For some, the fact that the iPhone 5S looks like the iPhone 5 with a few cosmetic changes was proof that Apple had completely lost it. After all, the Samsung Galaxy S4, HTC One and Sony Xperia Z have shown that large Full HD smartphones are in vogue.
First impressions are often wrong and the iPhone 5S defies these naysayers by managing to be a better phone in practically every single way over its predecessor, and more than capable of standing up to its Android rivals.
iPHONE 5S BUILD QUALITY
It's fair to say that the iPhone 5S isn't an improvement over the iPhone 5 when it comes to build quality, because its predecessor was so well made. In fact, it's hard to see where Apple could improve. In our opinion, the iPhone 5S is still the best looking smartphone out there. Its precision cut aluminium rear sits absolutely flush with glass panels that sit at the top and bottom. Its neat bevelled edges are perfectly formed and the 7.3mm thick phone feels incredibly comfortable in the hand. Weighing just 112g, which still feels almost impossibly light when you pick up the smartphone for the first time, the iPhone 5S is still incredible to look at and hold.
The build quality of the iPhone 5S is second-to-none
Honestly, it doesn't feel too small now. Yes, large screen smartphones have their place, but if you want something that's easier to carry, fits comfortably in your hand and can be slipped into any pocket, then the iPhone 5S is that phone.
For this year's models, the white model is the same as last year's, but there's also two new colours. Space Gray replaces the 'black' model of last year and is subtly different, with the case a purer grey than last year's blue-grey model. It's the Gold edition that's really different. Pictures don't do it justice, as it tends to look quite garish, but in the flesh the champagne gold finish is altogether more subtle and classier.
Gold model aside, the biggest issue of the iPhone 5S's looks is that to the untrained eye it doesn't look as though you've bought a new phone, although Apple has at least eased the burden by taking the iPhone 5 off sale, replacing it with the plastic iPhone 5C instead.
It's hard to tell the iPhone 5S from the iPhone 5, but the new Home button, which holds the fingerprint reader is the biggest clue
There is one big clue that the phone you've got is the iPhone 5S: the metal-rimmed home button, which no longer has the familiar-looking square icon in it. As you're no doubt aware, this is the brand-new fingerprint reader, Touch ID. With Touch ID, rather than having to tap in a PIN to unlock your phone, you can simply hold your finger over the sensor. If that sounds like a gimmick, it's not: it's actually a brilliant time saver and something that helps enforce security.
iPHONE 5S TOUCH ID
Touch ID can be programmed to recognise up to five fingers (they can be just yours or yours and trusted other people). All you have to do is hold your finger to the sensor repeatedly, while the iPhone 5S builds up an image of what your print looks like. You're prompted to move your finger around, to get full coverage, and even to use the side of your finger so that you can use Touch ID from pretty much any angle. With that done, you're ready to go.
Touch ID lets you register up to five finger prints, which can include prints from different people
We have to say that it works pretty much flawlessly, at any angle and, impressively, any rotation, so you can even tap Touch ID with your phone upside down to get it to work. We found that other people's fingers couldn't unlock the phone either. What's particularly brilliant is how you can unlock the phone in one go: just click the home button to switch on the iPhone 5S, then release and hold to unlock it in one smooth move.
This ease of use shouldn’t overshadow the technological effort that has gone into creating Touch ID. It's massively impressive that Apple has managed to fit the best fingerprint reader we've used underneath a button.
Perhaps more importantly, setting up Touch ID requires you to set a PIN for your phone, which is required after a reboot and to access key settings, such as adding new fingerprints. So, in adding easier-to-use security, Apple is also pushing people to be more secure in general.
Then, there's the future of the technology. At the moment Touch ID can be used to unlock your phone and to buy from iTunes and the App Store, rather than having to enter your password. It makes sense that Apple will open this system up at some point in the future, at least to certain developers, so you could use your fingerprint to access your bank, for example. Nothing has been announced, but we'd be surprised if Touch ID isn't used for more over the coming year.
Fingerprints are stored in the phone's A7 chip's Secure Enclave, where they're not shared or uploaded to iCloud. This helps boost security and should stop the fingerprint reader being hacked. Of course, the system is not entirely fool-proof, but Apple with a 50,000-in-1 chance of someone being able to unlock the phone that's still better than the 10,000-in-1 chance of someone guessing a four-digit PIN.
iPHONE 5S SCREEN
The same 1,136x640, 4in screen remains from the iPhone 5. Put it next to the big-screen Full HD Android models and the iPhone 5S starts to look a little small, but we don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. Yes, it would be nice to have the option of a larger iPhone, but no, a 4in screen doesn't ruin the enjoyment.
