The iPhone 4S is a definite upgrade to the iPhone 4, but only on the inside. And getting an "updated" phone that looks the same as your old one, make it seem scarily old fashioned and severely blunted in its cutting-edge-ness.
The much-shouted-about Siri voice recognition is probably the device's main claim to fame. I asked Siri to define cutting-edge-ness, because I thought it would be fun to get a translation of gibberish. But the furthest I got was "Shall I search the web for cutting edge nurse".
Don't get me wrong, I like Siri (in the UK Siri is male, in the US female). He needs a data connection to work and when he's good, he's very very good. But when he's bad, he's very annoying.
His major drawback is he only works properly in the US. Outside there, he can't find you a local restaurant or business because Apple hasn't done a deal yet with an information provider. So you get a lot of "I'm sorry, I can't help you with that".
But tell him to send an email and he will. He'll ask you who the email is to be sent to. You say "Mary", he says "marry?", you say "no, Mary" he then says "Mary" as well. And you then dictate your email, remembering to say "full stop" and "comma" or it will just be a stream of words.
Then you must find Mary's email address. If you've got a few Marys in your address book, or Mary has more than one email address, it gets a bit complicated. You usually end up prodding the device screen to choose which email address to use.
But, eventually you have the finished email and Siri asks if you want to send it. You say yes. If you have no sight problems (for which Siri could be very useful indeed), you know it would have taken half the time to have used your fingers, but you do get to thank Siri at the end. He replies with "It's been a pleasure" and makes the whole thing worthwhile.
I hasten to add that using Siri for very simple queries, like "what's the weather forecast today" is excellent. He opens your weather app to let you have a look. And setting an alarm is a doddle, although you may find yourself checking manually in case Siri has made a mistake.
It's the best voice-recognition ever, but it's still not quite there. Hopefully, you'll be able to watch Siri improve with updates. He should be called Elisa.
As for the rest of the phone, It's noticeably faster than the iPhone 4, which was pretty speedy anyway. This really shows when surfing with the Safari browser. It really does zip through loading websites.
Even opening apps is faster and the more powerful dual-core processor doesn't take a toll on battery life, which seems much the same as its predecessor.
And the camera is stunning. It's been boosted to 8-megapixels, has touch focus and face-recognition. This, added to iOS5's method of opening the camera pp from the lockscreen and using the volume key to snap, makes the camera much easier to use and the results are noticeably better, especially photos taken in lowish light.
If you've already got an iPhone 4, this newcomer is a small upgrade that after a couple of days of playing with Siri (in the nicest possible way) and taking photos of everything that moves or doesn't move, you'll be feeling you're with a familiar old friend.
For people who don't have an iPhone 4, the 4S will be a stunning upgrade - fantastically fast and with a built-in friend (Siri), even if it is a friend still taking baby steps.
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