Well unfortunately this post will be thrown onto the inter-web sans pictures. I just never managed to snap any pictures of my brief time with the iPhone 5. Well anyways, to start it off with just a few brief words; I loved my time with the iPhone. I have always refused to use them on the basis of my hatred for the company. I don't use their mp3's, phones, tablets, laptops, or computers. I just hate the way Steve Jobs went about running the company. Don't get me wrong, there is a reason they got as big as they are, obviously. I just don't like some of the ways they went about it. But that is neither here nor there. From a daily usage stand point the iPhone 5 did everything I needed it to and then some. I still plan on using android indefinitely, but I would like to have one around to switch things up. Keep in mind, almost my entire time with the 5 was on iOS 7, ok lets continue.
What I liked:
Performance - One of the main things that I liked, and is always the argument to go with iphones, is how smooth it was. And I'm not just talking about from a UI stand point, everything ran very smoothly. Games loaded quick and ran great, web browsing was fast, comparable to that of my Note 2. Transitioning from phone calls to text to video chatting, I never noticed so much as one stutter or lag. I knew to expect something simple and smooth, but this improved upon my expectations.
Camera - I'm not a photographer by any means. Pretty much all I do with a camera is snap a quick picture of my cat because she is doing something cute, or sneak of picture of my wife because god forbid I have a picture of her that she wasn't ready for. With that being said I loved the camera, I'm not sure if it was more the software or not but it always focused quickly, adjusted for lighting, and of course the shutter speed was as quick as I needed it to be. Either way, be it software or hardware, I liked the camera of the iPhone 5 very much for the short time I used it.
Gaming - Even though I kind of touched on this in the Performance section, I really enjoyed the gaming on the 5. I spent more time than I'm willing to admit on Deer Hunter 2014. Despite the small screen I was able to operate the on screen controls easily, and see everything clearly. Aside from that, I didn't really try any other 3D intensive games, mostly just little ones like Candy Crush and Dots. Which it burned through with ease, which I would love to say was obvious, but my wifes S3 is the most pitful thing I've ever seen when it plays Candy Crush. Slow animations, freezes, jumpy music, it's just not good.
Screen - I don't really have to much to say here. It's a nice screen that is very pixel-dense. The colors are accurate, lines and text are crisp. It gets rather bright, good for outdoor usage. Really the only bad thing about it is size, and I will get to that later.
Over-all size - This will contradict what I'm about to say, but I loved the size of this phone. Coming from my Note it was a beautiful gift from god. To be able to use my phone with only one hand is great, and the fact that I don't have to take it out of my pocket when I sit down in the car is a big plus. It's thin, but not to thin. Light, but not to light. Just a great feeling phone.
In the Middle:
Battery Life - The battery on the 5 was so-so. It can definitely get you through a days usage with moderate use. You know, texting, calling, some small games and browsing. But once I kicked on the Deer Hunter and had a free hour, I could drain half the battery. Even browsing the web, with constant page loads and refreshes, would drain the battery some. Like I said, on my busy days at work it was great, had charge left over at the end of the day. But when I had some free time and wanted to have some fun, it left a lot to be desired.
UI - While the fluidity of the UI was a nice change of pace (not saying android isn't fluid, it is, it's just a different feel) it had a lot of quirks about it that I didn't like. The biggest annoyance was that there is not up-front back key. Some apps push you though lots of pages and settings to do different things, and usually there is a back tab in the top left, who's placement I don't care for. But when you're in a game or webpages and you just want to go back to the last thing you were doing, it'd be nice to have a static button some where, whether it be onscreen or not, to go back with. Especially in the browser, it really annoying to drag the screen around, or tap the adress bar every time I want to go back a page. Also I hate the new multitasking view, I liked the old view much more, the approach stock android takes. When you open it on iOS you only see one app in the center of the screen, and the sides of one each, left and right. It just makes it a little annoying to scroll back a few apps, as opposed to the old way, where you would just see the bunch of icons and select it, you already knew what you were viewing, you don't need a thumbnail to tell you what you were looking at.
What I didn't Like:
Screen Size/ Keyboard - I know I just said that I liked this before, but let me clarify. I hate how small text is. The keyboard just feels super cramped, I know I'm probably a little jaded coming from a huge screen, but still. Typing on this thing was a nightmare, I was always hitting the wrong letter or pressing send or space when I didn't mean to. Again this is probably just me being suck-ish at typing on something small, but I just really didn't like it. Also certain webpages were a little hard to get at a comfortable level of having enough on the screen, but also being zoomed in enough so I could read what was on there. I would sometimes end up having to scroll side to side to read paragraphs, and that can become a real nuisance.
App crashes - I dealt with more app crashes on iOS then I was ever expecting. Every one has always told me that their iPhone "Just Works" but I found this to not always be true. But the huge difference I noticed, a detail that would help to keep this image up, was that when an app crashes it doesn't give you any sort of message that you had an app crash. It also didn't suffer to much from freeze ups, or black screens. Instead, the application would just stop, shut down and throw you back to your homescreen. Just a quick flash and you were back as if you never clicked anything. This happened with more than just games and downloaded apps too. I had it happen with the phone, texts, email, and plenty of times with the browser. But who knows, maybe I was just doing something wrong.......
In the End:
At the end of the day I really enjoyed using the phone, and could have continued to use it for days; even weeks at a time. It offers good performance, decent battery life, a good screen, and a very manageable form factor. Will it ever replace android as my main device? Probably not, not yet at least. Who knows what will happen with iOS 8, but knowing apple I don't foresee it being some amazing change to pull me in, especially with the change that just took place.But for anyone looking to jump into the smartphone game, or someone already with a smartphone that likes a smaller phone, go for it.
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