The iPhone 5 review.

[TheSLSAMG]

Before I start here, I don't want everyone bickering about "oh, andriod is a cool guy. eh kills appels and is fahr superriror" or "APPLE, MEIN FÜHRER, ZE ANDROID MUST BE ELIMINATED" down here or you will be reported. With that out of the way, let's get started.

 

Here first are some images:

 

 

These were taken with a Samsung Galaxy S, coming soon.

 

Hardware:

What's there to say here? The phone has Apple's A6 processor, with dual-cores based on the ARMv7 architecture running at 1.3GHz and 1GB of LP-DDR2 RAM. This model has the Slate Black exterior with 32GB of internal storage. The screen is an absolutely beautiful 4" IPS panel with a 16:9 aspect ratio, 326ppi "Retina Display" quality and a resolution of 640x1136. It has a 1440mAH battery, which is pretty good, a 2MP front-facing camera which is decent for what it is and an 8MP rear-facing camera allowing for decently sharp images, of which some can be seen in my build log.

 

Form Factor and Exterior Feel:

The phone is is 4.87 inches high (123.8mm), 2.31 inches wide (58.6mm) and 0.3 inches thick (7.6mm) It is quite light and feels good in the hand, weighing 3.95 ounces (112 grams.) For me, it is easy to grip on and keep in my hand (always a nice thing, and for reference, my hand is almost large enough to fit perfectly on a Logitech G600.)

 

Build Quality:

I need to be honest here, this is my second iPhone 5. The first one, which suffered a dead power button after 6 months and "Scratchgate" from the start had to go. I couldn't deal with the issues. Thankfully, Apple's customer support dealt with it well. That phone had terrible build quality. The replacement is much better though. It is decent. The phone is put together quite well, and the anodized aluminum (aluminium) and glass is what does this. But, the anodized aluminum (aluminium) is difficult to keep clean. It does scratch, but not extremely easily. I will say that the non-Gorilla Corning Glass (Come on Apple, it wouldn't have been much more expensive to put in Gorilla Glass. Why must you guys do this to your customers?) scratches easily, with the top 1/5 of the phone covered in shallow surface scratches.

 

Software:

I have experienced this device with both iOS 6 and iOS 7, but since iOS 7 is more relevant, this is where it will be focused. I dislike what Apple did with iOS 7 over iOS 6. They think of it as advancement, but I think of it as a step back. I don't like the pastels, I don't like the glitches (including something I like calling "supermultitasking"), I don't like the flat design, of which was "adapted" from Windows Phone OS and Android and I don't like the lack of customization (sorry @Whiskers, it's true.) I do like the music player, selection of apps, sorting system, dimensional layers, live wallpapers, some of the flat app styles like Compass and Messager, Safari and the calculator. Let me address my issues.

 

While I do appreciate the flat style on Windows 8 and Windows Phone, the way Apple executed it is not to my liking. They tried to flatten iOS 6, and while to some they succeeded, I believed they failed. The operating system is buggy, with occasional crashes (no more than other devices though), very occasional lag and graphical glitches a plenty. Including, but not limited to, missing status bars and wide aspect keyboards in portrait. The colors don't work, they just feel a bit... I don't know... childish. I like one specific thing in Android. I can have widgets, custom themes, different music clients that aren't complete garbage, etc. I don't need to stick with the stock Apple bore.

 

Call/Data Quality:

Call quality is good. Clear, loud audio and the people on the other side have agreed with such. Good microphone quality. I am on the Sprint Network, and I am largely on a strong 3G/medium 4G connection. My speeds vary from .5 down, .2 up to 20 down, 5 up with the average around 1 down, .5 up. Internet browsing on this is pretty smooth, and Opera Mini lets me bypass my school's proxy to access the network. I tried Hotspot Shield to bypass the filters, but alas, I do not believe $10/month is reasonable for a proxy I will use for maybe 1hr/day, 5days/week. Also, there are always connection issues when trying to initialize it on my iPhone on the school Wi-Fi, when it works fine on my rooted Galaxy S.

 

Random Observations:

1. The phone runs quite warm at times, and this would be while web browsing with a backlight at full brightness.

2. My phone has never lasted longer than 1 day.

3. The Lightning connector on my cable has corrosion, even though I treat it like well... you know.

4. It feels nice in the hand, but it also feels fragile.

5. Mmm, fingerprints a plenty.

6. It's impossible to clean the aluminum without water.

 

Closing Statement/Pouring of Feelings:

I believe that hardware-wise, the iPhone 5 is very nice. It feels nice in the hand and it's hardware level features are quite nice. The cameras are good, the screen is beautiful, the design is top-notch and the Lightning connector has to be my favorite physical connector, far superior to micro-USB. But, the software is where it falls flat. They re-skinned iOS 6 and called it innovation. It seems Apple hasn't innovated in years, and in my opinion, stopped when the original iPad was released. I wish they would wake up and do what they used to do so well. They have the money, brains and power, but they do not have the ambition or common sense. I know that I sound like I am ranting, but please believe me when I say I am trying not to. It's difficult to see them do such idiotic things with all of the resources they have. Still, they did some things right, and I need to give credit where it's due.

 

Overall Rating: 7.5/10

[Wferr]

hahah my amazing google name,  Wferr rrefW

And great review! 

[miyabwah]

I have a 4, and I cannot for the life of me use Tapatalk on it. It crashes constantly.

[DoubleY]

This is not relevant, but you have some fat fingers

[Wferr]

I have a 4, and I cannot for the life of me use Tapatalk on it. It crashes constantly.

Tapatalk works great! on my iphone 4 (ios 6.1 Jailbroken) 

[TheSLSAMG]

This is not relevant, but you have some fat fingers

I'll be perfectly honest in saying that I am offended, but I forgive you nonetheless.

[miyabwah]

Tapatalk works great! on my iphone 4 (ios 6.1 Jailbroken) 

It works fine, but when I try to go to the unread section, it crashes.

[TheSLSAMG]

hahah my amazing google name,  Wferr rrefW

And great review! 

Thanks!

[DoubleY]

I'll be perfectly honest in saying that I am offended, but I forgive you nonetheless.

I'm sorry

[_ASSASSIN_]

very gud review I like much

[TheSLSAMG]

I'm sorry

Don't worry about it man, I still like you

[WorldDominator]

Ehh gf got the iPhone 5. I'm not impressed with how my iPhone 4 seemed to worsen over the years. It was nice to read this review but I think I'm still gonna try droid (HTC One)

[TheSLSAMG]

very gud review I like much

such inform

          so amaze

 wow

                    informative information

 

[_ASSASSIN_]

such inform

          so amaze

 wow

                    informative information

goddamnit I was supposed to be russian

[TheSLSAMG]

Ehh gf got the iPhone 5. I'm not impressed with how my iPhone 4 seemed to worsen over the years. It was nice to read this review but I think I'm still gonna try droid (HTC One)

I don't mind it at all, I just wish I could have a different OS.

[WorldDominator]

I don't mind it at all, I just wish I could have a different OS.

I'm not sure if it's the OS or the components itself, but everything just seems bogged down now. Kind of leaving my mac phase too