Apple Unveils iPhone 5; Sports 4-inch Retina Display, LTE, A6 CPU

At a special launch event held in San Francisco today, Apple unveiled the much-anticipated iPhone 5. One thing this launch proves unlike most of the others is that Apple is having a rougher time keeping details under wraps, because with official specs in-hand, we can see that many of the rumors we’ve read so far have been true.

The latest iOS 6-equipped iPhone sports something that, in my opinion, is long-overdue: a 4-inch screen. In typical Apple fashion, this one supports a retina resolution, this time of 1136×640. In addition, the newest model also supports LTE wireless, something that Samsung is allegedly preparing to sue the company over. But that won’t put a damper on the release, because as Apple’s Phil Schiller states, “iPhone 5 is the most beautiful consumer device that we’ve ever created“.

I haven’t seen the phone outside of slides, so I can’t comment too much, but 5 does strike me as being the best-looking of the bunch. It features a two-toned aesthetic using glass and aluminium, and as suspected, is a bit thinner – 18% thinner (7.6mm) than the iPhone 4S.

If none of that gets you intrigued, what might is the fact that Apple is touting the new A6 processor as being twice as fast as the one found in the 4S. Whether that will reflect itself in benchmarks, we’ll have to wait and see. It has to be assumed that some of the extra power will go towards supporting that high-res screen, but noticeable performance boosts should be visible nonetheless.

One of the 4S’ famed features has been its camera, and while it doesn’t changed too much on the 5, it’s a bit smaller. Finally, another nice addition is that the dock connector for the iPhone 5 has been made about 80% smaller than its predecessor, and even given a nifty name: Lightning. Perhaps not a major feature, but a nice one nonetheless. The press release mentions multiple times that battery-life has also been improved, but no example is provided.

The iPhone 5 will start at $199 for a 16GB model, $299 for the 32GB and $399 for the 64GB. Shipping kicks off on the 21st, but pre-orders will be made available on Friday.