Apple has unveiled their iPhone 5, which boasts a 4-inch Retina display at 1136 x 640 resolution; an Apple-designed A6 processor; the iOS 6 operating system; an 8 megapixel camera, an anodized aluminum body with glass inlay.

Apple also egregiously claimed that the “iPhone 5 is the thinnest smartphone in the world, with an all-new 7.6 mm anodized aluminum body that is 18 percent thinner and 20 percent lighter than iPhone 4S.” This is an erroneous claim considering that the Motorola Razr (7.1mm), Motorola Droid Razr (7.1mm), Huawei Ascend P1s (6.68mm), and Chinese Oppo Finder (6.65mm) are all thinner.

The iPhone 5 supports LTE and DC-HSDPA cellular connectivity, and dual-band 802.11n Wi-Fi for theoretical speeds of 150 Mbps.

Detailed specs are omitted for the A6 system-on-chip (SoC), but Apple claims it offers up to twice the performance of the previous generation A5 SoC. The A5 featured a 0.8-1.0 GHz dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 CPU, PowerVR SGX543MP2 dual-core GPU, and a 32-bit Dual-channel 266 MHz LPDDR2 memory controller.

iPhones have become more than just communication devices, as the booming mobile app market has seen both simple and complex gaming titles going portable. The more powerful hardware under the hood of the iPhone 5 means gamers can probably expect more elaborate and impressive games on this generation of device.

Apple is also introducing a new “Lightning” connector for data and charging, smaller than the previous 30-pin connector. There will of course be an adapter available as a separate purchase.

iPhone 5 comes with iOS 6, the latest version of Apple’s mobile device operating system, which has new features such as: a new Maps app with Apple-designed cartography, turn-by-turn navigation, and a Flyover view feature; Facebook integration for Contacts and Calendar; and new Siri features.

iOS 6 software will be available on Wednesday, 19 September as a free software update.

Pricing & Availability

iPhone 5 comes in either white & silver or black & slate, and will be available in the US for a suggested retail price of $199 (US) for the 16GB model and $299 (US) for the 32GB model and $399 (US) for the 64GB model.

The first wave launch will see the phone hit the US, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore and the UK on Friday, 21 September.

The next wave roll-out will hit 22 more countries on 28 September, including Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.

South Africa will receive the iPhone 5 along with 100 other countries in December 2012.

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