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"Apple\u2019s iPhone 4S is a solid follow-up to the popular iPhone 4. As an owner of the 4, I would not race to upgrade. \nThe 4S is a refinement of a very good idea, and I don\u2019t think you jump to buy a refinement unless you are 1) desperate for the under-the-hood changes or 2) Cannot wait to switch from one carrier to another (AT&amp;T to Verizon or Sprint, say).\nThe iPhone 4S looks exactly like its predecessor, which caused some confusion in this test. I constantly picked up the wrong phone. At one point I inadvertently changed the settings on my iPhone 4, thinking that I was holding the new one. \nMuch of what\u2019s new on the 4S is due to iOS 5, a major update that includes iMessage and the updated notification system. These changes are significant and, by and large, excellent. I love seeing my notifications stacked up on the home screen, accessible by swiping down from the top of the screen. \nThat area also includes the lovely weather and stock widgets. It\u2019s a smooth experience, seeing your local weather stream by. There was one glitch: when I select weather details while holding the phone in landscape mode, the detail switched to portrait mode. It seems odd that Apple didn\u2019t set it to follow the phone's orientation. \niMessage works well. Getting unlimited free MMS and SMS with anyone else using iOS 5 is a nice feature. It worked fine for me and I never had to think about switching between iMessage and standard text message. It all happened in the same window. There is one feature I found semi-creepy: iMessage lets you see when someone else is typing a response to you.\nTwitter is integrated into iOS 5, putting Twitter notifications inside the Notifications Center and letting me Tweet photos directly from my photo album. I'm an avid Twitter user, but these are not life-changing updates for me.\nSiri-fied\nSiri: The Intelligent Assistant is a true wonder. Throughout a week of testing, Siri surprised me with her ability to understand me and my needs. \nSiri is not sentient. The voice recognition technology works best when talking about the weather, the calendar and appointments, contacts, phone calls, email, notes and reminders. By baking Siri into the system, Apple has provided a wealth of context. This makes Siri more powerful than any voice recognition system that relies on web search results alone. \nWith all of your personal information at her fingertips, Siri has only to understand your words and match them to the matrix of detail about your activities, the people you know and location. \nThere have been countless stories about all the fun you can have with Siri. Trust me, I asked her a variety of odd questions just so I could get an entertaining response. For example, I asked her favorite color. Siri\u2019s reply: \u201CI don\u2019t know how to say it in your language. It\u2019s sort of greenish, but with more dimensions.\u201D\nUltimately, these responses are parlor tricks. Siri\u2019s true power comes into play when you can\u2019t touch your phone, but still need to get stuff done. I tested Siri in a variety of situations and quickly learned its limits. The iPhone 4S microphone is quite good \u2014 I almost never had to shout, or even carefully enunciate, but noisy environments like the streets of Manhattan did offer a challenge. \nI usually solved this by holding the phone much closer to my mouth, or up to my ear as if I were making a call (you can set Siri to automatically activate with this action) and shouting a bit. \nSiri also doesn\u2019t know who you are until you tell it. You identify yourself under General Settings&gt;Siri&gt;My info, and select yourself from your contacts. Siri never did learn how to properly pronounce my last name.\nI also did something with my iPhone 4S that I\u2019ve never done with any previous smartphones: Turn on location services. Without them, Siri is somewhat neutered; you couldn\u2019t ask her \u201CWhere are the pumpkins\u201D and get a list of pumpkin patches near you, as I did. Siri also fails spectacularly without network access; she appears to talk to Apple\u2019s servers almost constantly.\nSiri is still in beta. She should get smarter as she learns the nuances of my voice and the details of my life. Apple promises that Siri will crowdsource and improve for everyone. In the meantime, it\u2019s a very useful tool, and one of two reasons why an iPhone 4 user might choose to upgrade to the 4S.\nPretty Pictures and More Power\nThe other reason is the camera. Yes, it has three more megapixels than the last iPhone camera, but the addition of lenses (now up to five) and a wider aperture makes this camera significantly better than the iPhone 4's. I spent time taking the same image with each phone. \nNaturally, the iPhone 4S images are larger, but the difference goes beyond mere file size and the number of pixels in each image. The 4S captured truer colors, and its faster images sensor gave me good photos even in relatively low light. \nI\u2019ve never been particularly dissatisfied with the camera on the iPhone 4, but when I zoomed in on photos from the two phones, I couldn\u2019t help but notice how my iPhone 4 photos blurred out key details. (See the photo comparison gallery for comparison shots.)\nThe 4S's most noticeable changes, of course, are inside. There\u2019s the more powerful A5 chip and the new HSDPA radio for 3G+ download speeds. Unfortunately this is for GSM customers only, so AT&amp;T customers should enjoy the faster download speeds, but not Verizon customers like me (or Sprint customers). \nStill, my Verizon iPhone 4S performed faster. When I ran a series of Speedtest.net tests, I saw downloads speeds double (and sometimes even triple). Uploads were faster as well. Since I\u2019m not accessing HSDPA, I can\u2019t account for the speed boost. Perhaps it\u2019s related to the more powerful CPU and updated Safari browser.\nCall quality, by the way, on the Verizon iPhone 4S was as good, if not better, than what I get with my iPhone 4. And no, it never dropped a call.