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The iPhone 5s Review

 by Anand Lal Shimpi on September 17, 2013 9:01 PM EST
464 Comments | Add A Comment
464 Comments

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Apple’s new H6 ISP brings with it a modernization of the video recording options for the iPhone 5s. The default video record mode is still 1080p at 30 fps, but there’s also a new 720p 120 fps “slo-mo” mode as well. In the latter, video is captured at 120 fps but optionally played back at 30 fps in order to achieve a high speed camera/slow motion effect. The result is pretty cool:

In the camera UI you can select what portions of the video you want to play back at 30 fps and what portions you want to leave at full speed. The .mov file is stored on NAND as a ~27Mbps 720p120 without any customizations, however when you share it the entire video is transcoded into a 30 fps format which preserves the slow motion effect.

The slo-mo mode is separate from the standard video recording mode, it’s the next stop on the dial in the new iOS 7 camera app. Video preview in slo-mo mode also happens at 60 fps compared to 30 fps for the standard video record and still image capture modes.

Camera preview frame rate, toggling between slo-mo and normal modes

Adding high speed camera modes to smartphones is a great step in my opinion and a wonderful use of increases in ISP and SoC performance. I would like to see Apple expose a 1080p60 mode as well. Technically 1080p60 does require slightly more bandwidth than 720p120, but I’d hope that Apple targeted both in the design of H6 and simply chose to expose 720p120 as it’s an easier feature to market.

Standard 1080p30 recording is also available:

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  • akdj - Thursday, September 19, 2013 - link

    I'm with ya on the note. I bought the original GNote and the contract can't end quick enough. It's a dog! Slow as molasses and my wife and each own one as our 'business' phones. Made sense, our clients can sign with the stylus their credit card authorization. We use the Square system for CCs and we won't be buying the Notes again. I think you're right. TouchWiz is a killer

  • coolhardware - Tuesday, September 17, 2013 - link

    Very true, however, it is my understandingthat sometimes Apple can use their volume to (A) get things a bit before everyone else (like when Apple gets Intel CPUs before others) or (B) get something special added/tweaked/improved on an existing component (batteries, displays, materials).

    Sorry to not have more definitive references/examples for (A) & (B) but here's a recent illustration:
    http://www.macrumors.com/2013/07/26/intel-to-suppl...
    How much this really happens I do not know, but I imagine suppliers want to keep Apple happy :-)

  • akdj - Tuesday, October 8, 2013 - link

    They sold more iOS devices last year (200,000,000) than vehicles sold in the world. They're still the world's number one selling 'phone'. Samsung makes a dozen...maybe two? Their flagships tend to sell well (wasn't the S3 close to 30mil @ some point?)---but no where near the iPhone specific sales figures....when you're dealing in that quantity--ya betcha....you'll have access, pricing and typically 'pick of the litter'

  • melgross - Wednesday, September 18, 2013 - link

    Display density is now nothing more than a marketing tool. It no longer serves any purpose. Displays with ppi's of over 350 don't give us any apparent extra sharpness, as we can't see it. The Galaxy S4 has a much higher Rez display, but it still uses PenTile, so that extra Rez is only allowing the screen to look as good as a lower Rez display. I'm wondering what Apple will do with the iPad Retina. If they do what they've been doing, then the display will have four times the number of pixels, and will be one of, if not the highest ppi displays on the market. They do that to make it easy for developers, but it's obviously unnecessary. No one has ever been able to see the pixels on my 326 ppi iphone display. in fact, no one has ever seen the pixels on my 266 ppi ipad Retina display. Hopefully we'll find out in a month.

  • melgross - Wednesday, September 18, 2013 - link

    Oops! I meant what will they be doing with the iPad Mini Retina display of course.

  • ESC2000 - Saturday, September 21, 2013 - link

    There isn't one definitive cutoff above which extra pixels are useless since people hold their phones different distances from their faces and people have varying eyesight. 'Retina' is pure marketing - first apple used it to emphasize how great their high rez (for the time) screens were (and they did look a lot better than 15" 1366x768 screens) and now they're using it to disguise the fact that this is the same low rez (for the time) screen that they've had on the iPhone 5 for a year.

    I don't even have good eyesight but even I can see that the LG G2 screen (441 PPI) is better than my nexus 7 2013 screen (323 PPI) which is better than the iPad 3 screen (264 PPI - I don't have the 4 for comparison) which is miles better than the iPad mini screen (163 PPI). Personally I'd slot the iPhone 5 after the nexus 7 2013 on that list even though the PPI are about the same. Obviously other factors, often subjective, affect our preferences. I find most apple screens washed out but many people feel they are the only true color reproductions.

    Regardless the random arbitrary cutoffs beyond which extra PPI supposedly makes no difference is a copout.

  • tuxRoller - Tuesday, September 17, 2013 - link

    Great review. I wish we could see this for the other architectures/socs.
    If want to see the code for the benchmarks (and you should) there are plenty of oss suites you can choose from. You could use linaro's if you want, but for the stream benchmark you could grab http://www.cs.virginia.edu/stream/FTP/Code/ and compile it on xcode.

  • abrowne1993 - Tuesday, September 17, 2013 - link

    Not a single Lumia in the camera comparison? Why? The people who are really concerned about their smartphone's camera performance will put up with the WP8 platform's downsides.

  • A5 - Tuesday, September 17, 2013 - link

    I would guess Anand doesn't have a 1020 handy to compare with. Probably have to wait for Brian on that one.

  • Anand Lal Shimpi - Wednesday, September 18, 2013 - link

    This. I only compared to what I had on hand.
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