"What is Ubisoft," I ask Siri. The only reason I ask that question is I have an package from Ubisoft on my desk. And I have no imagination.


"Would you like to do a websearch for ‘You Be Soft'," replies Siri.

"Try talking in a proper Scottish accent," says Tracey, sitting beside me. "Go full Scottish."


I see this as a challenge. I must rise to it.

"Do ye ken ra best bit fur me tae go an' git ah boatle ae Buckie?" I said, as quickly and as Scottishly as possible. (English translation: ‘Do you know the best place for a gentleman like myself to find a nice bottle of red wine?")

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"Would you like to do a websearch for ‘campestris from your melbourne hockey'?" Asks Siri.

I get the impression this isn't getting anyone anywhere fast. I decide to play some games instead.


Being the owner of an iPhone 3GS, which is getting a bit long in the tooth, the iPhone 4S was a big leap forward for me. Siri is a complete bust as far as I'm concerned—a gimmick that gets a bit stale after 10 minutes asking it dirty questions—but as someone who plays games every single day on his iPhone, I was interested in the higher resolution, and increased processing power of this new model.

I wasn't disappointed—although you could argue I'm not hard to please. The retina display on the iPhone 4S is the precise same the one in the preceding model, but for someone like myself – who's hardly spent much time with the iPhone 4—it feels like a grand leap forward. Things feel smoother, they feel faster. Those who already have an iPhone 4, however, may struggle to see a difference.


To be fair, though, the majority of my iPhone gaming is spent playing games like Doodle Jump, Tiny Wings or Collision Effect. These are not hardware intensive games, hardly games that require the added grunt of the iPhone 4S. What is affected however, and this is where I perceived a noticeable difference, is that loading times are quicker—particularly when it comes to more beefy games like Infinity Blade, which can take a while to load.

So should you upgrade? Well, I probably will, because I don't have an iPhone 4, but those that do have a far trickier decision on their hands. I'm going to say it probably isn't worth the hassle—especially if your primary purpose for upgrading is games.


But just to make sure, maybe I'll ask Siri, to see what she thinks.

"Siri, should I upgrade to an iPhone 4S for games?" I ask.

"Sorry," comes the reply, "I don't understand ‘should I upgrade to the iPhone for S4 teens."


Thanks to Vodafone for providing an iPhone 4S for us to check out.

This post originally appeared on Kotaku Australia.