A Month with the iPhone 5s: Impressions from an Android User
by Joshua Ho on August 24, 2014 7:00 AM EST
Introduction
I must confess that the last time I used an iPhone was three or four years ago. While I’ve followed the hardware changes from generation to generation, I’ve never really been able to write about the iPhone or iOS in detail. While objective data is great to work with, a great deal of evaluation relies on subjective experience. To fix this gap in knowledge, I received an iPhone 5s. After a month, I’ve really come to have a much more nuanced view of how Android and iOS compare, along with how Apple’s iPhone compares to the rest of the smartphone market.
At this point, the iPhone 5s is a phone that doesn’t need much in the way of introduction. After all, it’s been almost a year since it was first announced, and Apple is ready to announce a new iPhone within the coming months if their yearly release cycle holds. For those that need a bit of a refresh on the iPhone 5s, I’ve included a spec table below.
| Apple iPhone 5s | |||
| SoC | Apple A7 | ||
| Display | 4-inch 1136 x 640 LCD sRGB coverage with in-cell touch | ||
| RAM | 1GB LPDDR3 | ||
| WiFi | 2.4/5GHz 802.11a/b/g/n, BT 4.0 | ||
| Storage | 16GB/32GB/64GB | ||
| I/O | Lightning connector, 3.5mm headphone | ||
| Current OS | iOS 7.1.2 | ||
| Battery | 1570 mAh, 3.8V, 5.96 Whr | ||
| Size / Mass | 123.8 x 58.6 x 7.6 mm, 112 grams | ||
| Camera | 8MP iSight with 1.5µm pixels Rear Facing + True Tone Flash 1.2MP with 1.9µm pixels Front Facing |
||
| Price | $199 (16GB), $299 (32GB), $399 (64GB) on 2 year contract | ||
Hardware
The hardware is ultimately the foundation that software rests upon, so it’s a good place to start. While it’s easy to appreciate industrial and material design by just holding or looking at the phone, everything else requires some real hands-on time. One of the first things I noticed was that the feel of the buttons. Normally, I expect buttons to have a bit of slack before they actuate. In all of the buttons on the iPhone 5s, this doesn’t happen at all. Instead, the button only depresses when triggered. In the case of the volume and power buttons, the activation gives a clean click. On most smartphones I’ve used, the feel and sound of this activation tends to be a bit more mushy and subdued. The home button is the one exception here, which has a noticeably longer travel and less distinctive actuation/mushier feel but I suspect that TouchID is the reason for this difference.
The other difference that I noticed was the size. For a long time now I’ve had the opinion that this generation of Android smartphones have simply gotten too big to be comfortably used with one hand. I still think that the limit for flagship smartphones (not phablets) is around a five inch display, and no larger than the smartphones that we saw in 2013. This includes devices like the Nexus 5, HTC One (M7), and Samsung Galaxy S4, which are all comfortable in the hand and relatively easy to manipulate. As a result, using the iPhone 5s is a significant departure. Reaching the top left corner of the display is relatively simple compared to some of the smartphones on the market today. While physical size is a matter of preference, I suspect that total device width shouldn't exceed 70-71mm, and height is probably shouldn't exceed 140-141mm, although there's a great deal of leeway as the shape of the phone can make a phone seem larger or smaller than it really is. In the case of the iPhone 5s, although the physical size is easy to handle I definitely notice the effect of the smaller display when trying to browse desktop websites, view photos, and watch videos. Anyone coming from Android at this point in time will probably miss the large displays that Android OEMs tend to integrate.
Of course, display is one of the biggest aspects of the smartphone experience, and is more than just a matter of size. In many measures, the iPhone 5s display is great. There’s no overly wide gamut, noticeable saturation compression, odd green tints in grayscale, or excessively high contrast/gamma. However, the resolution itself is noticeably lower than the 1080p and 1440p displays I’ve gotten used to. This doesn’t seem to affect usability much, but some elements of the UI like the rotation lock symbol are noticeably aliased. I find that around 400 to 500 DPI is generally acceptable to avoid obvious aliasing, but there’s value to going to 500-600 DPI for those that want to use a display for VR or are strongly sensitive to even minor aliasing at 4-6 inches viewing distance. Anyone coming from a phone like the Galaxy S4, G2, or One (M7) will probably notice the fuzzier display but it's probably not bad enough to grate on the eyes.
