Apple bites plastic; Announces iPhone 5C in five colors

Lakshmi Rajan — Tue, 10 Sep 2013 18:40:01 +0000

From today, Apple folks cannot mock at ‘plastic’ phones from other OEM’s. Steve Jobs might cringe at the idea but for Apple market dynamics has changed and it has to change with the changing times and competition. Taking a cue from the Nokia Lumia range, Apple today announced iPhone 5C in five ‘fruity’ colors and made of polycarbonate plastics. The iPhone 5C is a colorful smartphone with similar specs to the iPhone 5. Today in a special event in Cupertino, Apple CEO Tim Cook announced that iPhone 5 will be replaced by two phones – iPhone 5C and iPhone 5S. This is the first time Apple announced two phones in a single event. While the iPhone 5C has a similar specs to last year’s iPhone 5 albeit a slightly larger battery, iPhone 5S has new improved specs. Made of hard-coated polycarbonate plastic and in choice of green, white, blue, pink or yellow color, the iPhone 5C is made of single part of seamless plastic on the entire back and sides of the phone. The inside of the phone has a think aluminum lining that also acts as an antenna. Specs wise it has the same iPhone 5 lists that reads a A6 processor, 8-megapixel rear camera etc. There is a new FaceTime HD camera on the front and Battery is slightly beefed up. Connectivity wise, Apple claims the new phone supports more LTE bands than any other smartphone in the world. iPhone 5C also gets it’s own soft-feel silicon rubber cases with a circular cutout pattern on the back that reveals the color of the phone inside. The cost? $29 for the case. The iPhone 5C will be available for $99 for 16GB or $199 for 32GB on-contract / two years for those living in US. Though regular pricing are yet to be revealed. iPhone 5C pre-order starts on September 13 and a week later from Sept 20th onwards, you can purchase in US, Australia, Canada, China, France, UK, Germany, Japan and Singapore. By December end, it is expected to hit 100 countries. ]]>

Hey! iPhone 5 is not the thinnest phone in the world

Lakshmi Rajan — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 21:41:02 +0000

Read: What is new and disappointing in iPhone 5 ]]>

Apple announces iPhone 5 – Find out what is new

Lakshmi Rajan — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 21:09:24 +0000

iPhone 5 got bigger in size

Since the first iPhone release in 2007 and 4 models subsequently the size has remained a constant at 3.5 inches. Steve Jobs was famously against bigger size screens but with Android smartphones taking the screen sizer to almost a mini tablet size, what with 5.5″ screen in Samsung Galaxy Note and almost all high end Android smartphones not less than 4.3″, users have discovered that size does matter and there is a joy in the bigger screen thanks to the awesome apps being added every day. So finally Apple has to follow suit. So iPhone 5 got tad bigger and taller. The new iPhone 5 stands tall at 4″. The folks at Apple has retained the same width. So you get a taller iPhone with the same width what it means is, you get the same familiar grip while holding the phone. Good design move? Well, it’s upto the individual preference. Personally, I am not for tall-boy design. Ah boy! How I used to hate that LG choclate bar! So the new iPhone 5 dimensions:

Height: 4.87 inches (123.8 mm) Width: 2.31 inches (58.6 mm) Depth: 0.30 inch (7.6 mm) Weight: 3.95 ounces (112 grams)

Not just taller but thinner too…

The new iPhone is 18 percent thinner than the iPhone 4S. Now it measures 7.6 mm thin. Though Phil Schiller, Senior V-P at Apple who demonstrated the iPhone 5 says ‘It’s the world’s thinnest smartphone’. I am surprised they have not heard of oppo finder, which currently is the world’s thinnest smartphone at 6.65 mm. And also there is Huawei Ascend P1 at 7.6 mm and even 7.1 mm thick Motorola Droid Razr. I assume, what Phil really meant was world’s thinnest Apple phone. meh! So all this bigger dimension for Apple user is they can have an extra row of icons on their homescreen. The third part apps which were developed with older phones in mind will continue to be displayed properly albeit a black borders on top and bottom, since they will be centred to avoid scaling and stretch.

LTE connectivity

iPhone 5 will now support 4G LTE networks. For beginers, 4G enables a super-fast communication of high-speed data faster than even the existing wi-fi. That’s in addition to the current support for GPRS, EDGE, EV-DO, and HSPA data networks. LTE has a single chip for voice and data, a single radio chip, and what Apple calls a “dynamic antenna” that will switch connections between different networks automatically. Apple has to follow suit with LTE as its main rivals are already on-board that and with HTC and Samsung holding many LTE patents are even baying for Apple’s blood in court when it announces the iPhone 5 with LTE. So look forward to more legal mess.

A faster A6 chip

The older A5 chip is replaced with A6 chip. Apple claims it to deliver 2 x faster performance. Graphic rendering will be faster and according to Apple’s specs, users will see Web pages load 2.1 times faster and the Music app with songs will load 1.9 times faster. The chip also is 22 percent smaller than A5.

A better battery

LTE is one power hungry addition, plus you have a slightly bigger screen. So it is obvious the new iPhone 5 would require a better battery else it would be a disaster. Here is what Apple promises the new battery would deliver 8 hours of 3G talk time, 8 hours of 3G browsing, 8 hours of LTE browsing, 10 hours of Wi-Fi browsing, 10 hours of video playback, 40 hours of music, playback, and 225 hours of standby time.

Better Camera …. hmmm..

There was no doubt Apple sports a great phone camera but other manufacturers have got wiser too. Ofcourse not even Apple now can match Nokia’s awesome and amazing 41 MP pureview technology but it has to fine tune its camera front to raise the bar with HTC’s One X and Galaxy S3 camera features. It has taken ‘inspiration’ from them (Apple does not ‘copy’ you see, blashpemy!) iSight retains the same 8 Mega pixels but has decorated it with features like backside illumination, a hybrid IR filter, a five-element lens, a f2.4 aperture. The better camera, Apple promises faster launch of camera app, an image signal processor that will improve noise reduction, a “smart filter” that produces better low-light performance, and then a built-in panorama mode that stitches shots together for one large 28-megapixel photo. And ya, you can click photos while shooting videos too. I know those who used some of the Android premium phones will yawn listening to all this. The secondary camera can now shoot 720p HD video.

And the Audio…

Now your iPhone 5 will sport 3 holes. I am not talking dirty but talking about microphone holes with an addition of the third one. so you get one on the bottom, on on the handset’s front face, and one on its rear side. The usual promises of better reception and noise cancellation stays. And then there is a new wideband audio feature that promises more natural-sounding voices.

Lightening, the new small dock connector

A all-digital, 8-signal design, smaller in size replaces the old 30 pin connector. So if you have gathered too many old docks and accessories to connect don’t fret there is an old-to-new converter but then it costs 29$. One good thing about the new connector it is reversible, so you don’t have to get confused which end to plugin where!

Nano SIM

If you are planning to upgrade to iPhone 5, its time to upgrade your SIM too. Since the new iPhone uses a nano SIM that is much smaller than your micr0 SIM.

And finally what is not new and disappointing?

No NFC
Bluetooth is still limited like how it was before.
No micro USB adoption

iPhone 5 Pricing and availability

Luckily iPhone pricing would be same as 4S that means 4S will get cheaper and iPhone 3G is phased out. Pre-orders start on Friday the 14th. Shipping on September 21st in the US, Canada, UK, Germany, France, Australia, Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore. 20 more countries to follow the next month. So are you excited about iPhone 5 or is it disapointing upgrade?]]>

iphone 5 – Tech Raman