Published in Mobiles

Apple finally announces iPhone 5

by on12 September 2012

apple

Thinnest, lightest, A6 chip and 4-inch Retina


Apple has put all the rumors to rest. Its latest smartphone, the long awaited iPhone 5, has gone official. Apple started the announcement with a couple of key features that include words like thinnest and lightest and as specs and features built up we must say that this iteration is certainly all that iPhone 4S was expected to be.

As noted, the specification part of the announcement kicked off with dimensions and although we are yet to see any official details, the new iPhone 5 is the thinnest and lightest iPhone yet. At 7.6mm it is 18 percent thinner and at 112 grams, it is 20 percent lighter than the iPhone 4S. As rumored earlier, the Retina screen is 4-inch in size with 1136x640 resolution (326 ppi) and it is basically the same width but taller. The screen itself has a 44 percent better color saturation and touch is now integrated in the actual display, thus display is quite thinner and sharper and produces less glare in sunlight.

As far as the connectivity goes the new iPhone 5 will feature GPRS, EDGE, EV-DO, HSPA, HSPA+, DC-HSDPA and LTE as well as the 802.11abng WiFi with support for 2.4 and 5GHz on 802.11n. As expected, there is no NFC support.

The most important is the new A6 chip that will be the heart of the new iPhone. Although there are still no precise details, Apple noted that it its CPU and GPU are "twice as fast," probably when compared to the A5 in the iPhone 4S.

The new iPhone 5 also brought a new camera that will have an 8-megapixel 3264x2448 sensor with backside illumination and hybrid IR filter paired up with a 5-element lens with f/2.4 aperture. It is actually 25 percent thinner than the one on the iPhone 4S. It also comes with a new dynamic low light mode, precision lens alignment and sapphire crystal lens cover. The new A6 chip brought a new next-gen image processor that has spatial noise reduction, smart filter, better low-light performance and faster photo capture. The iPhone 5 camera now also has a Panorama mode and can record 1080p HD video with improved video stabilization, face detection and take stills while recording. The front one is what Apple calls FaceTime HD camera with 720p capability and backside illumination and has face detection and FaceTime is now available over all cellular networks.

Apple has also shed some light on the actual battery life of the new iPhone 5 and it will have enough juice for up to eight hours of 3G talk time, 3G browsing or LTE browsing, up to 10 hours of WiFi browsing or video watching, up to 40 hours of music and 225 hours of standby. The new iPhone also has three microphones, front, bottom and back that will be used for voice recognition and noise cancelation.

As rumored earlier, the new iPhone also has a new connector and Apple calls it Lightning. According to Apple, the new connector is all-digital, has an adaptive interface, improved durability, is 80 percent smaller and it is reversible, or simply can be plugged either way.

Of course, the new iPhone 5 will run on Apple's iOS 6, but that was pretty much expected. On a similar note, Apple announced that iPhone 4S, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, the new iPad, iPad 2 and iPod Touch will all be getting an update to iOS 6.

The price on the contract will be the same as for the iPhone 4S so we are looking at US $199 for 16GB version, US $299 for the 32GB one and US $399 for the 64GB version. The iPhone 4 has become free on contract and iPhone 4S dropped down to US $99. Pre-orders kick off on Friday, September 14th while the first set of countries, including the US of A, Canada, the UK, Germany, France, Australia, Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore, will get it on September 21st. The rest of the world, or to be precise, 20 countries more, will get it next month.

Of course, we will publish the precise specs as soon as Apple officially releases details so stay tuned for more.

iphone 5 pics 1

iphone 5 pics 2

Last modified on 12 September 2012
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