Apple iPhone 5s review

Amazing camera, beautiful design and screen quality, fingerprint sensor works well, powerful processor, best app store available

Many key software features available as free updates for previous models of iPhone, premium design and hardware comes at a price

During an era that hears terms like "five-inch" and "phablet" being hurled across Android phone reviews and the Oxford English Dictionary respectively, it came as a surprise to some that Apple stuck to its four-inch design for the iPhone 5s.

With a combination of a familiar design, radically upgraded internal specifications and a brand new operating system, the 5s is the tock to the iPhone 5's tick in Apple's phone releases, and there's a lot to like.

It's on sale now SIM-free from £549.

Design

Physically there's little to differentiate the iPhone 5s from its predecessor. It's just as thin, just as light. It has maintained its luxury aesthetic, which sets it apart from its peers. Smooth metal edges, a slick metal backplate and polished finish stand apart from much of the plastic competition. Only HTC's One feels like it rivals the 5s in terms of physical fit and finish.

The LCD screen is identical to the iPhone 5's, packing 1,136x640 pixels at 326 pixels-per-inch into a four-inch panel. Greater vibrancy exists on Samsung's Super Amoled screens, but Apple's are more natural-looking, colour-wise. Viewing angles are great enough to make videos comfortably enjoying by yourself and a person on either side of you -- no re-angling of the screen is needed.

Compared to many high-end Android phones, such as the LG G2, the

Galaxy S4, HTC's one and the new Sony Xperia Z1, the iPhone 5s's screen is small. Those other devices' screens are a good inch bigger. To move to the 5s from one of those competitors will result in Apple's phone feeling small, but it still feels like a solid balance between screen size, screen quality and usability.

iOS 7

On the inside the 5s runs iOS 7, which is available for devices as old as the iPhone 4 and iPad 2, but it's the only choice for the iPhone 5s.

Aesthetically compared to iOS 6 and earlier, iOS 7 is the same but different: there are no major changes to how the homescreens that house your icons are laid out, save for the fact that folders of apps are now paginated to accommodate dozens of apps instead of just a handful. There are no widgets like Google search boxes (as seen on Android), nor any app icons that display realistically useful information (as seen on Windows Phone's live tiles). But what remains is an interface that feels familiar, logical and easy to navigate.

It's one point of criticism Apple faces quite often: why does the homescreen design never evolve like Android's? It's arguably to keep complexity at bay. As flexible as Android's homescreens can be, and as personal as it's possible to make them, it's often at the cost of imposing complexity on the user. Apple has chosen simplicity over customisability, and whether that's a good thing is down to the individual user. But we're a fan.

Camera and photography

The iPhone 5s camera is a key selling point and it's not hard to literally see why. Without increasing the number of megapixels (eight) for this new model, Apple has dramatically improved image quality to the extend that it makes some photographs taken on the iPhone 5 look comparatively poor.

Here's a sample image taken at night without a flash. The subject is a pile of mushrooms growing in West London. On the iPhone 5 the definition is visibly lower, there is a greater level of blue noise visible across the grass. On the iPhone 5s, an identical shot reveals a much greater level of definition. Grass is clearer, noise is significantly reduced and overall clarity is far better.

This is down to several factors, but most importantly the aperture on the iPhone 5s is wider than that of the iPhone 5. This is the part of the camera lens that lets in light, and the more light, the better the picture potential. Additionally, the iPhone 5s did not need to increase the sensitivity of the image sensor to compensate for the lower amount of light it had to work with. On the iPhone 5 image, the phone captured at ISO sensitivity level 3,200, which resulted in the greater level of noise (the bigger the number, the more visible noise). On the iPhone 5s, the camera only chose ISO 2,500, and this resulted in less visual noise and pixellation.

The other benefit here is that the although both iPhone 5 and 5s have eight megapixels, the size of the pixels are slightly larger on the 5s and that means it can capture more light. The result of these factors produced a much clearer image, particularly in low light as demonstrated here.

A new flash also features on the iPhone 5s. This new model includes a red lamp and a white lamp, as opposed to the white-only lamps available on the iPhone 5. By pairing two colours of flash, the iPhone is able to illuminate a dark scene using a blend of red and white light so that subjects are more realistically light and less "washed out".

This makes a noticeable difference, particularly when photographing skin. On the iPhone 5, a flash leaves faces with a silvery tint; on the iPhone 5s that tint is warmer, as if exposed to greater amounts of natural light. The camera is fast to start up and the new burst mode is highly effective. Holding down the shutter causes the iPhone 5s to capture ten full-resolution photos per second -- ideal for capturing sports.

The iPhone 5s also shoots high-speed video at 120fps, which means it can be slowed down smoothly like something out of a nature documentary. It's effective, although limited in functionality.

