The iPhone 4S may not look that different from the iPhone 4 on the outside, but the internal components have been upgraded across the board.
In addition to having a higher-resolution sensor, the iPhone 4S's camera also features an improved lens. It uses a five-element design and has a maximum aperture of f/2.4, which lets in 50 percent more light than the f/2.8 lens found on the iPhone 4. And you can now fire the shutter using the Volume Up button on the phone thanks to iOS 5, which greatly improves usability.
At the iPhone launch event, Apple vice president Phil Schiller claimed that the new phone's 8-megapixel camera would be the best that many people have ever owned. But is it good enough to replace a point-and-shoot camera?
I ran the iPhone 4S through the same series of tests that are performed on the cameras here in the PCMag Labs. I used Imatest to measure the image sharpness and noise—although the noise test was a bit difficult as there is no way to manually adjust the camera's sensitivity to light. In terms of sharpness, the 4S captured 1,186 lines per picture height—much better than the 711 lines recorded by the iPhone 4 or the 899 lines captured by the HTC Amaze. Our Editors' Choice for budget cameras, the $130 Panasonic Lumix DMC-S3 records 1,615 lines, which is much closer to the 1,800 lines required for an acceptably sharp image.
Image noise was at 1.1 percent at ISO 100, which was the setting that the phone defaulted to under our studio lights. Under the same conditions, the iPhone 4 recorded 1.3 percent noise, approaching the 1.5 percent that denotes an image that is overly grainy. I moved the color test chart to various areas in the lab trying to get the phone to shoot at a higher ISO. I was able to push it to ISO 640, where noise crossed the 4 percent mark—which would be considered downright awful in a point-and-shoot. The Lumix S3 records 1.2 percent noise at ISO 800 and hits the 1.5 percent mark at ISO 1600.
The 4S does a great job in terms of speed. There is virtually no shutter lag, only a 0.7-second wait between shots, and the camera app launches in about 1.5 seconds. This is an upgrade over the iPhone 4, which pauses about 1.4 seconds between shots and takes 2.4 seconds to launch the camera app. The Lumix S3 starts in 1.8 seconds, but requires you to wait 1.8 seconds between photos and records a 0.4-second shutter lag.
There are other drawbacks to the iPhone 4S's camera. It doesn't have any optical zoom, which is typical for a cell phone camera, but almost unheard of in a point-and-shoot camera. The 8-megapixel resolution will allow you to crop a little bit, but the sharpness level is pretty low, so don't expect a lot of detail in heavily cropped photos. Photos will look good on the Web, but even a 4x6 print will pale in comparison to that made from a half-decent camera.
Chances are that most of the photos you snap with the iPhone are destined for email, Twitter, Facebook, and Flickr—but there's always the possibility that you grab a shot that you'd love to make into a larger print. The iPhone's huge advantage is that it's almost always going to be in your pocket. Serious photographers may carry a camera with them wherever they go, but they are in the minority. You won't find a better camera in a cell phone, but for family events and other times when you know that you're going to take photos, a dedicated camera is a much better choice.
For more, see PCMag's full review of the iPhone 4S and the slideshow below. Also check out How to Get Apple's iOS 5 as well as PCMag's full review of iOS 5 and our Hands On With Apple iCloud.