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Offline Smithk4

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Windows Phones compared to their competition
« on: September 23, 2012, 06:59:17 AM »
I thought it would be interesting to note how the Windows phones (both released and yet to be released) compare to their competition:
Note: this is just the view point from one source only!

First up iPhone 5 vs Samsung Ativ S



FormThe Ativ S is something of a breakthrough phone for Samsung in terms of design.

With the company’s recent crop of Android devices having unpleasant feeling plastic bodyshells it’s refreshing to see something with an aluminium chassis at last.

Apart from the materials used it is more or less business as usual with the Ativ S bearing plenty of signature Samsung styling from the Galaxy S3.

That’s no bad thing of course, as the curvy, thin and overall slick bodywork has an appealing aesthetic, particularly when it’s all in a nice bare-metal finish which looks suitably futuristic.

Most of the back panel is fairly minimalist, except for the necessary camera port of course, however, there’s also a really smart looking mesh grille at the bottom of the handset which finishes things off nicely.

The front panel housing for the screen is black and sits inside the wrap-around metallic bodywork, it has a very narrow bezel along the longer edges while the top and bottom are evenly spaced to give a clean look.

Overall, we’re extremely impressed with Samsung’s work here.

The iPhone 5 is similarly well-executed, but on the visual design front it’s much less adventurous.

It’s larger than its predecessor and uses an aluminium unibody, but apart from that it’s the same old design as previous iPhones.

Winner – Samsung Ativ S

Display

Historically Apple has set the bar for smartphone displays with its Retina IPS technology.

With the iPhone 5, the Retina IPS display is still present and correct, but it’s a bit bigger this time round at 4-inches rather than 3.5-inches, as was tradition.

Consequently, however, it hasn’t moved up in the world by re-defining pixel density boundaries. It has a higher resolution than its predecessors at 1136x640 pixels but the pixel density is actually slightly lower than the iPhone 4S’s 330 pixels-per-inch (ppi) at 326ppi.

Still, it delivers excellent quality visuals and the colour saturation has also been improved.

The Ativ S’s screen is a colossal 4.8-inches of Super AMOLED HD glass with a 1280x720 pixel resolution and Samsung has still managed to push out a 306ppi pixel density.

It’s therefore delivering a visual clarity virtually as good as the iPhone 5’s at nearly an inch larger on the screen real estate, so video, photos, games and webpages are all going to look fantastic.

Super AMOLED also means blacks and dark colours will have greater depth and contrast will be well above average – Samsung’s displays also typically have very rich colours.

Both handsets have Gorilla Glass reinforcement for their touch displays.

In this contest we think Samsung has the edge with more or less equal image quality to the iPhone 5, but a significantly bigger screen to make using the Ativ S for media consumption that much more enjoyable.

Winner – Samsung Ativ S

Storage

The iPhone 5 has Apple’s usual selection of 16GB, 32GB and 64GB options for onboard storage but no MicroSD slot for expanding via cards.

So far, Samsung’s Ativ S is the only Windows Phone 8 model and flagship to offer both 16GB and 32GB storage variants, but better still it’s the only Windows Phone flagship to date with MicroSD capability for cards up to 32GB.

Obviously your preference here will depend on whether you value the higher onboard storage granted by the premium iPhone 5 variant or the flexibility of MicroSD on all versions of the Ativ S.

On balance we’re calling this a draw.

Winner - Draw

Processor

Apple’s iPhone 5 is equipped with the company’s new A6 dual core chipset, which is based on some heavily tweaked ARM Cortex-A9 architecture.

It’s still clocked at 1GHz and uses 1GB of RAM, just like its predecessor, but is now about twice as quick with similar doubling of speeds for the graphics processing unit (GPU).

Samsung has opted for a Qualcomm S4 Snapdragon dual core chip clocked at 1.5GHz with 1GB of RAM and an Adreno 225 GPU.

Both setups are going to be extremely quick, but for general running and navigation of their well-optimised operating systems they’re already well into overkill territory.

The main reason for this extra power is going to be so that both can run the current crop of apps and games well and continue to do so competently as content gets more advanced in the near future.

Both devices are going probably going to be fairly equal on this front.

Winner - Draw

Operating System

The new version of Apple’s iOS operating system, iOS 6, is about as lukewarm and upgrade as we’ve seen from the company in recent years.

Once again, Apple has rolled out the ‘more than 200 changes’ tagline but as usual the majority of these are apparently small back-end fixes rather than anything groundbreaking.

Siri has supposedly been tweaked to be a bit more responsive on certain subjects, such as films, while the deep Twitter integration from previous builds is now joined by a similar treatment for Facebook.

One of the most significant changes is also one of the worst, Apple has dropped Google’s mapping for its Maps application and instead is now using its own data, with somewhat disastrous results.

