Daddy Gets a New Toy: iPhone 5 Review

by Joel Newton
in Tech & Parenting
— 28 Sep, 2012

Just because we are dads doesn’t mean that we can’t get new toys. After five long days of impatience, I finally received my new iPhone 5. My eyes lit up like a girl receiving her first American Girl doll when I unboxed my new beauty. And unlike an American Girl doll, my beauty actually talks back to me!

I’ll be the first to admit that I am an Apple fanboy. I’ve owned every iPhone with the exception of the iPhone 3G and I’ve resold them each for a profit. I worked for Apple Retail through two iPhone launches and loved the intensity and excitement of the new phones even though I’ll be the first to admit there weren’t huge innovations with each upgrade.

So here is my review of the new iPhone 5 and the new features I’ve enjoyed most over the last few days:

Positives

More screen real estate - I love the extra half an inch of vertical space for scrolling through webpages, emails and tweets. It doesn’t sound like a lot of space but it makes the whole experience on the phone better. The larger screen also makes gaming and watching videos even more enjoyable as well.
Lighter and skinnier – I wish I could find a way to be lighter and skinnier like the Apple has with the iPhone 5. It was hard to get used to the lightness of the iPhone 5 compared with my iPhone 4S at first. It almost seemed toy like. I had to keep an extra firm grip on it so I wouldn’t drop it. But now I’m used to the weight and love it. The phone is also skinnier so it fits better in my tighter jeans. I’m not about to put it in a case on my belt. Sorry Batman the utility belt just isn’t for me.
Lightning connector - Just as with the older iPhones, I need to charge my phone each night to make it through the next day. Frankly I was annoyed with the old 30-pin power cords. It took too much time to plug them in the right way. With the new Lightning connector, it’s so much quicker because there’s no wrong way to plug it in. I don’t have many accessories that use the old connector so it wasn’t a big transition.
Improved speed - With the A6 chip, the iPhone 5 just screams for gaming, web surfing and even snapping pictures. My daughters want to use my phone so much more since its faster than mommy’s iPhone 3GS.
Apple Maps - I’m stepping out on a limb here and I might lose credibility with you, but I actually like the new Apple Maps. I’ve used other apps for turn by turn navigation but I really like the look of the turn by turn function of the Apple Maps. They will improve with time, but for now they haven’t led me wrong where I live here in Denver.

Annoyances

EarPods - The new EarPod headphones have a much fuller sound with deeper bass than the old headphones. But they still don’t fit in my ears! I’m going to have to try out this solution to getting them to stay in my ears using moldable silicone.
Letterboxed Apps - Have you picked up that I struggle with impatience? Many of the apps in the Apple ecosystem haven’t been upgraded to utilize the new screen real estate on the iPhone 5. This will improve with time though.
No AT&T 4G LTE in Denver - AT&T promises the fast download speeds of 4G LTE in Denver by the end of the year, but until then I’m using the slower 3G speeds. Verizon has better LTE coverage but I’m a loyal customer for the time being.

For more on the new Apple iPhone 5 click here.

Image Credit: William Hook