Apple iPhone 5s

As expected, Apple has updated its range of smartphones with the launch of not one but two new models. Moreover, if the iPhone inaugurates 5c return to plastic while the first iPhone too has broken down intocolors, iPhone 5s remains the flagship of the Apple brand. It is the latter that we have concerned today.

Successor to the iPhone 5, which disappears purely and simply pass the catalog due to the introduction of the iPhone 5c, iPhone 5s shows the overall aesthetic and stretched format iPhone, choices that had debate is there is a year already. It is, therefore, at the heart of the iPhone 5S Retina screen of 4 inches.


Moreover, if the outside does not change-almost-not changing inside her bottom. New 64-bit processor, arrival of a coprocessor, management of the French 4G, flash new smart are many changes to the menu this iPhone also 5s  inaugurates a fingerprint reader in addition to natively run on iOS 7.0.

Design already seen 

Iphone 5s, therefore, incorporates the design of the iPhone 5 and found unsurprisingly anodized aluminum frame. With a thickness of 7.6mm, the iPhone 5s measuring 123.8 mm and weighs the same as its predecessor, i.e., 112 grams. The quality of the finish does not change, and it is outside the remains difficult to identify an iPhone 5 or iPhone 5s ... There are however a few subtleties: the LED flash is more impressive on the iPhone 5s as its size has doubled while the central button loses its famous square and finds himself with metal strapping according to the color of the device.





These evolving since the iPhone 5s now comes in three colors: silver, gold and gray sidereal.


The silver model has found with its white facade and back silver and two stained glass inserts in white. The center button benefits him a silver bezel. The black model is evolving, and we must now speak of a sidereal gray color: shade less black, the phone is supposed to be less fragile than its predecessor, so we hope not to see paint peeling in wear. In contrast, the middle button is here entirely black without any strapping, making the colors a little sad, at least in front.



 Taking the white facade and white glass inserts of the silver version, or model, called by some "champagne" has no side razzle-l'oil as one might fear. It is more, in our eyes, pink gold color than yellow gold. tastes and colors have not discussed and coordinated the home button has denoted strapping.

Hardware architecture and A7 processor

If it must be had admitted, outside this iPhone 5s are little or no change, the components of animating changing them significantly. Apple gives us indeed a smart A7. Moreover, if this change has  expected, the iPhone five has a memory chip A6, the big surprise comes from the support of 64 bit! Apple is the first to implement the ARM v8 architecture. Moreover, while Samsung still manufactures the A7 processors, the sworn enemy almost Apple, the Apple brand remains very little to say, as usual, on the exact characteristics of the SoC that has seemingly engraved 28 nm.

However, then the 64-bit in your phone, it used for? Ideally, one would be tempted to tell you anything. Alternatively, in the case of our phone, the iPhone is far from 5s board 4 GB of RAM, the maximum amount logically addressable by 32 bits. In this regard, the iPhone 5s has 1 GB of memory LPDDR3 like iPhone 5. Moreover, for this to be relevant should the iOS applications have direct access to memory that is not the case. Effectively with more registers, the A7 processor may be more efficient on some operations while it continues to be with two-execution cores.


This is not so much the 64-bit or additional records that the new architecture will explain the significant performance gains of the A7 meet its predecessors. Indeed, ARM designers have developed a new ISA (i.e., instruction set architecture) rather than extending the old as was the case on our desktop processors with x86, and its extension 64-bit (thank you AMD). Meanwhile, the cache size is increased, the latency of the second-level cache were lowered while the memory controller is more useful besides the size of the registers is probably higher as the instruction set supports new functions.

For developers, the arrival of 64-bit computing requires to recompile the application to receive a 64-bit version. An operation is almost transparent so by development tools supplied by Apple in this case Xcode. There will be some small alterations to do but nothing major though. The problem, however, is to end up with binary, i.e., downloaded files that include both 32 and 64-bit app, and using more storage space. In the future should allow XCode to compile 64-bit apps for iOS 7 and higher and 32-bit apps for iOS 6 only.