\nApple demoed some impressive GPU performance at the iPhone 4S rollout. Epic Games showed off Infinity Blade 2, featuring live game play so detailed it  looked as if it was comprised of cut scenes. Sadly, Infinity Blade 2 isn\u2019t available until December. When I asked Apple about other apps that might showcase the new graphics performance, they told me there was nothing available yet \u2014 I\u2019d have to watch for better performance on my current apps. \nSince the most graphically intensive app I own is the original Infinity Blade, I played that. I noticed how well the phone rendered reflections. Unlike on my iPad 1, the game never stuttered. This would account for my breezing through the first five levels and coming closer than I ever have to defeating the Boss.\nCloud and Concerns\nI also set up iCloud on the phone. As soon as the phone connected to my home or office Wi-Fi, photos I'd taken would go off to the cloud and end up in my photo stream \u2014 instantly visible on my iPad (also upgraded to iOS 5). \nI could also sign into iCloud on my computer, but my photos didn\u2019t appear there. I didn\u2019t have any luck syncing iCloud with my contacts \u2014 which I am able to load on the phone through Gmail (when set up as an Exchange account).\nBattery life is more or less on a par with the iPhone 4 \u2014 unless you\u2019re using Siri a lot. I spent a couple of days asking her lots of questions and noticed, by the afternoon, that the 4S battery might not make it to bedtime uncharged. As noted above, Siri is still in beta, so Apple may be working on power management. \nI did notice one odd little difference with the iPhone 4S: When I tap the back, there is a distinct vibration. I believe I\u2019m nudging the little motor inside the phone that makes it vibrate for notifications. When I tap the back of the iPhone 4, I do not feel the same vibration. It's another indication that things really are different inside the iPhone 4S.\nShould you buy the Apple iPhone 4S? If you\u2019re in the market for a new smartphone, yes. It\u2019s powerful, feature rich, easy to use and takes great photos and video. It\u2019s also now on a wider variety of a carriers which makes it more accessible to more consumers. \nIs it better than any Android phone on the market? That\u2019s a tougher question. There are devices like the new Motorola Droid Razr that are thinner and lighter. They match up on processing power (both have dual-core CPUs), but the Razr, like many new Android handsets, has a bigger screen (which I find also makes these phones wider and more unwieldy). \nThe Razr does not have higher screen resolution, however. The iPhone\u2019s Retina display is 960 x 640; the Razr is 960 x 540. Android phones have voice recognition, but nothing approaches the deep integration you\u2019ll find in Siri. iCloud is a welcome benefit, but not yet a game changer. There are more apps in the Apple App Store, but Android is not far behind.\nPersonally, I prefer Apple\u2019s consistent and cohesive environment. The Cupertino company has done a stellar job upgrading its OS and made enough adjustments in the iPhone 4S hardware to keep it competitive well into 2012 \u2014 when the iPhone 5 may well blow it away.\n\n\nApple iPhone 4S and iPhone 4 Photo Comparison\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\niPhone 4 Pumpkin Photo\nThis photo was taken with the Apple iPhone 4. While this phone takes great photos, it has a tendency to pump up the colors.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\niPhone 4s Pumpkin Photo\nVirtually the same shot, but with more detail and truer colors.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nPumpkins iPhone 4s vs. 4 Closeup Comparison\nThe Apple iPhone 4S image (on the left) has a lot more information to comparing exact areas side-by-side is difficult. Still you can see the level of detail the Apple iPhone 4S's 8MP sensor captures.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\niPhone 4 Backlit Building Photo\nThis is a pretty challenging shot for any camera. there's a lot of light coming from the gray sky that puts the building almost entirely in shadows. Still the iPhone 4 does a decent job.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\niPhone 4s Backlit Building Photo\nSame angle, bigger image, more detail and, again, truer colors.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nBacklit-Building- iPhone 4s vs. 4 Closeup Comparison\nThis time the 4S image is on the right. Again, the high megapixels get you in closer and the reflections on the office building windows are spot on.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\niPhone 4 Bouquet Photo\nThis iPhone 4 photo of a bunch of flowers looks good, but it missed on the color of the purple-ish flowers.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\niPhone 4s Bouquet Photo\nThe iPhone 4S got it right and game more more details, to boot.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\niPhone 4 Building at Night Photo\nOnce again, the iPhone 4 does a nice job\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\niPhone 4s Building at Night Photo\nHowever, the iPhone 4S managed to stop the clock--or stop my hand shaking so the clock's hands and numbers are relatively clear.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\niPhone 4 vs. iPhone 4S Detail\nThe iPhone 4S (one the left) managed to capture the clock face detail in the dark, from a long way away.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\niPhone 4 Night Scene\nThis was a challenging shot for both cameras.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\niPhone 4s Night Scene\nThe iPhone 4S sensor captured more images detail.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\niPhone 4 Rain Photo\nLow light, lots of reflections and the iPhone 4 did a commendable job.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\niPhone 4s Rain Photo\nThe iPhone 4S pours in details, down to rain drops on the black fence and is much more adept at handling the reflections.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\niPhone 4 Shell and Rocks Shot\nBoth the iPhone 4 and 4S did a good job with these rocks, but it's the shell that makes the difference.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\niPhone 4s Shell and Rocks Shot\nIn this photo, you'll notice the shell isn't bright white and all the rocks don't have a gray cast.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\niPhone 4 and 4S Shell and Rocks Detail\nHere you get a better look at just how blown out the shell is in the iPhone 4 shot (left). The iPhone 4S captures more detail and truer colors.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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