It's the same screen as on the iPhone 5, but that's no problem as it's sharp, has excellent viewing angles and great colours
There's plenty of resolution here for web browsing and apps, and everything looks incredibly sharp and detailed, as you'd expect from a Retina display with a high pixel density of 326ppi. Then, there's the excellent image quality. Thanks to the high-quality IPS panel, this is one of the best smartphone screens. It's evenly lit, it's bright, produces excellent whites and vibrant colours, and the excellent viewing angles mean that you can see what's on screen clearly from anywhere.
iPHONE 5S PERFORMANCE
For the real changes, you have to go under the surface. Inside, the iPhone 5S is a brand-new phone with a new System on a Chip (SoC), the Apple A7. As Apple announced, this is the first 64-bit consumer-based smartphone SoC. So, what does that actually mean?
Well, first and not so important at the moment, 64-bit chips can address more memory than 32-bit chips. Given the amount of RAM in smartphones now, this doesn't make much difference today, but it will do in the future.
More importantly, moving to 64-bit means that the Apple can use a newer ARM architecture. The ARMv8 core now has double the number of general-purpose registers, compared to the ARMv7 used in the A6, with 31 64-bit wide registers. This means that the CPU has to access the comparatively slow system memory less, improving speed and efficiency, regardless of whether an application is 32-bit or 64-bit.
It's no bigger than the iPhone 5, but the iPhone 5S has a much faster SoC, with some new custom features
Finally, with a new architecture, Apple can use more optimisations to improve the speed of its applications and OS; as developers move to 64-bit, too, we should see these improvements everywhere.
Of course, the real question is, how much faster is the A7 compared to the A6? Apple's figures say that the new chip is up to double the speed for graphics and system apps. Our initial tests would seem to show that this is about right. In the Sunspider Java benchmark, the iPhone 5 running iOS 7 completed the test in 708.6ms; the iPhone 5S did it in 416.2ms. That's more than twice the speed of the Samsung Galaxy S4, which completed the test in 933ms. Given that the A7 is a dual-core chip and the Galaxy S4 uses a quad-core CPU, it shows that it's not the number of cores that's the most important thing when it comes to processor speed.
We ran 3D Mark Ice Storm on the phone, too. It completely Maxed out both the standard and Extreme tests, not even returning a score. When running Ice Storm Unlimited, we got a score of 14,506. This is the best performance that we've seen from a handset and it bodes well for the new iPad Air and iPad Mini with Retina Display, both of which use exactly the same Apple A7 chip. Needless to say, iOS is still extremely smooth on this chip and you don't get slowdown or jerkiness that you sometimes still get with an Android device.
As the A7 is an SoC, it also has some additional silicon for other jobs, including the Secure Enclave for Touch ID and dedicated Image Signal Processor for the camera, which handles some of the effects including image stabilisation, colour correction and light balance (more of this later).
iPHONE 5S APPLE M7
This year Apple has added the new M7 motion coprocessor. This low-power part's job is to collect data from the integrated sensors, including accelerometers, gyroscopes and compasses. It can even do this while the phone is sleeping, making the data it collected available to the CPU when it wakes up. Having this means that the phone can use its sensors more without affecting battery life.
For example, if you put your phone where it has no signal, say in a locker at the gym, the M7 can use the sensors and work out that the phone's not moving. As it's not moving, it knows it's not worth hunting for a signal, so it can save on battery power.
The M7 co-processor means the iPhone knows how you're moving, so it can change directions to suit
There are other clever uses, too, as the M7 can understand your type of movement, so it knows if you're driving, walking or running. This is used currently in Apple Maps, which automatically switches driving instructions to walking instructions when you get out of your car. It's a small addition, but it makes the smartphone, well, smarter.
iPHONE 5S CAMERA
Rather than up the pixel count for the new iSight camera, Apple has get the same 8-megapixel resolution, but gone for a sensor that's 15 per cent bigger than the one on the iPhone 5. This means that the pixels are larger at 1.5 microns. In layman's terms, larger pixels means more light per pixel, which means better low-light performance. Add in the new f/2.2 aperture lens, which lets in more light than the iPhone 5's f/2.4 lens, and the new model should be able to shoot more detail in low light.
