iPhone 5 -- Should you buy it? My review.
/Every time a new iPhone is released I get quite a few people asking me if I'm going to buy it and if they should buy it or not.
I don't usually get one on the first day, but rather I wait a few weeks. However, this time I did hop in a line near my house and I bought it. In fact, I was the first person I knew to have one.
This time someone asked me to write a review, so I'm going to write my first ever iPhone review. Remember, I'm not a tech blogger, which is good, because most of the people who read this won't be interested in hearing about the RAM and the processor speed anyway.
I've had the device for 48 hours now and here are a few observations.....
1. It's fast, really fast. Everything feels faster on the iPhone 5. Impressively fast.
2. The screen is longer (it's long enough to add one more row of icons). I thought this would make the phone feel weird because I was used to the old shorter screen that my last 4 iPhones had. It doesn't. Strangely enough it feels better at this length. Color me surprised, I expected it to feel weird, but I already like it more. That's the beauty of Apple, for the most part, they aren't going to change something and make it less aesthetically pleasing, or less comfortable.
3. iOS6. Anyone with an iPhone, iPod Touch (it's not called an iTouch), or an iPad can upgrade to iOS6, so you can see all the new features this contains without buying an iPhone 5. However, there are some features that you need the iPhone 4, 4S, or 5 to take advantage of. The big one is Siri. I had the 4S, so I had been using Siri for nearly a year. Over the past year with my 4S I noticed that Siri performance actually go worse. With the introduction of the iPhone 5, it seems to have become remarkable more effective.
Another feature I use with regularity (especially while driving) is the dictation feature. This feature was extremely accurate before, and now it is scary effective! You can text with your voice almost perfectly every time. I'm considering writing a blog post later today without typing anything, just to see if it works.
I've noticed some other cool things in iOS6, you can read about 50 of them over at wired. But I'll add one cool item is that you can make your own vibrate alerts now. It's in Settings > Sounds and it's a nifty feature.
4. Panoramic shots on the camera. If you take a bunch of large group photos, like I do, this will hopefully come in handy. I'll be trying it out on Monday night.
5. iPhone 5 is insanely light. It feels super light. Part of this is probably because I don't currently have a case on it, because the cases at the ATT store were all not to my liking, so I'm going to wait until the case selection is a littel more varied. For you Otter Box fans, there were already Otter Box cases available.
So, should you buy the iPhone 5......
If you own a non iPhone and don't mind throwing down a few hundred dollars (for the 16gb version) then yes, you definitely should! I bought the 64gb version, because I love carrying all of my music with me plus a few thousand photos and videos of my kids.
If you own an iPhone 3G, or 3GS you absolutely should get the iPhone 5, it will be like going from black and white TV to HD 3D Surround sound home theatre.
If you own an iPhone 4 and would really like to take advantage of the better speed, Siri, and voice dictation (which are all awesome) then you should upgrade, assuming your contract is up and you can get the phone susidized.
If you own an iPhone 4S you don't really need to upgrade, unless you've managed to get yourself eligilbe for the upgrade (like I did) through some chicanery.
If you're not into spending a bunch of money, or having the latest and greatest, you can get the iPhone 4 for free (with a contract), and the iPhone 4S for $99 (with a contract). If you want an iPhone 4 (32gb) or an iPhone 4S (64gb) without a contract, I can sell you mine for a reasonable fee.
Here are some links to other reviews that might help you make your decision....
Super nerdy technical speed review here.
15 first impression of iPhone 5 here.
Hope that helps, I'll post my review of the panoramic picture of a large group on Tuesday.
