> 2x the CPU speed and 7x the GPU speed

The camera upgrades are anything bug marginal as well (high reduction in noise, significantly higher quality especially in lower light conditions, much lower deformations in corners, and the capture speed improvements, from off and from a previous picture, is extremely significant both relatively to the iPhone 4 and in absolute terms of usage and usability)

I wondered the same thing when the iPad 2 was labeled as a "marginal" upgrade. Any time you more than double the performance of something, that's hardly a marginal upgrade. No one would consider doubling the horsepower in their car a marginal upgrade. I'm not sure why we see it applied to iOS devices.

Maybe it's because the performance numbers are abstracted away so much more for mobile devices. Most mobile phone buyers probably view their phone as a black box. It does what it's supposed to do (hopefully) and that's about it. They don't know or care about the internals, so the outside gets so much more attention. If the outside isn't updated then it seems like it's a marginal update.

I find the ipad2 to be a marginal upgrade. I've got both, and really, the biggest difference is that the 2 is white. Safari is a bit snappier, but it's not 2x faster. It's got a camera, but, eh, I can't say I get much use out of it.

(I wasn't planning on getting the 2, but I won a coding contest. So, not looking a prize in the mouth and all that)

If they had changed the "4S" to "5" with identical hardware I think he would have been happy ;)

The camera updates alone were brilliant.

Is the 1 GHz A5 twice as fast as the 1 GHz A4 or are you saying that dual core means twice as fast?

The iPhone 4's A4 chip was clocked at 800 MHz, only the iPad had it at 1 GHz. I don't know what the A5 is clocked at in the iPhone 4S, but it's certainly possible it is faster clocked as well as dual-core.