iPhone 5 review: Specs, Pricing, Release Date and Pictures of Apple’s newest smartphone

Apple showed off the massively anticipated iPhone 5 for the first time in San Francisco on Wednesday morning (September 12, 2012). The brand new handset is the successor to the popular iPhone 4S and it brings more new features expected than the previous version does. During the Apple event, the handset was unveiled as the thinnest iPhone ever made, at just 7.6mm thick. The phone is available in black and white with the all glass and aluminium chassis. It is also light, just weighs 112 grams that means it’s 20 percent lighter than the earlier iPhone. The 5 hits users with a larger display with a fifth row of icons on the home screen, which is the biggest and most obvious difference from the predecessor. Despite still remaining a super-brilliant and high-resolution Retina display, this one is noticeably longer than any iPhone that’s come before it. The updated handset also contains an eight-megapixel camera with the best resolution being 3,264x2,448 pixels and a front facing camera, which can shoot 720p HD video and gets a backside illuminated sensor. Besides, the iPhone 5 is set to support 4G LTE networks in addition to the current support for EV-DO, EDGE, GPRS, and HSPA data networks. The iPhone 5 also delivers respectable battery life with 8 hours of 3G browsing, 8 hours of 3G talk time, 10 hours of Wi-Fi browsing, 8 hours of LTE browsing, 10 hours of video playback, 40 hours of music playback, and 225 hours of standby time.

Apple unveils the new iPhone 5 in San Francisco on Wednesday (September 12, 2012). The phone is available in two colors: White & Silver (white front with an aluminum backing), and Black & Slate (black front with an anodized-looking rear panel).

The white iPhone 5 gets an A6 processing chip which makes app loading, onscreen interactions, and webpage opening practically instantaneous. Apple also comes out with a new cable charger called Lightning that is 80% smaller than its predecessor as well as a smaller dock connector for the device.

The black handset has a taller (but not wider) 4-inch Retina Display at 1136 x 640-pixel resolution, which has 16:9 proportions, a perfect fit for HDTV shows and a better fit for movies.

The iPhone 5 weighs 20 percent less and is 18 percent thinner than Apple's previous handset iPhone 4S. It will also come with revamped earbuds, now called EarPods.

The phone comes in three capacity models: the 16GB ( $199), the 32GB ($299), and the 64GB ($399). It will go on sale in 9 countries: the United States, Australia, Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore on September 21, 2012.