The camera is another major surprise for me. While I’m no optical engineer, it’s clear to me that the camera output is relatively free of smudging from aggressive luminance noise reduction, and the low light performance is much better as a result. I also don’t seem any odd color casts in low light, or noticeable color/chroma noise. Issues like sharpening kernels, halos from unsharp masks, and other artifacts from poor post-processing just aren’t present. In general, Apple has managed to ship a well-tuned camera that seems to be a step above. While I'd like to see a move to larger sensor sizes, it's likely that the thickness of the phone is a gating factor.
Finally, TouchID, the fingerprint sensor on the home button of the iPhone 5s, was a revelation. For reference, I’ve tried the fingerprint sensor on the One max, Galaxy S5 LTE-A, and Galaxy S5 T-Mobile USA. In practice, I would rank them in that order as well, with the One max’s almost 100% reliability to the Galaxy S5’s hit or miss reliability. In general, I’ve found that swipe-based fingerprint sensors can have a good experience on a smartphone, but in cases like both Galaxy S5 variants the ergonomics of swiping on a home button are less than ideal.
While I understood that TouchID was a better solution because of its press and hold nature, the truly compelling aspect of Apple’s implementation has more to do with software than anything. With the systems I’ve used before, enrollment was absolutely critical. Poor data during enrollment would basically make it impossible to actually use the fingerprint sensor. This isn’t true at all with TouchID. While I mapped the center of my fingers relatively well in initial enrollment, I left the extreme edges unmapped. This was easily resolved by slowly edging towards the very edges of my finger to get it to unlock based upon a partial match. In short, it has only gotten better and faster with time. There’s no deliberate effort needed to unlock the device normally at this point, especially because it’s as simple as pressing down the home button and unlock is almost instant for full matches.
In short, the attention to detail on the hardware side is one of the best I’ve seen in this industry. While I would like a larger display and higher pixel density, even now I find very little fundamentally wrong with the iPhone 5s. Of course, it’s not possible to ignore the software side of things. After all, installing Android on an iPhone 5s isn’t realistically possible. While iOS 7 has already been reviewed, for the most part such experiences have been evaluated from the perspective of people that have used iOS extensively through the years.
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Spoony - Sunday, August 24, 2014 - link
I would conjecture that in some ways this is true of all of Apple's platforms. Apple hardware is top notch, so long as your goal is not gaming or some other specific performance usages. It has a few rough edges (MBA screen, iMac HDDs, MBP GPUs). I get frustrated often with the software. OS X has so many stupid problems (The Finder, the file system, weird panic bugs, stupid interface design). OS X could be solving problems for us in much better ways, Apple just doesn't seem to care about really pushing hard at what is possible. Not to say Windows and Linux don't also have annoying problems...Regarding the iPhone. I used to favour iOS because of the software and hardware. These days I feel like you can get very high quality hardware from LG and HTC (perhaps others, not Samsung). Quality to me counting fit and finish, materials, design, and specs. The latest versions of Android are also very usable.
Today I find myself still favouring iOS because of the nice selection of extremely high quality apps available. By and large they all cost money, but they are also all well supported and well designed. I cannot replace these apps on Android. The equivalents are poorly designed, clunky, slow, or just don't do what I want. If Android offered a great top-quality replacement for most apps I depend on with iOS, I would heavily consider spending the money to invest in a new ecosystem.
apertotes - Sunday, August 24, 2014 - link
I am forced to suffer an iPad on my work. There are many things I despise about iOS. The iPad in itself is almost great. The lack of expandable memory is a kick in the nuts (although Anandtech will never lower themselves to agree with the plebeians). But it is mostly fine. But iOS. God. So annoying.There are already many comments, but one thing I haven't seen is the lack of a "back" button/icon. I know that in Android it is somewhat erratic, but at least it is there. I hate it so much when I touch an itunes/safari icon while inside an app (to login to Facebook, or whatever) and for whatever reason the focus does not come back to the app, and there is no back button. So I need to go to the desktop to launch the app again or launch the multitask feature. I really hate it.
