The new Apple iPhone 4S looks much like the previous iPhone 4, although it’s a different model to the iPhone 4 that was sold in Australia. The 4S design is based off the CDMA Verizon iPhone 4, which means if you’re upgrading from an iPhone 4, your case may have trouble fitting, due to the offset for the mute switch being different.

That aside, this looks like an iPhone 4. However internally there is a lot that is different. It includes the AS processor first shown in the iPad 2 and the effect is remarkable — this is a speedy smartphone that powers through most basic tasks.

The A5 is a dual-core chip, giving it significant processing and graphical power updates, although few apps so far will really push the graphics side of it just yet.

The camera in the iPhone 4S has also been improved and now has an 8MP sensor tied into a f/2.4 lens, giving it excellent low-light shooting capabilities with 1080p video recording. Both worked very well in our tests and it’s possible to take some quite stunning shots.

A major new inclusion is Siri, Apple’s much-touted voice-guided “intelligent assistant”. Siri relies on a net connection to quickly upload spoken voice samples and intelligently meet user requests.

Australian English is one of the standard voice types and it’s well worth picking for the change in accuracy it brings, with one major caveat. There’s no location-aware assistance outside the US just yet, which means if you ask Siri where the nearest anything is, it’ll respond that location features only work in the US.

The official Apple line is that it hopes to bring location-aware Siri outside the States sometime in 2012, but there’s no solid timeline announcement for Australia yet. That said, Siri’s a step above the voice guidance found in most other phones.

For existing iPhone 4 users, the iPhone 4S is a speed bump with Siri and that is about it. Anyone coming off a iPhone 3GS contract or switching from another phone should definitely consider it.

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iPhone 4S Pricing

The 16GB iPhone 4S costs $799 outright; the 32GB model is $899, and the 64GB is $999. The 8GB iPhone 4 remains on sale from Apple for $679, as does an 8GB 3GS for $449.

Cheapest plan prices are all from Vodafone on a $29 Cap Contract over 2 years: iPhone 4S 16Gb – $44 per month,
iPhone 4S 32Gb – $49 per month, iPhone 4S 64Gb – $54 oer month.