Originally Posted by Cmike2780

My sister just got her iPhone 5 a few days ago and she let me try it out for a couple of hours. I have the 4S and was seriously thinking about upgrading.

Here's my impressions:

Design:
It feels lighter, but once you put a case on, it doesn't really feel any different from the 4S in your hand. I actually like the 4S design better with the glass back.

Screen:
The larger screen is nice, especially for videos, games or browsing. It also adds another row to the home screen. I honestly wouldn't want a screen bigger than this. I had the S3 for a little while, which had a huge screen, but it felt like I was holding a monitor against my ear. It was great for almost everything else though. The biggest reason I switched to the 4S was because my music library was all in iTunes.

Processing Speed:
It's noticeably faster than the 4S, especially with games, maps or anything that requires a lot of computing power. For 75% of the things I do though, the extra speed is meaningless.

Software (iOS6):
I have this on the 4S and for the most part is nearly identical to the 5. The new Maps 3d modeling and turn by turn is pretty cool. It's based on the TomTom software and it worked pretty well....a lot better than before anyways. A standalone GPS is still better, but this is great in an emergency. You do loose some of the cool stuff from Google maps though, like street view and few other things. The YouTube app is also no longer integrated. I still haven't tried all the new features, but so far so good.

Siri:
I thought the updates to Siri where pretty cool, but it still has some issues that really need to be addressed for it to be usefull. The big one being how it communicates with the servers/what wireless connection it uses. I have wi-fi hot spots around me from my cable service company, which means the phone is set to automatically connect to that hot spot or not at all. It's fine if you're stationary, but if you're in a car, the phone automatically want's to connect to wi-fi. Because of this, the wi-fi signal will cuts in & out. When you ask Siri something, it freezes, doesn't connect and you're left with the spinning circle. It's fine if you leave the wi-fi off, but it would be nice to set Siri to always use 3G/4G connection instead. When there isn't 3G/Wi-fi, it's useless. It actually works pretty well when you want to play a song/album using voice recognition....when it works. It's still a gimmick at this point, but I do think it's the best AI interface I've had a chance to use. The S3 had S-Voice, but the AI personality, if there is such a thing, was like talking to stephen hawking.

Bottom Line:
It's a great upgrade from the iPhone 4 or earlier. It's still one of the best looking smartphones out there, but don't expect anyone to notice the difference. Like I said, once you buy a case for it, it look identical to the 4/4S. If like me, you have a 4S , it's definitely not worth the upgrade considering you can install iOS 6. I was kind of disappointed at some of missing items you would have expected the iPhone to have by now. The camera is pretty good for a smartphone, but it could be better. I would have also liked them to introduce a NFC system that is actually usable. Maybe a virtual wallet system where you can load up credit similar to iTunes but isn't wired to a bank account. I have yet to find a use for the passbook app. The battery is bigger on the 5, but with the bigger screen, the battery life is about the same as the 4S. I do like the new connector, but a universal one like a mini-USB would have been prefered. They also need to have expandable memory or at least make have it start a 32gb standard. The apps, games, etc....have gotten a lot larger with every generation and the price difference for extra storage is flat out robbery. Paying $100/16gb is an insane amount with all the improvements in storage capacity these days.