The general verdict on the iPhone 5 seems to be, Maps application aside, that it’s an absolutely killer product. And now Consumer Reports has added its weighty voice to this consensus by declaring that the iPhone 5 is not only one of the best smartphones it’s ever reviewed but has dubbed it “the best iPhone yet.” This is particularly noteworthy because Consumer Reports has never been a rubberstamp for Apple (AAPL) products, especially when it famously refused to recommend the iPhone 4 over the “Antennagate” flap. Happily for Apple, though, the publication has no such qualms about its latest smartphone.
In particular, Consumer Reports praised the device’s “larger, 4-inch display,” its “thinner and lighter profile” and “4G LTE access” and said that Apple had added “a host of innovative features” to make the iPhone 5 a world-class smartphone. The publication also heaped praise upon improvements to the Siri voice assistant and said that the smartphone’s 8-megapixel camera was the best it had ever seen on a smartphone outside of the 41-megapixel camera featured on Nokia’s (NOK) 808 PureView. Consumer Reports even pulls its punches on the widely-derided Maps app, calling it “competent enough, even if it falls short of what’s available for free on many other phones.”