iPhone 4S Review - Everything You Need To Know

Apple's iPhone 4S review is finally here. We have the inside scoop on one of the most sought after smart phones. Cupertino, did an excellent job with this device and surely we couldn't wait to get our hands on the new Apple iPhone.

Let's get right into things and talk about the 4S. This new iPhone is more of a refresh to the line up just like the iPhone 3GS was an update to the iPhone 3G. So outward appearances have not changed with this update. For those seeking status by having the newest iPhone you are going to have to wait for the next device.

But the internals on the new iPhone 4S are simply amazing and there is much to anticipate.

Siri Virtual Assistant

Talk about talking to your phone. You'll love the new Siri virtual assistant found apart of the new iPhone 4S review. If you want to feel like a high powered executive with assistants at your beck and call then Siri is the feature for you.

Siri is activated by holding down on the home button and once activated all you have to do is speak and it just works. Tired of always having to navigate to your phone's clock to set the alarm, well that is now a problem of the past. With Siri all you'll say is, "Wake me up at 7:30 am" and your alarm is set. Nothing more, nothing else, that's all it takes.

You can do a lot more too. How about putting that artificial intelligence to use. You'll get answers to practically anything all at the sound of your voice command. For instance, "Who's older Bill Gates or Steve Jobs?" Siri will reply, "Steve Jobs, he was born on February while Bill was born in October of 1955." Yes, it is that awesome.

Siri is the virtual assistant that you'll always need and want. We'll have to caution you that once you start using Siri you'll never want to go back to any smartphone that doesn't have this feature.

Please note Siri is only available on the iPhone 4S so even with the new iOS 5 upgrade for all of Apple's mobile devices you won't have access to Siri. This is a selling point in itself for you to make the upgrade and purchase the iPhone 4S.

Lights, Camera, Action

In the iPhone 4S review there's a new camera coming in at 8 megapixels. Not exactly huge feature upgrade but something that will make your photographs much better. Although the tech specs on the camera are good, what's great are the features associated with the camera.

Now you'll be able to edit your photos on the fly right from the iPhone itself. Tired of thinking you have the greatest picture all to learn it is ruined because someone has red eyes. This will no longer be a problem for you with as seen in our iPhone 4S review. There is red eye reduction that you can do immediately after a picture is taken. Also, basic photo editing and cropping can be done directly from the smartphone. No need to be at a computer using special software to alter your pictures.

Point and click just got a new meaning. Besides, you can have your photos edited and uploaded to your favorite social network in no time. Can't go wrong with this part of the iPhone.

Battery Life

Some would argue that the iPhone 4S is not a 4G device because the technology isn't there to prevent the battery from draining. We all know how important it is to have a functioning battery. Because in reality, you have nothing when your smart phone's battery is dead.

What we've found in our iPhone 4S review and has been reported in many circles is an iPhone that has a questionable batter capacity. Apparently, the battery drains too quickly. This does not appear to be a technical issue, rather a software issue found within iOS 5.

There's a fix to the battery life!

The battery is being drained because of constantly searching to update the phone's time zone. Basically, a lot of energy is being used to determine if the phone has entered a new time zone so the fix is simple. Here's a step by step fix:

1. Go to Settings
2. System Services
3. Scroll down to Setting Time Zone
4. Flip the Setting Time Zone switch to OFF

Complete this task and your battery will have new life as we saw in our iPhone 4S review. We do want you to be aware that when you switch the Setting Time Zone to OFF it will mean your device will not automatically re-set the time when entering a new time zone. A small price to pay for regaining significant battery life in our opinion.

Dual-Core Speed and Power

Everyone wants a responsive smartphone that is quick and gets the job done without delay. In our iPhone 4S review the dual-core A5 chip delivers everything you need seamlessly. This is a smartphone that we're talking about that is loaded down in apps, games, video and internet access. So to keep everything moving Apple put in the dual-core A5 chip.

Not to name names but when using a Blackberry albeit an older model getting internet connection was very difficult and sporadic while traveling. What worked was pulling out the iPhone 4S and getting online immediately.

Little Surprises Add Up

Sometimes the little things make all of the difference in our iPhone 4S review. For starters one feature which was very disappointing in the last edition of iOS 4 was the call log feature. Specifically, Mr. Jobs made it impossible for you to delete individual calls. Apple failed in this regard because your only options were to delete all of your calls or none of them, there was no way to delete individual calls.

You should know we researched extensively online and talked with everyone to actually confirm if this was the case. How sad to be living in 2011 and not being able to delete one specific call from your iPhone. So what we did was raise a lot of noise and write in to Apple Inc. through their official channels to have our voice heard.

iOS 5 is where we got results. Deleting individual calls is now here as seen in our iPhone 4S review. We alerted this feature to Apple retail employees who were unaware of the update. Definitely, this is a selling point if you owned a previous iPhone and were upset about not being able to delete individual calls.

Text message limit on the iPhone. Apparently, there are those who like to hoard and have problems deleting their text messages. A rumor circling for at least three years says that the iPhone can only hold 75,000 text messages. We won't be sending that many texts to verify this fact but many of the forums say this is indeed the case.

Here's the standing joke about why the limit is 75,000 messages. Apple now has iMessage their version of Research In Motion's Blackberry Messenger aka BBM. Apparently, to ensure people fully utilize iMessage the limit is in place, although this doesn't hold much water. All anyone has to do is simply delete their old text messages when approaching their limit.

iMessage allows for you to avoid incurring SMS fees from your carrier and actually has more advanced features again comparable to BBM where you can verify if a message has been read and also see the recipient replying in real-time. Also iMessage works between:

• iPhones
• iPad
• iPod Touch.

There are some reports that iMessage may be in the works for Mac OS X Lion or a future version. Obviously, this has not been confirmed yet but this will be something to be on the lookout and will be a game-changer.

Notifications. Remember how you used to always receive that blue pop-up that would interrupt everything you were doing. Where you had one of two options:

1. Respond to message
2. Close out message

As you can see with this no matter what you'll have to stop what you're doing to respond to the alert. Well this is no longer the case. Notifications have been set up to drop down and not interfere with whatever you are currently doing on your iPhone. This is eerily similar to what you'd see on Google Android devices, but hey if it works why not use it as well.

Final iPhone 4S Review Round Up

In our iPhone 4S review this is definitely a smartphone that you'll want to own. Obviously, if you're a status seeker you may be disappointed because the phone looks exactly the same in comparison to the previous Apple iPhone 4. But we're confident there's a completely new device in the works for the future. Only problem is no one has any word if it will be coming in June or the fall.

But there are three main new features found within the new Apple iPhone:

• Siri
• A5 dual-core processor
• 8 MP camera

These are all great additions combined with the updated operating system. Apple controls both the hardware and software ensuring you have the best user experience possible.