can use ANY micro-usb charger or cable to charge or connect to a computer. I don't have to buy any special adapters to make it work with my existing devices.
Quite frankly, I think the difference between an android fan and an apple fan is that an android fan will not settle for the one device available to suit his needs, he will shop around to find the RIGHT one. If that happens to be an iphone, that is what he will get. But with dozens of models to choose from that are every bit as good if not better in every way that really matters, the chances of going with an iphone are pretty slim. An apple fan will settle for what is available and try to convince everyone around him that this one device will fit everyone's needs perfectly without exception.
crankerchick - Tuesday, October 16, 2012 - link
I don't follow all the technicals like that, I'm more of an end user when it comes to mobile technology, but I think the trend towards the larger screens is more the MFRs pushing that a selling point (moar moar moar) to cover the fact that they can't fit the latest and greatest and cutting edge (NFC, quad core, LTE, etc) in the chassies of a 4" screen phone.Just my hunch. Wouldn't mind being schooled on this by someone in the know.
KPOM - Tuesday, October 16, 2012 - link
I'd agree with that assessment. Apple was one of the last to move to 3G and one of the last to move to LTE because of battery life. The other manufacturers got around it by building thicker phones in the 3G era, and then with the LTE era started putting in bigger screens, which gave them room for bigger batteries (though the larger displays also required more power). It turned out enough people liked the bigger screens.Now that the power consumption levels are down, it will be interesting to see if others shrink their screens back down to Apple levels. The Galaxy SIII Mini is a half-hearted attempt, as it lacks LTE and has mediocre specs. But maybe someone else will take the bait.
rarson - Thursday, October 18, 2012 - link
I feel like the iPhone 5 screen is actually too small (and I've heard complaints that the phone is too light, which I sort of agree with as well), but I think the Galaxy S3 is too big. I'm still using a Verizon Fascinate. It's got a bigger screen than the 5, but it's a bit smaller than the S2 and S3, perfect size. Thin but not too thin, and light but not too light. In fact, all I really want is a phone exactly like it, but with more power, better battery life, and maybe a slightly better screen (can't complain too much about the screen I already have).When I picked up the Fascinate, I knew it was the phone I wanted (helps that the price was only $50). When the S2 came out, I was excited to see it but disappointed by how much bigger the phone had gotten. I don't want a phone that I have to contort to get into my pocket. Apple's iPhone 5 is great in that respect, but after using this Fascinate for so long, its small size feels a bit cramped.
I'd love to have the hardware of the Apple phone, but proprietary connectors and iOS are absolutely a no-go for me. I really don't care for iOS at all, because Android is so much easier to use.