In his official communication, Apple refers to the A7 a count estimated at one billion transistors. Moreover, if the brand does not mean the operating frequency of the chip, it is identified at 1.3 GHz by our tools, as was the case for the A6 iPhone 5.

• co-processor: the M7

Apple M7 Another surprise materially iPhone 5s is the appearance of a co-processor: the M7. Are we back in time i486SX? Not quite. M7, if properly co-processor in its nature is not intended to accelerate mathematical operations on floating point calculations. It includes all the functions related to location in space: accelerometer, gyroscope, compass. Of course, these features could be incorporated into the A7 processor, but the idea of ​​M7 is left to applications using this type of functions continuous access to resources without consuming much energy as if it was the SoC who took care. Apple evokes here an energy of the order of the 6X face A6 processor economy. Right but the comparison has biased because not taking into account the
change in fine engraving while the mark has obviously been able to integrate the functions of M7 to A7. Unless, of course, to predict future products with A7 processor but without proposed by the M7 features.

Among the software features specifically offered by the M7 change detection status mode of travel. Passing a pedestrian moving in a motorized movement, iOS detects and offers more to join Wi-Fi networks surrounding. Another example: after a certain time where the iPhone has no move, the co-processor M7 reduced network usage to conserve battery power.

•  4G

 During the previous iPhone five did not take charge of the 4G  the new iPhone 5s does not commit this blunder. According to Apple, the terminal supports more than 13 different LTE frequency bands and the brand guarantee a speed of up to 100 Mbps. It is, of course, backwards compatible with 3G and Edge networks.

 The buttons for adjusting the volume and vibrate are on the left spine while the start button has located on top. Based iPhone 5s speakers and microphone jack and Lightning mini-jack connector found because they remember the connector for the headphones is now on the bottom of the unit. SIM card NanoSim size fits on the right side.

Beyond the parochial, the screen of the iPhone 5s offers a resolution of 1136 x 640 pixels at a density of 326 pp. Apple language, it is a Retina display with the usual oleophobic treatment. To the naked eye, the screen of the iPhone 5s seems very similar in its report to the iPhone five may be slight less

Apple Touch ID

While the design of the iPhone 5s would hardly differ from its predecessors, and if iOS 7.0 is now common to most iDevices, the one more thing is undoubtedly the arrival of Touch ID. After the Authentics technology, previously acquired by Apple, Touch ID takes the form of a fingerprint reader that takes place on the home button on the device, which also retains its function clickable back to springboard.


From a hardware perspective, the fingerprint reader is extremely well built and offers a resolution of 500 dpi and a reading of 360 °. The fingerprint reader is activated when the cerclage Home button detects your finger while reading area is protected by a sapphire crystal. From the start of the iPhone 5s, it is proposed to register the imprint of your finger you can store up to 5 fingerprints for each footprint, the process is carried out in two stages with several passages of the finger on the sensor for the finest possible acquisition. Moreover, in all cases it is not a photograph of your finger, which is stored in the iPhone, but rather a mapping.




Safety, the Touch ID data, can be found stored in a secure memory area A7 processor with encryption. If some smart guys have already found a way to circumvent the protection, nobody has yet succeeded in extracting the information stored on the iPhone. Information that are not available to apps and the rest are not sent to iCloud. One point that can get boring, because if Apple intends to generalize its fingerprint sensor several iDevices, it will automatically reregister said indentations on each device. Potentially painful, even if security is obviously reassuring to know that fingerprints will not roam on a server.





Level user, the implementation of Touch ID is quite striking. The recording process of the footprint is a bit long, but the release of the phone by simply affixing the finger on the sensor is an undeniable comfort: gadget outside, but once you get appreciable tasted. Where the reader fails to recognize, the finger is rare and just sit around for concern. In addition to the release of the phone, Touch ID validates iTunes purchases but only after giving his consent. Other securities were added by Apple: Touch ID is not available if the phone has not been unlocked for 48 hours or after a soft reboot of the phone. After five attempts to fingerprint recognition, you must enter your code number.

camera

Iphone5s 2The picture section is one of the areas where Apple has made ​​the most changes. Phone 5s hosted a new CMOS sensor, 8 megapixel but still physically larger. 15% more surface area to be precise, allowing Apple implement larger photosites (1.5 compared to 1.1 μ to 1020 μ Lumia). A real focal length equal to the iPhone 5 and 5c (4.12 mm), the iPhone 5s framework thus wider (30 mm vs. 33 mm). The optical block has also been revised; it now opens to f 2.2 (f against 2.4 above). Larger photosites and a generous opening is an ideal combination for capturing photos in low light.



