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19 October 2011

Category: Hot Topics
Posted by: Simon

Works right out of the box
One of the best features of the Iphone 4S, in our opinion, is that it works right out of the box. It might be something that most phones that aren't an Iphone do anyway, but when we managed to get the Iphone 4S up and running straight away, we were pleased when it worked. If only Apple had done this when it released the Iphone 4, which had to be plugged in to Itunes before we could use it.

Camera
The Iphone's best feature has never been the camera and Apple has been widely criticised about playing catch up to its rivals in that department. It will be hard to slate Apple this time though, as the Iphone 4S 8MP camera is a vast improvement over the 5MP camera on the Iphone 4, with pictures looking clearer and colours more vibrant.

The camera has a custom lens with a larger f/2.4 aperture, an improved illumination sensor, auto white balance, advanced colour accuracy, face detection and reduced motion blur.

We did notice that when taking close-up photos the Iphone 4S camera managed to keep the subject in focus pretty well. When comparing the clarity of close range photos to pictures snapped by the Samsung Galaxy S II, for example, the Iphone 4S actually came up trumps. Apple says the camera is "engineered with a higher, full-well capacity to collect even more light". Indeed, the picture detail is impressive and we'll definitely make use of it.

Video camera
The Iphone 4S video camera has had a significant update, from HD 720p to HD 1080p, which makes it compatible to watch on HD TVs. While the video camera on the Iphone 4 wasn't anything special, the Iphone 4S video camera is pretty decent. It steadied our shaky shots and looked a sight better when compared to video we had taken on our Iphone 4. You can also edit video directly on the phone, which could come in very handy.

Gaming
The A5 chip apparently pushes graphics up to seven times faster for games to run more smoothly and graphics-intensive apps to perform better.

This element of the Iphone 4S is a real game changer, so to speak. The motion control was extremely smooth on a racing game we played. Meanwhile, the graphics are of excellent standard and we only noticed slowdown a couple of times. Better still, you can hook it up to your Apple TV and use it as a games controller too. Once developers have had time to play around with IOS 5 and the Iphone 4S, Iphone games could get very good indeed. Read more in our Iphone 4S gaming review.

Battery
Smartphones aren't known for their long battery life, with a charge often lasting no longer than a day. The Iphone 4S did last for one and a half days before it needed charging, showing that between the A5 chip hardware and the IOS 5 software, the phone is more efficient than its predecessor.

This is still at the high end of the scale, though. Apple says the Iphone 4S has up to 8 hours of talk time on 3G, with standby time of up to 200 hours. This is more talk time but less standby time than the Iphone 4, which has seven hours on 3G and standby time of up to 300 hours. For internet use, you apparently have up to six hours on 3G and up to nine hours on WiFi.

What we did notice, is that when we had notfications on and had two email accounts pushing emails through, the battery drained much more quickly. In an hour we saw the battery fall from 78% to 67%, so you'll need to be careful to turn these features off if you need to conserve battery.

Speed and storage

The better processor with an A5 dual-core chip in the Iphone 4S is an upgrade from the A4 processor in the Iphone 4, which is only single-core. Apple claims it can deliver up to twice the power and seven times faster graphics.

When we used the Safari web browser, we found speeds significantly improved from the Iphone 4 on both WiFi and our Orange 3G. Opening apps was faster too. The Iphone 4S offers up to 64GB of internal storage, which is twice as much as the biggest Iphone 4. The Iphone has never had a memory card slot for expansion, and it doesn't now either. What it does have is Icloud, which offers 5GB of storage that's free. However if you want any more than that you'll have to cough up. As Apple has taught us well, there's not much in life that's free.

Siri
Siri is one of the Iphone 4S' totally new features not available on IOS 5 alone. It's pretty good if you're a US user, not so good if you're not. Last week, when The INQUIRER first got our hands on the Iphone 4S, we discovered that its Siri voice control software can't search local businesses in the UK.

Siri can't tell you where the nearest restaurant is or guide you to local attractions in the UK like it can in the US. When we loaded Siri on the Iphone 4S and asked it where to find the nearest cinema Siri told us that it was unable to deal with the request. This is because Apple hasn't teamed up with a UK partner, such as Yell which it uses in the US, to get the location data it needs.

However, it's not all bad and one thing can be said for Siri, it's a lot of fun to play about with, for this reviewer at least.

We asked for our own amusement, "Tell my wife I'll be late." Siri answered, "I don't know who your wife is, in fact, I don't know who you are." We'd forgotten to add our contacts, clearly.

Siri is good for setting reminders. We asked it to remind us to take the bins out, and that it did. You can also ask Siri random questions such as, "What's 1256 x 456?". For those questions it doesn't know the answer to, it will refer you to Google to search.

Whether Siri will get picked up by the masses isn't certain. The voice recognition isn't perfect and it occasionally gets it wrong, but maybe it doesn't get our UK accents.

Icloud
If Apple is going to bring something into the mainstream with the Iphone 4S, then it might as well be Icloud. Available on IOS 5 and consequently the Iphone 4S too, we reckon it could be pretty useful.

What we found especially handy was that when we downloaded an app on our not as yet connected to a computer Iphone 4S, it appeared on our Iphone 4 too. Nice.

It's also useful if you're moving from one phone to another as Icloud saves your phone numbers, making adding contacts to your Iphones a thing of the past.

The picture sharing aspect of Icloud, Photo Stream, will only use what you took in the last 30 days, and nothing can be deleted. However, it's pretty useful. We connected two Iphones to WiFi and low and behold, a photo we had just taken on one appeared on the photo stream on the other Iphone. We also found we could save the photo to our camera roll, so it won't be deleted on the phone.

In Short
The Iphone 4S looks exactly the same as its predecessor, so it's certainly not worth upgrading for looks alone. It has some nice added features however, such as the A5 processor, 8MP camera and Siri, which make it stand out on its own. The gaming experience is far superior to the Iphone 4 and looks set to get better too. If you liked the Iphone 4, you will like the Iphone 4S a little better.

Story from: http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/review/2117753/apple-iphone-4s-review

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