After waking up this morning to an email from the Apple Store telling me that “the iPhone 5 is here”, it left me thinking, is it really worth it?

Having recently sold my ancient Sony Ericsson Xperia 10, I’ve been keeping a close eye on the smartphone market for the last few months, looking for my next phone. As soon as news of the iPhone 5 got out, I decided I’d wait for it and see, then decide whether I’d buy an iPhone or a Galaxy S III.

As I’m sure you’re aware, the iPhone 5 was a bit of a disappointment to me and to a lot of other people out there. Other than 4G LTE, the iPhone 5 doesn’t really come with any “groundbreaking features” that we haven’t seen before.

Specs-wise, the iPhone is pretty “good”. Powered by a dual-core, A6 processor at 1.02 GHz, you can’t really argue that it’s bad — who needs a quad-core phone, really?

Evenly matched with the Galaxy S III, the iPhone 5 features 1 GB of RAM, and in terms of internal storage, you get the usual 16, 32 and 64GB.  Unlike a lot of other high-end smartphones though, the iPhone 5 still doesn’t offer a microSD card slot (but I can’t see Apple adding one anytime soon).

When it comes to the camera, it’s all pretty much been seen before. Same, boring old 8 mega-pixel iSight Camera with LED flash. Apple have finally implemented Panorama (something that should’ve been there from the very start) and this is available on the 4S and new iPod Touch too. Hardly “exclusive”. The front facing camera has had a small upgrade (thank goodness), going from, simply put, awful (VGA) to 1.2 mega-pixels, with 720p video recording support.

Now, the iPhone 5′s new screen is probably the biggest thing about the phone. Just as rumored, Apple went and stretched the iPhone upwards by 0.37-inches, keeping its original width. Keeping the same 326ppi as the iPhone 4 and 4S, the iPhone 5′s resolution is now 1136×640 — just short of HD. But on a 4″ screen with 326ppi, it doesn’t really get any higher in definition than that.

 The biggest flaw I think to the iPhone 5 is that it’s not “new”. Other than that ridiculous Lightning port, it doesn’t feature anything we haven’t seen before. The CPU is slower than a lot of others on the market, the cameras aren’t especially “WOW”, the “new” OS isn’t “new”, and the design basically sucks. To top it off is a ridiculous price tag! Saying all this though, the iPhone 5 STILL managed to beat all previous sale records and get 2 million pre-orders with 24 hours! That works out at about 23 iPhone orders every second!  How Apple manage it? I am still clueless!

So. Is it worth it? Short answer? Well, it really depends on how you look at it. True, the iPhone 5 may not be as powerful as other competitors out there, however, even with all its flaws, it still is one helluva of a good phone. If you’ve currently got an iPhone 4S then no, it’s not worth it. But if you’re on an iPhone 4 or lower, or even on any other outdated smartphone, then yes, it is worth it.

I’m a bit indecisive at the moment as to what to buy, but I’m about 96% sure that I’ll end up with an iPhone.

Did you buy the iPhone 5 today? Did you pre-order it on Wednesday? Or did you go for the S III? Let me know in the comments box below.