Is this the case? IPhone 5s is better. Its sensor preserves more textures, compared to iPhone 5c and 5 (the two share the same photo module), and provides clearer images in low equivalent lighting conditions. Better than the Galaxy S4 but still below the Lumia 1020.

In good weather, there is also a lively dive, and softened colorimetry. Paying more attention, we note that the dynamic has improved, and the gradations of gray offer a bit more nuanced. Iphone 5s than its predecessors but still below the Galaxy S4 (slightly) and Lumia 1020, taking advantage of higher resolutions and so capture more details.


 However, it is an area where the 5s will everyone in it, is that of responsiveness. Ultra fast focusing, near-zero latency and burst, you hold well, capturing 440 images 44 s! The Lumia 1020 is ten feet underground, the Galaxy S4 lagging leg. Moreover, for a snapshot, this parameter responsiveness is essential. The major advantage of the iPhone 5s is not where we expected.

Side features include HDR and panoramic hands, better than ever thanks to the extreme speed of the iPhone 5s, but also a range of photo effects introduced with iOS7 here, and we can apply the shooting. Friendly, but you can not export them to PC, except to the email. Frustration that Mac owners avoid recovering their images with effects via iPhoto, since their cash iCloud.

Panoramic made ​​with the iPhone 5s

Note also that the Facetime HD function now enjoys a retro-exposed sensor, with there are also larger photosites (but Apple does not give more details). The record is a little less contrast but nothing flagrant well. To learn more about the abilities of the iPhone 5s photo.

Moreover, the video?

 Iphone 5s can indeed shoot in 720p at 120 frames per second, which when read at 30 frames per second slow sequence four times. The user can adjust from the terminal points of entry and exit from idle to give a striking depiction action. However, again, the slow motion (as we say in English) is not exported other than by email or via services such as Facebook, YouTube and Vimeo, with a loss of quality. Moreover, no more chances with the Apple TV: a slow motion video will not be played via AirPlay. Standard video changed, still in 1080p at 30 frames per second. The picture quality is superb, but it is unfortunate that Apple has not exploited its responsive autofocus to automate focus during movie shooting.

performance

To evaluate the performance of the iPhone 5s, we submitted a series of tests, with the latest version of iOS at the time of the test, in this case version 7.0.1. The results are obtained from an average of three measurements. All tests are not available on all mobile OS, and some smartphones may not be included in all graphs.

Geekbench 3

Geekbench performs a series of tests on the CPU (computing integers and floating point) and random access memory (bandwidth ...). The new version 3.0 performs its tests in single mode or multi heart. It is these results that we use, to the extent that all smartphones we've tested with Geekbench 3 are multi-core.




Iphone 5s then here by a short head the Galaxy S4: it is the only smartphone to surpass the 2,500 on the overall score, while it is yet dual heart according to benchmark tool. To compare the performance gain between the iPhone 5 and iPhone 5s, we have reproduced a table with the results of tests performed by details Geekbench 2 on 3 devices. The idea is to look at the same frequency, the effectiveness of architectures against A6 A7, both SoC operating at the same frequency of 1.3 GHz.

SunSpider 0.9.1

SunSpider JavaScript benchmark is the author of the Webkit engine. We use the 0.9.1 version to compare with maximum models still available. SunSpider performs a series of operations common Javascript and derives a score in milliseconds. Smallest result is best.




The result obtained by the iPhone 5s shows now reduced between the performance of a mobile browser and desktop gap: it runs the test even faster than the best Snapdragon 600 It should has been  noted that at the time of writing this test. we have not included smartphone Snapdragon 800.