For the end user, the more pleasing updates are going to be the long overdue revamps Apple has given its various storefronts, such as iTunes, but as this isn’t the sole territory of the iOS operating system this isn’t an area where we can really award any kind of point scoring.

Samsung’s Ativ S runs Microsoft’s new Windows Phone 8 platform, which makes it difficult to talk about at any length because, at this point, only a relatively small selection of its features have been revealed and only vaguely at that.

We know, for example, that Microsoft has placed plenty of emphasis on gaming this time around, in particular the fact that both Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8 have been developed with the same fundamental architecture, which supports advanced stuff like Direct3D, DirectX, Havok physics and more.

But, we don’t yet know what this’ll mean for the end user.

Similar areas of interest are Skype integration from the ground up, interface customisation, cloud services, Xbox Smartglass and Xbox Live, to name but a few.

But, importantly, it has plenty of promise – it sounds exciting even if we’re not sure exactly what we should be excited about. That’s more than we can say for iOS.

Winner – Samsung Ativ S

Camera

The iPhone 5’s camera hasn’t changed dramatically from the admittedly rather good iSight setup found in the iPhone 4S.

That means you get an 8-megapixel back-illuminated sensor (BSI), an enlarged f/2.4 aperture, a 5-stage lens, LED flash, 1080p video capture, face and smile detection and some excellent digital image and video stabilisation.

You’ve also got the addition of a new panoramic capture mode. Generally speaking it’s all good stuff and the quality is top notch.

More significant is the upgrade of the front-facing camera, which now delivers 720p HD video for FaceTime video calls, and can support video calling over 3G/4G as well as good old Wi-Fi.

The Ativ S also has an 8-megapixel, 1080p video capable BSI setup, complete with an LED flash.

It has an f/2.6 aperture, so might not be quite as sharp as the iPhone 5, but generally the difference in quality probably won’t be all that noticeable.

Samsung’s phone also has a 1.9-megapixel front-facing camera.

We’d say these setups are comparable.

Winner - Draw

Final Thoughts

On the whole our feeling is that although the fundamental hardware of the iPhone 5 is solid – in particular the processor, memory and camera – the complete package is fairly uninspiring.

The change in visual design isn’t dramatic enough and the screen isn’t a significant enough leap from its predecessor – this last point is a key area in which new iPhones need to excel, and the iPhone 5 simply doesn’t.

On the opposite side of the fence, the Ativ S is one of the better devices we’ve seen from Samsung in a long while and one of the most cohesive.

The design is brilliant, it’s got plenty of power and the new operating system is very tantalising. It’s easily just as appealing as the other Windows Phone 8 flagships already announced from Nokia and HTC.


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Offline Smithk4

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Re: Windows Phones compared to their competition
« Reply #1 on: September 23, 2012, 07:14:36 AM »
Also Windows phone vs Windows Phone

Windows Phone 8X by HTC vs Nokia Lumia 920



Form

Windows Phone 8X by HTC - 132.35x66.2x10.12mm, 130g

Nokia Lumia 920 - 130.3x70.8x10.7mm, 185g

At first glance you might be forgiven for thinking these handsets are part of the same range, as there is something very Nokia Lumia about the Windows Phone 8X by HTC.

The main reason for this is that it’s a very angular slab with a brightly coloured unibody shell, just like Nokia’s Lumiu 920.

On closer inspection, however, you might notice the 8X features softened corners, a slightly angular and contoured back panel instead of the Lumia’s gently curved equivalent and, of course, HTC’s logo.

While both devices have slightly different interpretations of the same aesthetic, in both cases it’s well executed – the phones look nice to the eye and feel good in the hand.

In terms of build quality there’s very little between these two phones as both are their respective manufacturers’ premium Windows Phone flagships. Materials used are of a high standard and the fit and finish is top notch.

Winner – Draw

Display

The 8X has a 4.3-inch Super LCD 2 capacitive multi-touch display with optical lamination, a 1280x720 pixel HD resolution and Gorilla Glass reinforcement.

Colour depth, brightness and sharpness are all excellent and the pixel density trumps the iPhone 5 at 341 pixels-per-inch (ppi).

Nokia’s Lumia 920 uses a 4.5-inch IPS LCD curved glass touchscreen with a couple of clever technologies laid on top.

First up is a newly improved version of Nokia’s ClearBlack tech, previously we’ve mainly seen this on AMOLED screens where it always makes a considerable improvement to blacks and dark colours, contrast and, in particular, glare reduction in bright sunlight.

The second addition is a brand new technology called Nokia PureMotion HD +, which delivers a fast refresh rate for smoother visuals and, according to Nokia, puts out a ‘better than HD’ picture quality.