A brand new iSight camera is fitted, with a larger f/2.2 lens and a larger (by surface area) 8-megapixel sensor
In bright light it makes less of a difference, with both phones producing similarly-as-detailed shots. We'd say the colours and exposure on the iPhone 5S are better, and you get better dynamic range.
The iPhone 5S (bottom) has better colours and better exposure than the iPhone 5 (top)
There's little to tell between the two in terms of detail. In bright lighting the higher pixel count of the 13-megapixel Galaxy S4 means that there's slightly more detail in its images, purely because of the higher resolution.
Looking at the detail, the iPhone 5's shot (top) is similar to the iPhone 5S's shot (bottom)
In low light we found that the iPhone 5 generally struggled and noise became a big issue. With the iPhone 5S things are a lot better. In very dark rooms, noise was reduced considerably, while retaining a lot of detail in the image. It's impressive the difference here.
We also put the iPhone 5S through our photography still life setup, photographing a toy train and cuddly animals under a variety of different lighting conditions. As you can see from the two shots below, in full lighting, the detail is excellent, with plenty of fuzz on the monkey's cheeks and the toy train retaining its glossy plastic exterior.
Switching the main lights off, so that the scene was dimly lit produced excellent results, too. The colours are a bit more muted, as you can see from the sample shots below, but that's too be expected given the lighting. However, there's still plenty of detail in the picture and not much noise, either.
Turning the lights off completely, so that the scene is lit entirely by the spinning fans. This is the hardest shot to deal with, but the iPhone 5S did pretty well. There's not too much noise in the image and the scene has retained its detail. The blue fan behind the monkey hasn't come out too well, though, with detail getting blurred.
When you do need to change to the flash, things get even better, as the iPhone 5S has dual-LED True Tone flash. This has one white LED and one amber LED. By analysing the scene, thanks to the image processor on the A7 chip, the iPhone 5S can work out the colour temperature of the scene and fire a flash accordingly. This means it's goodbye to strange colour casts on image, or unnatural skin tones. In fact, with True Tone pictures no longer look as though they were taken with a flash, it's that impressive.
True Tone flash gets rid of all of the tell-tale signs that you're using the flash - it can even cope with a black cat in a dark room
You also get better and more natural coverage with True Tone. We shot a few sample shots in a dimly-lit bedroom and the differences are astounding. With the iPhone 5, the front part of the image was too brightly lit, creating a shiny effect that's the tell-tale sign a flash is being used. It also missed all of the detail towards the rear of the shot, giving everything a slightly unnatural appearance. With the iPhone 5S and True Tone, things are completely different. Using this flash in this mode created far more natural colours close to the camera, while preserving detail and light towards the back of the picture. The result is, as we stated before, the appearance that a picture hasn't been taken with flash. This really is incredibly impressive and means that you can use the flash on the iPhone 5S more frequently without the worry that it's going to ruin the look of your photos.
You can see that the iPhone 5 (top) loses detail in the distance, but the iPhone 5S (bottom) creates a more natural-looking shot with more detail
We also tried shooting our still-life, which has one tricky setup where there are blue lights. Using the flash, the camera correctly measured and identified the blue hue and corrected the flash to compensate. The results, are rather incredible, with most of the blue light gone from the image, while retaining the detail and colour of the other objects in the scene. We've never seen a flash that's capable of doing that.
Even when dealing with the harshest lighting, the True Tone flash finds a way to produce detailed pictures
There are some new shooting modes, too. First is burst mode, which you see a lot on compact cameras. However, here, it's something even more impressive, as the iPhone 5S can shoot at 10fps, full resolution for as long as you've got spare storage space. We hit more than 200 pictures at the phone showed no sign of slowing down.
Burst mode means you don't miss the shot you want, with the option to choose your favourite shots to save later
Burst mode pictures are marked separately in the Photos app and aren't saved to iCloud by default. When you open a burst collection the iPhone automatically chooses which ones it thinks are the best shots, although you can easily select other shots instead. Marked shots are then saved to the phone independently and uploaded to iCloud. With your favourites stored, you can delete entire burst collections in one go, so your phone won't get cluttered with shots.
