The iPhone 5 is the latest gen smartphone by Apple. The phone was released last year in September, and runs on iOS 6 (upgradeable to iOS 6.1). To take advantage of cellular data, the user will be required to insert a nano-SIM card into the phone.


( Picture of the black/slate and white/silver iPhone 5 smartphones )

Design

The iPhone 5 was designed to be thinner, slimmer, and lighter than its previous generation line-up. The phone’s dimensions are 123.8 x 58.6 x 7.6 mm, and weighs 112 grams. The phone’s front-facing camera stares the user directly in the face, its speaker is below the webcam, while its volume and mute buttons are located at the left-hand side of the phone, its power button at the top-right, and the home button lies at the bottom.

The smartphone is available in black and slate, or white and silver. Its back is made up of anodized 6000 series aluminium, which is the same material used in Apple’s notebooks, while its top and bottom are made of ceramic glass, or pigmented glass for the black and slate model.

iPhone 5 hands-on video :

Video credit : The Verge.

Display

The iPhone 5 sports a stunning 4-inch Retina display. The screen’s resolution is 640 x 1136 pixels, and has a pixel density of approximately 326 ppi. The phone’s screen is protected by tough corning gorilla glass and oleophobic coating. However, that is not enough to prevent the screen from being cracked.


( Picture of the iPhone 5’s display )

Under the Hood

The iPhone 5 features a powerful dual-core processor clocked at a frequency of 1.2 GHz, 1 GB of RAM, and a PowerVR SGX 543MP3 graphics processing unit (triple-core graphics). According to Apple, the A6 chip in the iPhone 5 delivers double the performance when compared to the iPhone 4S (The iPhone 4S uses the Apple A5 chip). Applications load faster, games are viewed more beautifully, and there is little to no lag during navigation.

Camera

The iPhone 5 has a built-in 8 megapixel rear facing camera with LED flash that has the ability to record full HD videos. The rear facing camera features simultaneous HD video and image recording, touch focus,geo-tagging, HDR, face detection, and panorama. The phone also has a 1.2 megapixel front-facing camera that takes advantage of FaceTime over Wi-Fi or a cellular network thanks to a recent iOS update.


( Back view of the iPhone 5 )

Storage Space

The iPhone 5 is available in 16, 32 and 64 GB internal storage capacity models. The higher the smartphone’s internal storage capacity, the more expensive the phone will be. There is no microSD card slot, therefore, the user will have no choice but to use the phone’s available internal storage space to store applications and other data. However, iCloud gives the iPhone owner 5 GB of free cloud storage. Of course, iOS and pre-installed applications will consume about 6-8 GB of the iPhone’s intenral storage capacity, therefore, the higher storage capacity models are the better deal for the users who want to keep large applications, lots of music, or videos on the phone.

Battery

The iPhone 5 comes with a non-removable Li-Po 1440 mAh battery (5.45 Wh). The battery was said to last up to 40 hours for music playback, 225 hours on standby over a 2G or 3G network, while it will last up to 8 hours while talking.

Other Specifications

  • Sensors : Accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass.
  • Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, dual-band, Wi-Fi hotspot.
  • Bluetooth v4.0 with A2DP
  • USB 2.0
  • GPS with A-GPS support and GLONASS