It's no wonder

When an opportunity came up to upgrade to an iPhone 4S and remain cost neutral, I took it. I mainly expected a slight performance bump given the reviews I'd read.

When I went from the 3G to the iPhone 4, it was a major bump.  Responsiveness, multi-tasking and all that good stuff felt satisfying.  So perhaps on this upgrade, my expectations were lower.

I skim read a number of reviews and thought that the only thing I thought I'd enjoy getting to grips with was Siri.

Surprisingly, I was wrong.  And on a variety of counts:

1. Firstly, compared to its predecessor, the 4S is much more smoother and fast. App loading and switching are all markedly quicker than before.
2. The screen is brighter and I see a better white balance and colour clarity compared to the 4.
3. Wifi performance now consistently picks up 28-30mbps on my fibre link.
4. Web pages, even on 3G load much quicker.  
5. Listening to Spotify streams and loading RSS feeds or web pages, feels seamless. Heck, even the audio seems more polished, but that could be for other reasons.
6. The cell signal for voice and data is a lot better.  Taking the same journey everyday to my office, I notice the higher bars on the voice side  I can read pages and tweet in places where the 3G signal on the 4 was borderline.

I could go on, but feel that's not needed. The only downside, is that the battery sucks down noticeably quicker. Same usage pattern, but I'm reaching for a recharge when I get home in the evenings. I doubt, it would get me through a day of travel the way the 4 or most Blackberry's would.

My experience seems to match up with AnandTechs deeply technical review.

Same appearance, but much better phone overall.  It's no wonder it sold by a record bucket load for Apple in FY11 Q4.