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Business / Review

Hands-on: Impressions of the new iPhones

By Eric Jou (chinadaily.com.cn) Updated: 2013-09-11 18:01

Specifications and Features of the 5S

In terms of specifications, where it falls short in looks, the new iPhone 5S has new features in spades. The new iPhone 5S will sport a brand new 64bit A7 system on a chip, a new motion processor called the "M7,"a brand new "bigger" 8 megapixel iSight Camera and a finger print scanner.

While we were unable to get a chance to play the new Infinity Blade III, which was built for the new iPhone, the new iPhone runs games fast and without a hitch. Playing Real Racing 3 was smooth and fast, but then again the game worked great on the iPhone 5. So unfortunately we weren't really able to put the new iPhone to the test.

The new iSight camera with bigger pixels is a hit. It feels a lot like what HTC was driving at with their "ultra pixel" sensor in the New HTC One. Absorbing more light to create better pictures, Apple itself says this camera will provide awesome photos. They weren't lying.

Looking at the photos taken on the 5S versus an HTC One, the 5S takes the cake.

Not only does the camera offer really good quality photos, it comes with a new dual flash. Unfortunately, we weren't really able to test that out in a real working environment.

The real gem of the camera comes in its new ability to take HD quality video at 120 frames per second. This camera can take awesome slow motion take a lot of high quality images. Not only that, the new camera comes with a very impressive burst mode. In our demo, the camera was able to take 70 photos in the span of about 10 seconds. The camera application was able to go through the images and highlight that the computer felt was the best. We were able to look at the photos manually as well.

The next "killer" feature is the new finger print scanner built right into the home button. The finger print scanner acts as both a security measure to unlock the phone as well as a method to enter passcodes, which can be used for buying apps. Surprisingly, the fingerprint scanner worked amazingly well. It wasn't as gimmicky as we had previously thought. The scanner read fingerprints fast and accurately and according to Apple it will improve recognition the more a user uses it.

Conclusion

Apart from the slowly stagnating design of the iPhone and the undersized 4-inch screen in a world of ever-increasing screen sizes, the iPhone 5S is a beast. The same can't be said about the 5C.

The 5C brings to the market the same quality and build of the current iPhone 5 but with more colors. The biggest concern right now is its price. It might be too expensive.

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