Meet the new iPhone 5, its specs and anticipated price in Kenya
iPhone 5 is the thinnest and lightest phone from Apple yet, measuring only 112 grams and about 18% leaner than its predecessor.
The removal of an extra layer from the screen has reduced glare, improved touch sensitivity as well as facilitated wider viewing angles. (Image courtesy of Apple.com)
As speculated in almost a year-long spree of rumors and leaks, it was indeed named ‘iPhone 5’ and sports several of the features that appeared in the “leaked” versions albeit with a few unexpected tricks and disappointments.
Yesterday marked the official announcement of the new iPhone 5 by Phil Schiller, Apples’ Senior VP of Worldwide product marketing in a highly anticipated event at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco.
Aluminum and glass body; once bitten twice shy
Shortly after iPhone 4S was released in October last year, Samsung fans could not wait to humiliate new owners of the just released iPhone using this devastating video where an iPhone 4S shatters to an unusable state on the pavement in a free-fall test with a Samsung Galaxy SII.
The new iPhone now has a body made of anodized 6000 series aluminum (same material used in Apple notebooks) and a fascia made of Gorilla® Glass display for extra strength.
The surface of the iSight camera is also made of sapphire crystal, a material that scientists place in the same class as diamonds for its hardness. This ensures scratches on the camera lens could only occur in very rare extreme occasions.
The new lightening connector (optimized for digital signals instead of the traditional 30 pins connector) and the just announced EarPods are some of Apples inventions that have broken the usual way of business for the company.
Apples’ A6 Processor, smaller, faster saves battery
The A6 chip is Apples’ flagship processor for mobile devices that is twice as fast as that on the iPhone 4S and iPad 3.
The faster processor combined with the all new iOS 6 means apps load almost immediately and emails render effortlessly. This also applies to graphic intensive activities such as games and browsing the web.
According to Apple, here is the benchmark for battery performance:
- 8 hours browsing on 4G LTE networks
- 8 hours of talk time on 4G LTE networks
- 10 hours of video playback
- 10 hours of browsing on Wi-Fi networks
- 40 hours of music playback
- 225 hours (9 days) of standby time
Going natural
A decade ago, it was unquestionable to conclude majority of the human race was indeed chasing after technology. This year, tables seem to have been turned going by the way new devices are being engineered to mimic human behavior and body structure.
The new iPhone 5, which is taller with iPhones’ traditional rounded corners, is designed to form a perfect connection with ones bone structure in the palms. This makes the device nestle down in the palms more naturally for tireless use of the device even during sessions of elongated calls.
Nokia Lumia 920 which was also recently announced last week in New York has an attractively curved back similarly engineered to fit comfortably on any human palm. The Samsung Galaxy SIII also boasts of several of these ‘natural’ features such as Smart stay which uses the front facing camera to make contact with the eyes of its user.
Same camera new tricks
The iPhone 5 features the same great 8 MP camera that shipped in with its predecessor the iPhone 4S.
A few features and performance upgrades have been thrown in such as iSight that lets the camera capture greater details in wide landscapes of up to 240 degrees wide.
Photos taken in panorama can easily reach 28 MP on the new iPhone 5 iSight camera.
Other features added on the camera include:
- Taking photos is now 40% faster than in the iPhone 4s
- Low light photos are now brighter, more detailed and less grainy with the “dynamic low light mode”.
- Taking photos in the middle of video recording is now possible.
- 1080p HD video recording through the rear camera with an ingenious video stabilization feature.
- Front-facing HD camera now works with regular cellular network data subscription to make video calls to family and friends through the FaceTime HD camera (up to 720p).
The new iPhone 5 now gives you a chance to make HD quality video calls using regular EDGE/3G/4G networks instead of Wi-Fi-only on iPhone 4S provided you can stomach the subscription rates.
More knowledgeable, generous Siri with a new set of ears
The new Siri provides more detailed answers and listens to you more keenly through two additional microphones located on the front and back of the new iPhone 5.
Apple claims the upgraded voice activated personal assistant is ‘friendlier’, proactive and well conversant with more languages.
Apple engineers have basically fine-tuned Siri to understand the natural way of speaking of its users thus providing complete answers with minimal repetitions.
Siri, the voice assistant, however still needs a data connection to fetch answers. This makes the experience and response time dependent on network availability and speed.
Things you can ask Siri to do for you:
- Wake you up
- Search any information from the web
- Play your favorite songs from an album
- Give you directions
- Send messages
- Schedule meetings
- Take audio dictations and convert them to text
- Make phone calls e.t.c.
Taller, more responsive still retina display screen
The iPhone 5 screen is about 30% leaner than that of its predecessor according to Apple. The removal of an extra layer has reduced glare, improved touch sensitivity as well as facilitated wider viewing angles with an impressive improvement of about 44% in color saturation.
iPhone 5 screen measures the same in width as the one on iPhone 4S but with longer measurements in height. At 4 inches, it is slightly larger than that of its predecessor which measures 3.5 inches.
Playing games and watching movies on the 16:9 screen is going to be a total bliss with the now much more improved viewing angles.
The increase in size has been adequately compensated with more pixels (1136 * 640) in the screen resolution thus maintaining the same pixel density of the iPhone 4S.
The screen still boats of retina display technology which Apple claims to be too sharp for the human eye to distinguish individual pixels.
Video for iPhone 5
Price and where to buy the new iPhone 5 in Kenya
Although the device will be available in the US and UK market from next week (21St Sept 2012) Kenyans will have to wait a little longer before the device hits the local market.
As a norm with iPhones, the new iPhone 5 will be available in three variants (16GB, 32GB and 64GB) which all have similar features but different storage capacities.
All variants will also be available in black or white colors.
The projected prices are:
- $799 or about Ksh. 67,915/= for the 16GB model
- $899 or about Ksh. 76,415/= for the 32GB model
- $999 or about Ksh. 84,915/= for the 64GB model
Known Apple resellers in Kenyan are Telkom Orange (mostly issues iPhones with a contract), Elite Computers, Ebrahim electronics among others.
For more on photos, detailed features and sample shots from the iPhone 5 camera, visit the Apple website.
