I wanted to wait a while before reviewing the new iphone 5 to give it a decent enough test drive as it were, I'm rather fortunate in that the phone is through my other halfs business so i'm not stuck with a costly monthly bill to pay as it is all paid by the company as effectively I'm employed on a a part time basis by the business. We both have the 32gb version which is the middle of the three that are available.

In terms of comparing it to the iphone 4 well design wise it is a bit slimer and lighter as well, it is an efficiently designed product, we both have the white version. In terms of measurements it is 7.6mm thick and has a 4 inch touch screen which means you have more screen than the iphone 4, the fact that it carries less weight compensates for the slightly bigger handset and it is very comfortable to hold when in use. The controls are easy to operate with them nicely distributed around the phone, I especially like the fact that one press of a button can switch the volume level off or on.

Well first off call quality is excellent, after all you cannot review a phone without talking about the sound quality however in the modern era this has now become a minor point in terms of I cannot remember the last review I read that moaned about the call quality of a mobile phone unlike the time when the technology was so new and things were less predictable and reliable. The phone loads up almost instantly and the sharp hiigh quality screen is a delight to look at. In terms of operation it is the standard Apple touch screen where you can manipulate the size of image and navigate in an instant with your fingers, the internet is super fast and quich loading with the improved A6 chip powering it all and I now find that streaming a tv show on catch up is a lot faster and a much better viewing experience.

The new style ear pods are an acquired taste I find and it took a little while to get used to them, whether or not they are noticeably better then the jury is still out. This is partly because I have not used them when I have been very active in the gym yet as I prefer my ipod which has more music stored on it. The 8mp camera is nice and sharp with regards to taking images and there is also a front facing 1.2 mp lens as well so you have some choice if you need to snap a shot off quickly. While I use the camera occasionally it is not a very important feature as far as I'm concerned but useful on a night out however for family events I prefer something a bit more specialist.

The big draw back with the iphone 5 is that you need to buy new adapters for in car use and charging adapters for other devises which is really annoying and these are not cheap. On teh plus side the extra features have not impacted on the battery life which is still acceptable but could be better in my opinion. You are supposed to get about 8 hours of talk time and 40 hours of music playback, I have not tested the latter really but certainly the battery is doing ok at the moment.

I'm not a massive fan of the Siri voice recognition application on the iphone 4 but it has got better over time and it works ok on my new iphone, I feel like I do not have to talk quite so slowly. The app store is easy to navigate and it is easy to sync the phone with your itunes account, all features that existed on its predecessor but nice to know that they still work well with this phone.

I guess the main thing to consider is whether it is worth upgradeing from the 4S, well in my case my old phone had a cracked screen and was a bit batterred so it was a no brainer, I'm not convinced there is enough new about this phone to get really excited about other than the fact that it is a bit quicker and teh screen has certainly been improved so I guess it just about edges a positive response from me with regards to the decision to upgrade. It is not a big leap forward but it is a few dozen baby steps of an advance and I like it.