by Apple
What are the best and the worst things about iPhone 4S? Here is our detailed iPhone 4S review.
Introduction and iPhone 4S Specs:
Our iPhone 4S review starts with and introduction about the phone and iPhone 4S specs. Although it doesn’t have a bigger screen or different design, new iPhone 4s has certainly made a step forward comparing to his ancestor. Here we will mainly be focused on the size of that step.
Right after you open the package, you will notice that iPhone 4S looks almost identical as his elder brother, and the only visible change on the antenna on the top of the phone. However, the difference is notable as soon as you turn on the phone.
Unless you want to restore data from your old iTunes backup, iPhone 4S activation over PC/MAC is not mandatory. You can restore the old cloud profile through the iCloud application. If you don’t have Apple ID already then you will have to create it.
iCloud can be also activated for the purpose of storing or wireless transferring of images, applications, contacts, calendar from or to your iPhone 4S.
Our iPhone 4S review noted that unfortunately in-app data is not transferred so 4S owners will have to re-enter their login details, to download the offline Spotify playlist and to set all personal settings in any application that requires such.
Regarding the iPhone 4S specs about hardware:
Next we focus on the iPhone 4S specs in this iPhone 4S review. A lot of iPhone 4 owners will ask why they need the new 4S when the free iOS 5 upgrade is bringing all 200+ upgrades to their present smartphone? Well, we will soon come to this point but have in mind that Apple has made its best iPhone so far.
The new A5 dual-core processor (as seen on iPad2 tablet) makes things look a lot quicker. Applications are opened faster, web pages are loaded sooner, multitasking is more fluent and some of the most demanding apps are working much better and without any lags.
The processor also increases the graphic potential of the new 4S. But some of the games are not running seven times better, as the Apple stated, but instead their play experience is just a bit improved. This is due to a fact that the games need to be properly set in order to use the whole power of the processor. We are talking about graphics on the PSP Vite level, if not even better.
Another useful feature that we noted in this iPhone 4S review is the ability to transfer video content over the AirPlay directly to your Apple TV. In case you didn’t know that is done wirelessly and in 720p quality.
If you choose to use HDMI connection, the video quality goes the level up and it is now 1080p. Our iPhone 4S review noted that the ease of content transfer from small to big screen is quite an interesting feature, especially when you choose to zoom in or rotate photos. That was not available on iPhone 4 due to a weaker processor. The potential of the big TV screen gaming abilities of the 4S should definitely make Nintendo and Sony worried.
Since previous iPhone had certain troubles with mobile network reception, Apple engineers decided not to take any risks with the primary phone usage quality – phone calls. Therefore the new 4S version had two antennas. The true benefit from this upgrade has yet to be confirmed.
We found during our iPhone 4S review that both antennas are placed on the top of the phone, and they are capable of both emittion and reception, allowing the faster 3G, and the maximum HSDPA speed of 14.4 Mbps – twice faster than on iPhone 4.
Camera:
Camera has experienced the total upgrade since it can now record the 1080p videos and shoot 8 MP photos. With upgraded optic technology more light can go through and the colors are much vivid. Also the white balance is enhanced. Anyways, we found during iPhone 4S review that the pictures are much sharper without any doubt. On 4S you can finally do some picture editing right on the phone, as well as to switch on camera from a hardware shortcut. You will also enjoy the Twitter integration which allows picture uploads in just few seconds.
Siri:
The best new feature we found during this iPhone 4S review is voice artificial intelligence named Siri. Siri.. The feature that got most of public’s intention. Siri is built-in app that is voice controlled and it acts just like your personal assistant. We noted during iPhone 4S review that if you simply hold Home button for a few seconds the application will switch on and you will be able to ask Siri whatever you want and the app will do its’ best to give you a quality answer. But whatever quality of answer you expect, just keep in mind that the Siri is has been called “the best Artificial Intelligence mobile app available”. The first time you ask Siri to, in example, call your wife, Siri wll show you the contact list and ask you to point your wife. So whenever you say “call my wife” again Siri will know what to do.
Battery Life:
We noted during this iPhone 4S reveiw that the battery life has also increased, to the point where Apple claims that 4S can stand up to 8h of 3G call, or 9h of WiFi, or 10h of video watching, and about 40h of playing music files.
Details of iPhone 4S specs:
More detailed iPhone 4S specs and features can be found at Apple’s website here.
Pros
- Siri integration
- Faster processor
- New camera.
- Airplay
- Fingerprint resistant
- Wireless syncing
Cons
- No 4G
- Two times more expensive with a 2-year contract than iPhone 4 but arguably twice better
- No unlocked models . . . yet
- No NFC — (near-field communication)
- All those iPhone 5 leaked images
Recommendation
Our iPhone 4S review concludes that iPhone 4S is the most powerful and the most complete Apple phone available.Camera, processor and the antenna are the very needed improvements. If you add Siri – the eccentric genius, that’s probably years ahead of its’ time, you get a very solid assurance that with owning this phone you will know you are carrying the very best assistant that can fit your pocket. So our iPhone 4s review ends with a buy recommendation for this genius of a phone.
