Apple iPhone 4S review

Slightly less obvious is the upgraded antenna, which is said to eliminate the ‘grip of death’ signal problems which blighted the previous model at launch. As there are two antennae instead of one, the phone now works worldwide. Until now, you had to choose between GSM and CDMA models, but the iPhone 4S will operate in every country.

Finally, there’s Siri. This improves immensely on the iPhone 4’s voice command facility, which wasn’t very accurate, or useful. In combination with other new features in iOS 5 this ‘intelligent assistant’ can set reminders, play songs, send emails and text messages, make calls, wake you up in the morning, answer maths problems and more. Siri works with almost all the built-in apps (not Twitter, though), so you can ask it to find a weather forecast, read out a text message, find information on the internet and start a timer. It’s particularly useful if you’re blind or visually impaired.

You can speak in natural language at a normal pace. For example, you could, “Set a reminder to record Downton Abbey at 9pm on Sunday” and it will show the transcribed text, plus the reminder. You can then tap the Confirm button, or confirm by voice. Similarly, you can say, “What will the weather be like on Sunday”, and if more than five days away will apologise and then show a summary of the forecast.

The service is currently in Beta, which means it can’t answer certain questions in the UK. It can only look for businesses, maps and traffic information in the US at the moment. In our tests Siri struggled with strong regional accents, but worked reliably in quiet environments when speaking clearly.

As with Dragon Dictation, a free app that’s been available for a while on the iPhone, Siri has to send data to Apple’s servers for processing. The transcription isn’t carried out on the iPhone 4S’s dual-core processor. This will eat into your data allowance, and means that Siri will not function if you don’t have a Wi-Fi or data connection via your mobile provider.

The good news is that Siri understands spoken punctuation, and inserted commas and full stops in our text messages and emails. Where Siri is supported in an application, you’ll see an additional microphone key on the keyboard. Siri’s voice, it has to be said, has also got a long way to go before it sounds natural. The English voice sounds rather stunted.

Our main criticism of the iPhone 4S, however, is the price. At £360 on an 18-month contract, it’s hugely more expensive than any other handset. However, it’s currently the most powerful and also has the best photo and video quality of any smartphone. It’s also backed by iTunes and the App Store with over half a million apps – no rival can beat this combination currently. If you have deep pockets, the iPhone 4S won’t disappoint.