The iPhone 5s Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on September 17, 2013 9:01 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Apple
- Mobile
- iPhone
- iPhone 5S
Video
Apple’s new H6 ISP brings with it a modernization of the video recording options for the iPhone 5s. The default video record mode is still 1080p at 30 fps, but there’s also a new 720p 120 fps “slo-mo” mode as well. In the latter, video is captured at 120 fps but optionally played back at 30 fps in order to achieve a high speed camera/slow motion effect. The result is pretty cool:
In the camera UI you can select what portions of the video you want to play back at 30 fps and what portions you want to leave at full speed. The .mov file is stored on NAND as a ~27Mbps 720p120 without any customizations, however when you share it the entire video is transcoded into a 30 fps format which preserves the slow motion effect.
The slo-mo mode is separate from the standard video recording mode, it’s the next stop on the dial in the new iOS 7 camera app. Video preview in slo-mo mode also happens at 60 fps compared to 30 fps for the standard video record and still image capture modes.
Camera preview frame rate, toggling between slo-mo and normal modes
Adding high speed camera modes to smartphones is a great step in my opinion and a wonderful use of increases in ISP and SoC performance. I would like to see Apple expose a 1080p60 mode as well. Technically 1080p60 does require slightly more bandwidth than 720p120, but I’d hope that Apple targeted both in the design of H6 and simply chose to expose 720p120 as it’s an easier feature to market.
Standard 1080p30 recording is also available:
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ESC2000 - Saturday, September 21, 2013 - link
So inexplicably the air has this great GPU coupled with a crappy screen that limits the GPU's impact. Then on the windows ultrabooks we have generally better screens (at least on the ones that have similar cost to the air) but less good GPUs.akdj - Tuesday, October 8, 2013 - link
Touché. I'll give ya that one. While I do love my MBA for travel, the screens suck! Point was not to compare displays----rather iGPU technology movementvcfan - Wednesday, September 18, 2013 - link
I doubt the A7X is even close to 300GFLOPStipoo - Wednesday, September 18, 2013 - link
78 times 2. It'll probably be close to 160 Gflops, if historical A*X series performance doubling is to be followed.DeciusStrabo - Wednesday, September 18, 2013 - link
Admittedly the original 11" MBA was a dog in terms of performance when it was released. Still 1/3-1/2 (depending on the benchmark) of the speed of my i3-3220 Home Server isn't exactly bad for a phone.jeffkibuule - Wednesday, September 18, 2013 - link
Didn't the original 11" MBA have overheating problems? That thing was a toaster.coolhardware - Tuesday, September 17, 2013 - link
Very nice review as always Anand :-)I especially enjoyed checking out the display closeups and charts. As you mention, Apple's display size and pixel density are both falling behind flagship phones from other manufacturers, this list http://pixensity.com/list/phone/ puts it well outside of the top 10.
However, Apple displays are generally pretty nice to look at. I cannot help but wonder if Apple is going to get any major display breakthroughs in future generations, or if other manufacturers (Samsung, LG, or other) will be able to surpass it... anyhoo, thanks for the nice review!
PS if anyone has subjective opinions after viewing the 5s' display versus other flagships, I would appreciate hearing about it!
Impulses - Tuesday, September 17, 2013 - link
It's not like Apple's designing their display in Cupertino... I'm sure they have a large degree of control in order to get the specs they need and the calibration etc, but if there's any sorta revelation in display tech it'd come from the labs of the people that actually make them (Samsung, LG, Sharp, etc).Impulses - Tuesday, September 17, 2013 - link
Oh and my subjective opinion on current flagship displays is that I'd still take an IPS/super LCD/whatever over the typical over saturated AMOLED, the Moto X made a strong case for using AMOLED for it's active notifications but ehh... I like LG's tap to wake gimmick on their recent models, and after owning two 4.3" devices and a 4.6-4.7" (all with capacitive buttons) I'm actually yearning for something a bit more compact. I think the Moto X is a near perfect fit, although it does sacrifice some screen space for the buttons... I thought on screen buttons were pointless at first because none of the early devices that used them had less bezek space nor where they smaller, but we're finally seeing that become a reality with the X and the G2 so I think I'm on board now. Die bezels die! (along with menu etc, HTC dumping the multi task button bothered me tho, one of their few design missteps IMO)coolhardware - Tuesday, September 17, 2013 - link
Thank you Impulses for the nice analysis.I too really like the Moto X. It seems like it hits the sweet spot in size/capability plus it is actually available on my carrier (US Cellular). I wish that all carriers got the Moto X customization options though because I find that to be a pretty cool feature:-)
I will eventually be replacing my Galaxy Note 2 with giant extended battery:
http://goo.gl/TxUnez
with something and right now it is a toss up between the upcoming Galaxy Note 3 and the Moto X. I really dislike how sluggish my Note 2 can be and I mainly blame that on Samsung's skin on top of Android :-( That is a big plus for the Moto X since I hear it is pretty clean in that respect.
My new choice may be Moto X + Nexus 7 FHD rather than Note 3.
Any other thoughts/opinions on the topic?