iPhone 5 has been officially released by tech giant Apple Inc., after months and months of speculations and internet buzz on what will be the 6th and most recent generation of the iPhone would look like.

During the grand press launch in San Francisco, California, on Wednesday, September 12, 2012, Apple Inc. officially launched the highly-anticipated iPhone 5.

Some of the rumors published on Technology blog “Tech Crunch” saying that iPhone 5 is slimmer, lighter and faster were all true!

Based from Apple Senior Vice President Phil Schiller‘s announcement, here are the specifications of the iPhone 5:

• The iPhone 5 is 18% thinner and has 12% less overall volume than the iPhone 4s/
• The iPhone 5 is 20% lighter/
• The iPhone 5 features an improved processor called the Apple A6, which is claimed to achieve twice the performance of the A5.
• The iPhone 5 includes 4G LTE connectivity.
• The iPhone 5 built-in camera has improved low light performance, and is 40% faster than in iPhone 4s. It has a built-in panorama mode and lets users snap photos while recording video at the same time. The rear camera has an 8 MP back-side illuminated sensor with HD video of up to 1080 pixels. The front camera captures 1.2 MP with HD video of up to 720 pixels.
• The iPhone 5 battery, a built-in rechargeable lithium-ion polymer battery is rated at 225 hours of standby time, 8 hours of talk time and 8 hours of 3G and LTE web browsing.
• The iPhone 5’s 4-inch retina display has a much-improved 1,136 x 640 pixel with aspect ratio close to 16:9.
• The iPhone 5 has storage capacities of 16, 32 or 64 GB.
• The iPhone 5 has two color options: blak with black glass and slate gray colored metal trim, and white with white glass and silver colored metal trim.
• The SIM will be a nano-SIM, which is smaller than the micro-SIM fitted to the iPhone 4 and 4S.
• The iPhone 5 has a smaller, improved audio speaker.
• The iPhone 5 has 3 microphones located at front, back, and bottom.
• The iPhone 5 has an all-digital, eight-pin Dock Connector called “Lightning” which replaces the older 30-pin dock connector on older iPhones, iPads and iPods.

Despite these impressive improvements, two features that have been rising in popularity but didn’t make it to the sixth-generation iPhone are near field communications (NFC) and wireless charging.

NFC is the technology that allows users to tap a credit card on a receiver to transfer information instead of swiping the magnetic strip. It’s getting popular around the world but I guess, iPhone aficionados can live without it.

The gadget will be available in 16, 32, and 64GB models in the US, which will cost $199, $299, and $399 respectively with a two-year contract from a mobile service provider.

iPhone 5 pre-orders begins on September 14 and shipping begins on September 21st.