Apple iPhone 5S

Available now
10th September 2013

One of a pair of replacements for the original iPhone 5, the Apple iPhone 5S is the more expensive and sophisticated counterpart to the iPhone 5C.

The iPhone 5S sticks to the same basic form factor as the 5 with a relatively small but very sharp 4" 640 x 1136 pixel display on the front. On the back is a modest 8 megapixel camera with a few tricks up its sleeve such as a larger sensor, slow-motion video capture and dual colour flash. Externally, the most visible changes are the new colour schemes of "space grey" (sort-of-black), silver (sort-of-white) and gold (sort-of-tacky).

The biggest changes are a bit more subtle. Inside is a new 64-bit A7 processor with a 64-bit version of the new iOS 7 operating system. The button on the front has been replaced by a fingerprint scanner that can be used to unlock the phone and authorise iTunes purchases, and the iPhone 5S now has a dedicated M7 motion processor chip which takes some of the load off the main CPU.

In the UK the prices for the iPhone 5S start at £549 (€650) for the basic 16GB model going up to an eye-watering £709 (€840) for the 64GB version. Given that you can buy a 64GB Samsung microSD card for about €60 (around €1 per GB) the fact that Apple charge more than four times that price for flash memory is a bit extortionate.

If you are a long-time Apple customer and currently have an iPhone 4S or earlier then this looks like an attractive upgrade. But there's very little here to tempt customers of other platforms away, apart from the fingerprint reader.

The rest of the specifications hold few surprises, in terms of size and weight it is almost identical to the iPhone 5 and has all the same features plus a few more. The 5S inherits the same problems as the 5, the small display which isn't fully HD compatible, a run-of-the-mill camera, the lack of NFC or wireless charging.. but it is still a very desirable device.

Apple say that the iPhone 5S will be available widely in Europe from September 20th onwards, although it looks like you will have to take a trip to your local Apple store or carrier shop if you want one as pre-ordering is not available.