Apple iPhone 4S review round-up

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Apple iPhone 4S

Apple iPhone 4S

Apple iPhone 4S

The first round of Apple iPhone 4S reviews are in, and there's nothing really too shocking to be learned from them. The device is well-received all around, and most everybody is hugely impressed by the new Siri voice control system and the phone's new camera and processor.

Here's a round-up of links to and quotes from some of the initial reviews.

Josh Topolsky at The Verge was big on the new iOS 5 update, which he claims is likely the biggest update to iOS ever:

"The biggest and probably most desired (at least by more tech-savvy users) is improved notifications. Gone are the maddening, intrusive pop-over notifications we've been living with since the first version of iOS. Now when you get a message or new email, you see a notification at the top of your screen which doesn't interfere with what you're doing on the phone. You can swipe towards the left of the screen on these messages to make them disappear. Needless to say, this is a welcome change from older versions of the software."

Bloomberg's Rich Jaroslovsky was overall quite pleased with the device and the new Siri voice interface, and noted that the phone's data speeds were on par with AT&T's "4G" devices:

"Using Ookla's Speedtest app, I compared the 4S with Samsung Electronics Co.'s new Galaxy S II, which AT&T labels as 4G. In dozens of tests in and around San Francisco, the iPhone 4S registered faster download speeds more than two-thirds of the time."

While Wired's Brian X. Chen certainly was impressed by the iPhone 4S's new camera and overall speed, he said that the S in the iPhone 4S name might as well stand for its Siri voice control system. He gave the following example of its use:

"When I step out of my apartment today, a reminder will pop up on my iPhone 4S to deposit checks at the bank. Tonight I'm meeting my friend Peter, who wants to eat steak, so I can say, 'I want prime rib' to find steakhouses nearby. I have a meeting with a colleague Alexis this Thursday, and I can add that in my calendar just by saying, 'Schedule meeting with Alexis on Thursday at 3 p.m.'"

USA Today's Ed Baig had some problems with iCloud's Photo Stream feature, but found the iTunes in the Cloud service to work flawlessly:

"I experienced no snags with the free iTunes in the Cloud service. Any music you buy in iTunes can be automatically downloaded to all your devices, without you having to connect wires."

Long-time Apple zealot David Pogue of the New York Times breaks the major improvements in the iPhone 4S over the original iPhone 4 into four sections: processor, world roaming, Siri speech recognition, and the new camera. Of the camera he says:

"A much better, faster camera ? among the best on a phone. It has a resolution of eight megapixels, which doesn't matter much, and a new, more light-sensitive sensor, which does. Its photos are crisp and clear, with beautiful color. The low-light photos and 1080p high-definition video are especially impressive for a phone. There's still no zoom and only a tiny LED flash ? but otherwise, this phone comes dangerously close to displacing a $200 point-and-shoot digital camera."

Walt Mossberg at All Things D considers the iPhone 4S to be a very good phone, naturally, but was somewhat uncharacteristically unenthusiastic about it:

"Despite Siri, the iPhone 4S isn't a dramatic game-changer like some previous iPhones. Some new features are catch-ups to competitors. I sense Apple chose to focus more on software and cloud service than on hardware. But, in my tests, the iPhone 4S performed very well. It's a better iPhone for the same $199 entry price, at a time when some competitors are pricing their flagship smartphones starting at $299."

"My advice is that owners of the iPhone 4 needn't rush to upgrade; they can get the new operating system. But owners of older iPhone models, or those with basic phones, will find this latest iPhone a pleasure and a good value."

When speaking of the iPhone 4S's design, which is shared with the previous iPhone 4 device, MacWorld.com's Jason Snell has nothing but good things to say:

"It's a classic look, easily my favorite of all the iPhone designs to date. The fit and finish are immaculate; not a single thing about the iPhone 4S feels cheap. In terms of styling, the iPhone 4 feels like the most expensive electric razor ever made, or maybe like a finely-tuned luxury watch."

"The same eye-popping 960-by-640-pixel screen introduced with the iPhone 4 is present on the iPhone 4S, too. Dubbed the "Retina display" by Apple, it's got a screen resolution of 326 pixels per inch, meaning that the average human eye can't even see individual pixels. The result is marvelous. Reading text is like looking at a printed page. High-definition videos and photos display tiny details."