rkcth - Sunday, August 24, 2014 - link
Actually, you just double click the home button and the app will be the second image at the bottom. It shows an icon and screenshot of all apps opened in the order in which they were last used. It takes about 0.25s when you get used to it.steven75 - Sunday, August 24, 2014 - link
4 finger swipe. Problem solved!jkauff - Sunday, August 24, 2014 - link
As a long-time, fairly savvy Windows user who never liked Apple's "walled garden" ecosystem, I surprised myself by buying an iPhone. I started with the 5 and now have the 5S. At the time I bought it, it was by far the most elegant hardware design available. The size is perfect for me to carry it around in my shirt pocket. My biggest gripe is the email app, which is crippled and can't be replaced with a third-party app. Why the hell can't I select everything in my Inbox and delete it? Why can't I attach a file to a reply message? Absurd. All of the other shortcomings I've found, though (except for the keyboard) I've been able to solve with very capable apps that cost no more than $3 or were free. I can play MKV format movies with hardware acceleration using HDPlayer, and there are several apps that play my FLAC music files (I settled on Equalizer Pro because I can use it to compensate for the bass-heavy iOS audio). The lack of access to the file system used to drive me nuts, but the Dropbox app has solved most of my document problems. Battery life is very good if I control the display brightness. I'll look at Android again the next time I'm in the market for a phone, since the hardware and software have come a long way in the past two years, but for now I'm quite content with this lovely bit of hardware in my pocket.kevith - Sunday, August 24, 2014 - link
Apple won´t allow me, a 53 year old guy, to see a pair of tits, not even in a photo of a Rubens painting. I´l never even consider anything "i"steven75 - Sunday, August 24, 2014 - link
Apple doesn't filter your internet connection. Safari will show you as many noods as you want, even has a "private browsing" mode.Malih - Sunday, August 24, 2014 - link
I would expect to still be able to remember and maybe type the url or at least search keyword for what I wanted to explore on the browser, when I'm 53.It seems I could be wrong.
wurizen - Sunday, August 24, 2014 - link
Hey, seems like the android-ios was positive.I have a reverse experience. I've always been an iphone user from original iphone to iphone 3gs to iphone 4s. the original iphone was my first smartphone. And then for financial reasons, had to go android. so i got a no contract android phone, an LG Optimus L9 (LG-P769). It's running Android 4.1.2.
I've turned off/disabled every bloatware that I can with his phone. But, the experience is just jittery, stuttery, waitery (is that even a word?), jerkier, not seamless at all compared to my iphone experience. This experience that I am talking about are basic experience of opening a browser and switching to the 2-4 apps that I use most often. No big apps. Nothing complicated and the phone will just slow down. It's just an inferior experience.
And, the "pc" like tinkering ability of android vs. ios, I don't think has ever made me more "productive" other than discovering that android is a bit more flexible with file management and/or a different approach than ios. and, the only reason why i think most ppl would even "tinker" with android's file management is b/c one would like to move folders or files to an external sd card to free up space to the internal sdcard, which one needs to do quite often with android since it's flawed. by flawed, i mean, there is no way, for me, to use the external sdcard to install apps and/or can't make apps installed on the internal sdcard to store files/photos on the external sdcard, such as instagram, for example. so, once in a while, my phone would not be able to update apps b/c the internal sdcard is filled up. and this is when i dive into the file storage app and move thins around. one can't do this with an iphone. but, i don't think that is a minus. get it android?
also, 2007 is when iphone came out and it's 7 yrs later and android is still behind. phone quality wise and more so in the software dep't. but my experience is with 4.1.2. so it might be a bit different for others with later android version.
smartphone tech/software is either slow or apple is just fast and that "advance." what do you guys at anand think? you guys know this stuff more than me. slow android? slow industry? or is apple just that much better than the rest?
KoolAidMan1 - Sunday, August 24, 2014 - link
There is very little "productive" about tweaking in Android. What's productive is something with good software that does the job. Fiddling with customizations, especially cosmetic ones, is a waste of time.