This is according to technology analyst Simon Leps, CEO of Fontera Digital Works, who will have his new iPhone 5 next week.

While Leps believes the new phone will be available on sale in South Africa by Christmas, Vodacom said yesterday it does not have a release date yet.

"We don't have any information on the launch date at this stage," said a Vodacom spokesman.

MTN did not respond to inquiries.

Leps said the phone will go on sale in seven countries from by September 21 - but 100 other countries (including South Africa) would have to wait for Christmas.

And even though Samsung's Galaxy S3 is "a great device", Leps believes one should not really draw comparisons between it and the iPhone 5.

What Apple did was not to do anything radical.

"They made a lot of very basic smaller upgrades but if you add them together they come to something awesome," he said.

Apple did not surprise many geeks who have been speculating about the iPhone 5's release for months. An innovative way of predicting what the secretive Apple will have in its new devices is to look at the hardware the company orders from around the world.

One surprise, though, was its A6 chip. The chip is smaller and supposedly much faster.

"It was expected that they would stay with the A5, but with the A6 it should make the phone twice as fast," said Leps.

Some of the other changes include:

• 4G capability that supports up to 100 Mbps;

Up to 150 Mbps Wi-Fi with 2.4 and 5 GHz support for 802.11n networks;

• Better battery life than the iPhone 4S: 10 hours of Wi-Fi browsing, for example;
• A thinner 8 megapixel camera sensor and better performance in low light;
• New panorama mode for wide images; and
• Wideband audio for richer voice conversations.

"They did not try to match Samsung and the other Android phones head on. The new iPhone doesn't have wireless charging, for example," said Leps.

But it does win hands down when one considers everything that comes with it.

"Apple redesigned its iTunes platform as part of this launch," he said.

Leps said the way the iPhone integrates software and hardware still gives it the lead when it comes to smartphones.

Whereas Samsung's S3 and Nokia's new Lumia have impressive hardware and new software, they just do not gel as well as on Apple's iPhone.

"Apple is not playing that game of jamming as many gadgets into the phone as possible. They are going for other things," Leps said.