GFXbench 2.5 / 2.7 (eg GLBenchmark)

Formerly known as the GLBenchmark, GFXBench makes a scene rendering in real time. We perform the test Offscreen mode to ignore the definition of the screen. Most smartphones have  tested with the previous version (2.5) we are rolling this test in addition to the new version 2.7.




Unsurprisingly, the GPU iPhone 5s still place above the Galaxy S4, and the GPU of the processor (Snapdragon 600) is certainly no longer the latest.


Version 2.7 is too recent for that we could use on all smartphones tested. On some models tested, there is again a fairly clear difference in favor of the iPhone 5s.


3D Mark


Mobile version of 3D Mark asked us one small problem: the Ice Storm modes Extreme Ice Storm and return the result "Maxed Out," the remaining rate on these two tests at 60 FPS throughout. We, therefore, carried out the test offscreen rendering on all smartphones mode, the only test to return a numerical result.




In all cases, it appears that the graphic part of the A7 exceeds almost all smartphones available on the market. The arrival of new models Snapdragon 800 should still make a difference.

 autonomy iPhone video 5s

We measure the autonomy iPhone video 5s with the following scenario: playing 720p video at MP4/H264 format played repeatedly on the default video player, until battery exhaustion. The screen is at its maximum brightness, its 50%. Wi-Fi has enabled and disabled Bluetooth.




The autonomy of the iPhone 5s in this usage scenario is substantially better than that measured in the same conditions on the iPhone 5 and 5c smartphone makes the soul after reading 7:30. The result is one of the best results, but remains below the Galaxy S4.

conclusion

With iPhone 5s, Apple renews at the top of its range smartphone, and if the design does not evolve beyond colors and we will spare our feelings about the gold model, physical changes are particularly convincing them. As for performance, the iPhone 5s immediately climbs on top of our tests while the responsiveness of the device is evident. Apple announces performances lined whatsoever for the processor or the graphics compared to the previous generation.

We take this opportunity to open a short parenthesis on iOS 7.0. The interface designed by Jony Ive is certainly client, as we have written in our feature on iOS 7.0, provided that this aesthetic is downright refreshing welcome, it does not upset the iOS experience that remains in the intuitive set. We thus find brands quickly, and we appreciate this rejuvenation sometimes cursing some details ... or some icons.





Fast, extremely well finished, this iPhone 5s is the first smartphone with a 64-bit chip. If the 64-bit architecture has no apparent immediate short-term interest for the iPhone, it will be different next iPad applications where content creation are more numerous, then it seems logical that one day land the Apple SoC as the A7 in laptops. Just in case ... a Macbook Air? Who knows? M7, the new co-processor centralizing information from motion sensors, is already used by some applications, but it does not seem to be at present a truly differentiating asset.




This is not the case of biometric sensor, or more accurately the fingerprint reader that takes place on the home button on the device. It is particularly well integrated and easy to use. Once configured fingers you get used to unlocking their smartphone without typing code and it simply with his footprint. The missed are rare and significant time saving. However, suddenly it is also said it is unfortunate that this center button is not smarter: the mere asking his finger above example could wake the device rather than pressing said button or the button start. Meanwhile, Touch ID works and works well. Remains to be seen what use will be made beyond iTunes purchases and unlocking the iPhone ... So as controversial or biometrics, and Apple still sign is still refusing to join the NFC.
Photo hand, if Apple does not do the bidding and the megapixel race, advances the camera of the iPhone 5s are net. Autofocus is frankly faster burst mode bluffing, and improved sensitivity in low light ... However, it generates some noise. For the video, we note the slow motion fashion and its implementation ultra-easy work with instead of export limited options.


Finally with 4G same for us ,iPhone 5s is accompanied by new accessories: leather cases including dock. Also, if he convinces us, despite autonomy that we would have liked more important, it is the price that we regret. Apple's strategy is not new, but the iPhone 5s bare expensive, very expensive. It costs 699 euros for the 16GB model (this ability should no longer be in our catalog in 2014) and 899 euros for the 64 GB model At this rate we would expect 128GB.