Filters are non-destructive and the neat thumbnail view helps you choose which one's best to use
Thanks to iOS 7 there are now more filters available on the phone, so you can switch to black and white, sepia, amongst others, when you take a shot. Filters are non-destructive (copy the images off the phone via USB and you'll get the original image), so you can remove a filter at a later date or add one to a normal photo instead. The same goes for the square mode pictures, which are non-destructive crops of the original image, so you can recover the full frame if you want.
Panoramas are still as impressive as when they were introduced with the iPhone 5. Just turn on the spot while holding the phone steady using the online guide and the images are stitched together practically as quickly as you can move.
It's the video camera that's had the biggest overhaul thanks to the A7's image processor. As well as shooting 1080p video, which looks great, even in low-light thanks to the new sensor, it has a brand-new Slo-Mo mode, which shoots 720p at 120fps. When played back at the regular 30fps, you get stunning slow motion.
The Slo-Mo editing tools is dead impressive and makes it easy to choose which bit of the footage you want in slow motion
We've seen slow-motion modes on cameras before, but they tend to be shot at very low resolutions, so getting HD here is impressive. Even more impressive is the built-in editing tool, which uses simple sliders to set which part of the video you want to play back at full speed. It's super easy to use and you can bash out a home video that Zack Snyder would be proud off in seconds. As you can see from the example below, the quality really is amazing.
Raw video footage pulled off the phone via USB is just at 120fps, so if you want to keep the slow-motion portion of the video, you need to share the video, such as by uploading to YouTube, or make sure it's backed up to iCloud.
As we said, regular video doesn't suffer at all and is shot at 30fps at a resolution of 1,920x1,080. Thanks to the new sensor having larger pixels, it means that footage is cleaner, particularly in low-light, when compared to the iPhone 5. As you can see in the example shot below, taken from the full video, when in relatively low light, the image is still detailed, colours are good and there's very little noise, either.
Switching into near darkness with only the lights inside the scene for illumination, noise is clearly present. That's to be expected from any camera, as there's very little light for the phone to work with. However, despite that, the iPhone 5S handles it well, generally maintaining detail and colours. The one minor problem was that lights from the fan reflected on the lens, creating the odd patterns of colour you can see on the sample shot below. However, given how tough this test is for any camera, we think that the iPhone 5S handled it well.
With all of the lights turned on, with the scene brightly lit you get excellent results from the camera. Gone is any hint of noise and in comes all of the fine detail, from the fluffy appearance of the toys, to the smooth, shiny exterior of the fan and the plastic train. This is everything you could want from footage shot on a smartphone and you can see the quality in the shot below.
To see the camera in action with the actual footage, you can play the YouTube video below, which shows how the camera deals with a dimly lit scene, a darkly-lit scene and a brightly-lit scene.
iPHONE 5S iOS 7
Of course, the iPhone 5S ships with iOS 7, Apple's brand new OS. It's a big improvement over iOS 6 and that's not just in looks. For starters, the OS is much easier to use and Control Centre, the swipe up menu, is something that the OS has needed for years.
Control Centre is a quick way to change common settings and is so much better than having to delve through Settings
Now, rather than having to delve through loads of Settings menus, you can simply pull up Control Centre on any screen or app to toggle Airplane mode, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Do Not Disturb and the rotation lock, You can also access playback controls for the current bit of media, control brightness and use the utilities: torch, stopwatch, calculator and camera.
We're fans of the new Today screen, which pulls down from the top. This shows you your appointments for the day and has tabs to view all notifications, as well as missed calls. It's a great place to put everything.
The Today screen is a great way to see what's on, and there are tabs to see All and Missed notifications, too
The interface is generally improved throughout, putting more into each app, so you don't have to go through Settings. For example, hit the new tab button on Safari and you can enter Private mode; that was a good few steps to achieve the same in iOS 6.
Apple Maps has been steadily improving and its search has got a lot better. As we mentioned before, it can work with the M7 motion processor to swap directions from driving to walking when you get out of the car. It has to be said that Google Maps is still that bit better, though, and as it's available in the app store, Apple Maps is no longer the one detracting feature of the operating system.
AirDrop is new for iOS 7, too, and it's a brilliant way to share files and links between iOS devices. All you do is hit the share button in an app and select AirDrop, then select a contact from the screen and your selected content is transferred via Wi-Fi. The default security option means you only share things with people in your contact list, so you don't have to worry about getting spammed by anyone in the vicinity. Apple says that this method of transferring files is easier than NFC and having to awkwardly tap two devices together and we have to agree.
