It is off any phones that are currently not under a contract. For me, I have a large family plan, and so have an old 4s that is no longer on the contract - so I can get the contract price, and turn in the old 4s for a 200 rebate. Agreed, for many people it would not be helpful - but for families it can be good.
I highly doubt the screen resolution increase will create any performance issues. The Retina iPad mini runs the exact same A7 processor that the 5S has, and it has a higher res screen than the 6 plus has. I couldn't ask for much more perform wise, and I have yet to find a game that can make framerates drop. But maybe I just haven't played the right game for that yet Anyways, we'll get definite answers to these questions once the devices release.
Oh I can name you plenty games which having framedrops on the Mini Retina. Besides that, the 5S will always perform way better than the iPad Air or the Mini Retina. I dont know why Apple didn't add an extra core in the iPads SoC's like they did with iPad 3 and 4. These cores were there for a reason - resolution. It's almost four times the pixels of which an iPhone has to render. I'm still waiting for anandtech's review on the A8 SoC. I didn't saw any specifications on the GPU part yet like Model or clock speed. I hope it's on Tegra K1 level but I somehow doubt it.
I'm waiting for that review too I hope it'll be as good as it was before. Don't you think iPhone 5s will suffer because of the lack of ram before it comes down to gpu so it won't really matter having all that power?
lol well that is kind of to be expected with gameloft titles nowadays However, the few that i have played have run fine, Dungeon Hunter 4, Six Guns, NOVA 3, Blitz Brigade, and The Amazing Spiderman.
The Gameloft games I've played even run fine on my iPad 3 so I'm surprised about the retina iPad mini dropping frames.
No, the A7 in the iPads is clocked differently at the least, and I'm pretty sure its similar to A6 vs A6X architecture.
The A7 in the iPad Air is clocked slightly higher than the one in the mini and 5S. The ones in the 5S and Mini are both clocked at 1.3Ghz, Air's is clocked at 1.4Ghz
same here, not worth it for me either. will stick to my 5S. Also, they're kinda big for my taste. 4" is the sweet spot for me for 1 handed use
It's 20% better CPU performance and 50% better GPU performance and I guess it's only that low because it is clocked lower to provide a greater battery life. I saw a data sheet a little while ago which said that the A8 is driven by Imaginations new GX6650 GPU (192 cores) but only clocked at half the speed of the K1. Don't know if this is true though. GPU is the most important part for gaming while the CPU is mostly used for physics and other low level calculations. However, the CPU is still very important for open world games where things going on in the background even if you can't see them.
I'm excited about 128 gig on these devices ! My app hording senses are going crazy thinking how much i can install !!
I haven't looked at figures, but I think a 20% CPU boost is pretty typical and a 50% GPU boost is more than enough to cover the higher resolution - and the 5s that this is a boost from is still a high end phone. I have no problem with the specs in that respect - and I'm over the moon about 128gb storage - 64gb was killing me. The only thing I could have asked for that I didn't get was 2gb ram - and maybe a smaller bezel at the top.
That's another downer for me. Although it hasn't been proved yet (i think), the RAM is still 1gb. The 6s will probably get 2gb of RAM and that's what i'll be getting
Honestly, I have an iPhone 4 and there is really no need to buy a new PHONE for gaming, so I'll just wait it out for an iPhone 5 upgrade or mate even an ipod 6.
battery tech Funny with all this high-tech world we still have battery power problems. Solutions could be hidden away thrown in to vaults of course. What's difference between iPhone 4 and 5s?
I had an iphone 4 but found more and more games crashing due to the low memory of the iphone 4. As much as i like Apple i'm not going to spend a ridiculous amount of money like $700 on a new phone or a stupid priced contract where i have to pay $50+ a month for years. So i 'upgraded' to a 4s, bought one off ebay, its been perfect, much faster than the 4 and nothing crashes. You can get them cheap off ebay, sold my iphone 4 16 gig for £120. Picked up a 64 gig iphone 4s off ebay for £200, so for £80 i've got a better phone and far larger memory. Best £80 i've spent !