Clips are recorded, then a selection of the clip can be slowed down. But only one portion per clip can be slowed and only to a predetermined rate. The result is fun and simple to execute, but it gives all slow-mo videos an signature of being directed by the same slightly bored film editor. It's also a shame that only video captured with slow-mo enabled can be slowed -- if you forgot to capture a moment using the slow-mo camera instead of the regular video camera, you're out of luck.

Performance and graphics

It's early days for apps that truly take advantage of the power on offer inside the iPhone 5s, but power there is: Apple's A7 chip is claimed to be twice as powerful as the iPhone 5.

We put the phone through its paces using the GeekBench 3 suite of benchmarking tools and verified Apple's claims. In raw figures, the 5s scored 2,577. That means little without context but the higher the number, the better the processor. The iPhone 5 scored 1,305, just over half the power of the 5s; the just-announced 5c scored similarly at 1,282; the older iPhone 4s scored a low 412; and older still, the iPhone 4, scored a mere 206.

Safe to say there's considerable oomph here for future app developers to exploit, and plenty to immediately notice if upgrading from much older iPhones. It should eventually also seriously aid multi-tasking, which is something Apple has improved with iOS 7. Apps are now able to check for updates in the background even if the app itself isn't running, and this makes life a little more frictionless when programs like Downcast, a podcast aggregator, periodically downloads new episodes when you move from location to location without having to be manually refreshed.

Other apps already take advantage of the faster processor, and a notable mention is the Safari web browser. It's exceptionally fast for a mobile browser, and we ran some benchmarks to put that in context. Using the Sunspider suite of benchmarks, Safari on the iPhone 5s raced through tasks in 398ms. This is, again, around double what the iPhone 5 could achieve (717ms -- the very same as the iPhone 5c). The iPhone 4s, conversely, took 1,570ms; the iPhone 4 took 2,636ms. This makes browsing big, image- and interactivity-heavy websites much smoother and with less waiting.

In summary, the iPhone 5s is blisteringly fast. It's only dual-core and has 1GB of RAM (versus, say, the Galaxy S4's quad-core and 2GB) but in use this just doesn't make an ounce of difference right now. Games such as Infinity Blade III look and feel beautiful. From the advanced lighting on offer, to the textures, water, transitions and shadows, the game looks close to what would be expected from a decent current-generation console game, particularly when wirelessly mirrored via Apple's AirPlay utility to an HDTV.

It will take some time for developers to take advantage of the technology available to them in the iPhone 5s, and so on day one it may not be immediately obvious how much faster the 5s is over the 5. Over a 4s and even more so the 4, the difference is immediate however. As an upgrade path, going from an iPhone 4 or 4s to an iPhone 5s is going to be as dramatic as going from the first iPhone to the iPhone 4.

Use your finger

A new offering in the 5s is the ability to unlock the device and make iTunes Store purchases using your fingerprint. This can replace the need for passcodes and the iPhone can store up to five fingerprints, meaning a family can have access to a device with their respective fingers.

We taught a 5S to learn our thumbs and forefingers. The system prompts you to roll your finger of choice around the home button, which has an upgraded design from its predecessor. Slowly an image of a fingerprint is built up on-screen over around 15 seconds, after which you can unlock the phone by placing your digit on the home button. It works extremely well and almost never failed to recognise a finger on the first try, and in our test never failed on a second attempt.

Battery

Battery power is about the same as the iPhone 5 and 5c in practice, providing a day's medium-to-heavy use of calls, messaging, web browsing and media playback. Playing games that milk the processor, like Infinity Blade III, take such a toll on the system that it can be exhausted in a few hours -- if you're buying this phone as a high-end mobile gaming system, make sure you keep the bundled power adapter with you.

Conclusion

Let's get this out of the way: this is the best iPhone Apple has ever built. It takes a winning formula and makes it better, faster, more future-proof.

Apple's ability to bake in advanced features and keep the interface simple, and to provide processing power as seemingly great as what's on offer in a quad-core Android device, is testament to its skill at pairing custom hardware with an in-house operating system. It's complemented by the best app store on the market in terms of quality downloads, and although its an expensive product, it's one that rewards with a great performance and design, and will retain its value well for future resale perhaps.

But as ever, many of the high-end improvements present are left for future developers to exploit -- Infinity Blade III takes advantage of the new tech on day one, but every other app out there on launch day runs just as well on the iPhone 5 and 5c.

So if you're upgrading from an iPhone 5, particularly if you've upgraded it to iOS 7, the benefits initially are largely confined to the camera (which really is drastically improved) to begin with.

But if you're considering upgrading from an iPhone 4s or earlier, the 5s will be like moving from a little old Ford Fiesta to a brand new Mercedes -- you may just have to wait a little for developers to build some incredible roads for you to really take it for a joy ride.

Don't miss: iPhone 5c review

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This article was originally published by WIRED UK