That said, NFC still has its place and it's a shame not to see it on this phone. NFC is great for contactless payments, particularly as the readers are in so many shops now, and great for setting up some devices, such as cameras for remote control. Not having NFC isn't enough to put us off the iPhone 5S, but we'd still expect to see it.
iPHONE 5S iOS 7.1
Apple has recently updated to iOS 7.1, which is a must-have upgrade for any iPhone 5S user. On the surface, it may seem like a small upgrade, but it's actually a series of very important improvements.
Most importantly, it makes the OS a lot more stable. One of the complaints about iOS 7 was that over time it suffered more home-screen crashes. These are where the phone switches back to the white screen with the Apple logo, looking as though it's completely restarted; however, only the UI had crashed and the phone and apps were still running normally.
With iOS 7.1 these crashes should have been eliminated or, at the very least, reduced to occasional, infrequent events. We have to say, having been using iOS 7.1 on an iPhone 5S since launch that it has done the job.
On top of that, the new OS makes the TouchID fingerprint reader a lot more reliable and accurate. While we used to have the occasional time where the sensor wouldn't pick up our fingerprint, with iOS 7.1 the system is even better than before.
On top of that, the UI has been tweaked to give several improvements. There's no longer a 'slide to answer' bar for phone calls; there are round answer and hang-up buttons that better match the dialler app. The 'slide to power off' bar has changed from a red bar to one a lozenge-shaped bar that, again, better matches the new interface.
Best-of-all, the Calendar app has been updated so that you can view all of your appointments in a list, while a 'peak' view lets you tap any day to view what you've got set. With iOS 7 the only way to view appointments was to go into day view, so this is a big improvement.
It may only be a point release, but for the stability issues alone, this is an update that all iPhone 5S users should have.
iPHONE 5S 4G
Apple has upgraded the 4G LTE chip inside, so that the iPhone 5S will work on a lot more bands. Its LTE band support of 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8 and 20 means that this model will work on 4G on any network in the UK, including the 2,600MHz band. However, the supported bands also mean that the UK model is compatible with the majority of European networks and a good number in Asia, which will be useful when 4G roaming deals come into play. However, it's still not compatible with the vast majority of North American networks, with the 850MHz U.S. Cellular network the notable exception.
iPHONE 5S BATTERY
The combination of the new processor, M7 motion process and a slightly larger battery all mean that the iPhone 5S has better battery life than its predecessor. Running at half brightness with Wi-Fi turned off, our iPhone 5S lasted 14h 31m in our video playback test; the iPhone 5 lasted 12h 4m. Apple is also quoting improved 4G surfing time, at 10 hours. We've certainly noticed that a charge lasts a lot longer on the iPhone 5S and at the end of the day our phone's not gasping for power in quite the same way.
iPHONE 5S CONCLUSION
At first, Apple's decision to stick with the same case and screen size may have seemed like it wasn't moving forwards, but after using the phone extensively we couldn't disagree more. It's incredibly fast, beating its quad-core rivals hands down, has plenty of resolution for web browsing and apps, fits neatly into a pocket, has a great camera and still the best, fastest mobile OS.
If you've got an iPhone 5 there's probably not quite enough here to make you upgrade, particularly when you can get iOS 7 as a free upgrade. For other iPhone users or people that want a fast pocket-friendly handset with a great mobile OS, there's nowhere else to look.
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| Part Code | iPhone 5S |
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| Review Date | 23 Mar 2014 |
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| Price | £549 |
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| Rating |  |
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| Award | Best Buy |
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| Main display size | 4.0in |
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| Native resolution | 1,136x640 |
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| CCD effective megapixels | 8-megapixel |
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| Flash | dual LED (True Tone) |
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| GPS |  |
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| Internal memory | 16384MB |
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| Memory card support | none |
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| Memory card included | 0MB |
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| Operating frequencies | GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900, HSDPA 850 / 900 / 1900 /2100, LTE Bands 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 20 |
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| Wireless data | LTE |
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| Size | 123.8x25.6x7.3mm |
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| Weight | 112g |
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| Operating system | Apple iOS 7 |
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| Microsoft Office compatibility | N/A |
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| FM Radio |  |
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| Accessories | headphones, data cable, charger |
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| Talk time | 10 hours |
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| Standby time | 250 days |
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