![]() ![]() While I’m pleased with the camcorder boost to 1080p, I don’t like the fact that you can only capture video in 1080p. I do like the new grid option in iOS 5, however, which uses a bit of augmented reality to help you take level photos. The myTouch 4G Slide lets you pick from many different modes, like Macro, Night, and Action modes. You can’t tweak camera settings, like white balance, for example, and it only offers you one other shooting mode, HDR (high dynamic range). It is clean and simple, but a little too simple. I’ve never been a fan of the iPhone camera’s user interface. Lower-light photos weren’t as good while the flash certainly helps, it does give people a strange color tone. My outdoor photos looked gorgeous with bright, yet natural colors and sharp detail. In my own casual hands-on use, I found the iPhone 4S’s 8-megapixel camera to be a huge improvement over the iPhone 4’s. You can read the full results of our tests here. ![]() It was a close call for overall image quality, but the iPhone 4S ranked third in our tests, below the undefeated myTouch 4G Slide and the Samsung Galaxy S II, which came in second. And for a control subject, we used a stand-alone camera–the Nikon Coolpix P300–to see how the best phone cameras compared with a well-respected pocket camera. To see how much the iPhone 4S’s new camera has improved over the previous version, we included last year’s Apple iPhone 4 (the black one) in our test group. We also tested a couple of other devices alongside these smartphones. At the top, you’ll also see widget-like stock and weather updates.Īndroid phones included the Samsung Galaxy S II, the T-Mobile MyTouch 4G Slide, the Motorola Droid Bionic, and the HTC Sensation 4G. Your notifications are sorted by app and category. To see all notifications, you simply swipe your finger down from the top of the screen. If you’re using your phone, notifications will appear as a pop-up at the top of the screen, then disappear. You can see all of your notifications in a single view in the very Android-esque Notifications Center. If you’re already logged into your phone, the notification will pop up on your screen. When you unlock your phone, they disappear. When your phone is locked, you’ll see notifications on the lock screen. Another welcome change is the update to notifications. The big news here is that you can finally update your iPhone (or iPad) over the cloud–you don’t need to connect it to your PC. We’ve discussed the new features of iOS 5 elsewhere, so I’ll only highlight a few of my favorite updates. Still, iOS 5 works well, runs smoothly, and is an overall strong update, and that’s really what’s most important. Features like tabbed browsing, a single view for notifications, and the ability to use the volume rocker as a camera shutter button are long-standing Android features. I was disappointed, however, by the lack of innovation in the update. When iOS 5 debuted, I tweeted that it fixed just about everything that annoyed me about iOS 4. The iPhone display fades in bright sunlight, however, whereas the other phones’ screens were much easier to see. I compared it to the Samsung Galaxy S II’s Super AMOLED Plus display as well as the HTC Sensation’s Super LCD display and found that I preferred the colors and sharpness of the iPhone over the other phones. The “ Retina display“–so named because it surpasses the number of pixels that the human retina can process–also greatly improves the sharpness, clarity, and visible detail of images. Whereas the iPhone 3GS’s text–in the menus, in apps, or on Web pages–appears thick, fuzzy, and undefined, the iPhone 4’s text is razor sharp, even when enlarged (as we tried doing when viewing a PDF). When you compare the 4 and 4S displays to the 3GS, you’ll notice a huge difference. Like its predecessor, the iPhone 4S has a 3.5-inch, 960-by-640-pixel IPS display. Competing phone manufacturers should pay attention. The iPhone 4S seems more like a luxury item than just a mobile phone. When you slide open the box, you’re not greeted by thick heavy phone manuals that you’ll end up tossing in the garbage. The packaging is sleek and minimalist, free of any gaudy carrier or app branding. I have to give credit to Apple every time a new iPhone comes out for making the unboxing experience such a treat for consumers. This year, I got a white review unit and found fingerprints to be less of an issue. Despite the company’s claims, though, I found the front and back of that earlier unit covered with fingerprints after only a couple of hours of use. ![]() Like last year’s black iPhone review unit, the face and back are made of glass that is specially treated to withstand scratches and oily fingers, according to Apple. The overall design exudes elegance–from the rounded, individual volume up and down buttons to the ring/silent switch and the power/sleep button up top. ![]()
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