Apple officially unveiled the iPhone 5 today, and it is a major upgrade for the device. As rumored, the new handset’s features include: a taller display, thinner body, and a glass and aluminum design.
During the introduction of the new phone, Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing, described the iPhone 5 as the “most beautiful product Apple has ever made”. The iPhone 5 has an anodized aluminum body and is 18% thinner than the previous generation, with a profile of just 7.6 mm. It is 20% lighter than the iPhone 4S, and was billed by Schiller as the world’s thinnest smartphone.
The handset weighs just 112 grams.
The display is a Retina Display (of course), at 326 PPI. The resolution is 1136 X 640, with a 16:9 aspect ration for the 4-inch display. Schiller says it’s a right size that should fit comfortably in a users hand.
The new screen also has 44% more color saturation, and has the touch sensors integrated directly into the screen itself. This removes a layer from the screen, allowing the device to be thinner than ever.
The wireless networking system uses HSPA+, DC-HSDPA, and LTE, supporting 7 different bands from GPRS to LTE. It uses a single chip for voice and data, and a single radio chip. It also includes Bluetooth 4.0, as with the iPhone 4S.
Wi-Fi operates on 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz on 802.11n – the first dual-band WiFi support in an iPhone!
The processor is the new A6, which is twice as fast as the previous chip, the A5, but comes in at 22% smaller in size. Almost every operation is twice as fast on average. Battery life has also been improved. 8 hours of 3G talk time, 8 hours of LTE browsing, 10 hours of WiFi browsing, and 10 hours of video.
The new camera on the iPhone 5 is 8 MP, with 3264 X 2448 resolution. It includes backside illumination, Hybrid IR filter, a five element lens, f/2.4 aperture, and is 25% smaller. The front-facing camera has also now been updated to 720P (finally!)
The camera also includes dynamic low light mode, precision lens alignment, sapphire crystal, and has sSpatial noise reduction. It also has smart filter, better low-light performance, and 40% faster photo capture. Make no mistake: This is the best camera ever included in an iPhone (by far!)
Panorama photo ability is now included. The mode allows the user to join widescreen photos to create seamless transitions between them and obtain a single image as a result. Schiller displayed an image that went up to 28 megapixels thanks to Panorama mode.
Audio has been improved. It now has three microphones, at the bottom, back, and front of the device. Speaker design has been improved and is now 20% smaller. Noise-cancelling and wideband audio are now included.
The iPhone 5 features the expected smaller dock connector. Called “Lightning” (“Thunderbolt”, and “Lightning” – very very frightening?), the connector is 80% smaller, and has an all-digital, 8-signal design. Apple will make an adapter to allow the use of accessories with the new connector.
All prices with a two-year contract. Also, the iPhone 3GS is being dropped from the line-up.
Pre-orders will start this Friday, September 14th. The device will ship on September 21st in: US, Canada, UK, France, Germany, Australia, Japan, Hong Kong, and Singapore. It will ship to 22 more countries on the 28th.
Make sure to check out our iPhone 5 Event tag and our event coverage page for all the latest!