The resolution is 1280x768 and this gives a pixel density of 332ppi, which should deliver fantastically crisp visual clarity.

We think the HTC has the edge here with its higher pixel density, but that said both are top-of-the range displays and with each at well over 300ppi most users probably won’t notice a difference.

Winner – Draw

Storage

The Nokia Lumia 920 comes with 32GB of storage, double that of the HTC 8X’s 16GB. Neither device has MicroSD capability.

Winner – Nokia Lumia 920

Processor

Both phones are fitted with Qualcomm’s Series 4 (S4) Snapdragon dual core chipsets clocked at 1.5GHz with Adreno graphics processors and 1GB of dual-channel RAM.

Performance should be equal as they’re both also running the well-optimised Windows Phone software from Microsoft.

Winner – Draw

Operating System

With both handsets on Windows Phone 8 there’s not much to compare the two, especially as Microsoft is keeping further details of the platform’s capabilities under wraps.

Windows Phone 8 will allow greater customisation of the interface, with resizable Live Tiles and more choice in theme colours, but these are changes Windows Phone 7 will get too through the 7.8 update.

The more interesting and exclusive stuff, such as voice control, Skype and Xbox Live integration and DirectX gaming support, are areas we still know very little about and are also only the tip of the Windows Phone 8 iceberg.

Ultimately both devices should deliver a similar end-user experience and be equally capable of doing so.

Winner – Draw

Camera

The 8X runs a similar setup to the premium members of HTC’s One Android range.

You get an 8-megapixel back-illuminated (BSI) sensor with a f/2.0 aperture and a dedicated chip capable of capturing HD 1080p video and still images simultaneously.

It also has a rapid multi-shot mode, LED flash and HDR.

The Nokia Lumia 920 is the first Windows Phone device to be branded with Nokia’s Pureview camera label.

However, it doesn’t have the pioneering 41-megpixel oversampling setup we saw on the Nokia 808 Pureview Symbian phone.

Instead, it’s an 8-megapixel BSI sensor with a Carl Zeiss lens and large f/2.0 aperture, touch focus, autofocus, dual LED flash, Optical image stabilization, exposure compensation and 1080p video capture.

These setups should be on a par.

Winner - Draw

Final Thoughts

In most categories these two flagships are on an equal footing – they both have superior display tech, fast and forward-looking processor setups and great cameras.

However, neither has MicroSD capability, which is something of a let-down, and the Lumia 920 certainly holds the cards here with twice the onboard storage space.


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Offline Smithk4

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Re: Windows Phones compared to their competition
« Reply #2 on: September 23, 2012, 07:48:20 AM »
Windows phone vs Windows Phone

Windows Phone 8S by HTC vs Nokia Lumia 820



Form

Windows Phone 8S by HTC - 120.5x63x10.3 mm, 113g

Nokia Lumia 820 - 123.8x68.5x9.9mm, 160g

As with our comparison of the two flagships, the Nokia Lumia 920 and the Windows Phone 8X, Nokia and HTC have produced very similar looking devices in their respective mid-range offerings too.

Both handsets have a starkly rectangular form factor, but the corners and edges have been softened noticeably, although where the Lumia 820 has a very flat back panel the HTC 8S slopes upwards slightly with a contoured shape.

Each phone is also flat on the front (there’s none of the Lumia 920’s curved glass here) and both feature a glossy black front panel to house the display and separate it from the brightly contrasting bodywork, which forms a narrow strip around the outside edge.

It’s also worth mentioning that with the Lumia 820 Nokia has revived part of its past, it’s the first device in a long time to feature interchangeable back covers.

As well as offering you a range of colours to switch between, there are also some covers which will offer additional functionality. So far we know of a ‘rugged’ cover to give extra protection and a wireless charging cover, which does what the name implies.

HTC hasn’t gone down this route, but it’s determined to spruce up its lower-priced Windows Phone model with some fancy two-tone colouration. On the whole this works well and is very striking, although the yellow and silver variant is a little too eye-searing for our tastes. We have to say the two-tone blue model is our favourite.

Both phones have received a great deal of attention on their visual design and build quality. There really isn’t anything to push one out ahead of the other. Unless, of course, interchangeable back covers are your favourite phone feature ever.

Winner – Draw

Display

The Lumia 820 features a 4.3-inch AMOLED multitouch display with an 800x480 pixel resolution, a 217 pixels-per-inch (ppi) pixel density and Nokia’s ClearBlack technology, which improves both contrast and black and dark colour depth, as well as reducing glare in bright lighting conditions.

This setup should be suitably crisp and produce vivid colours, it’ll also be fairly battery friendly with darker homescreen backgrounds.

HTC has opted for the Super LCD route for the 8S’s 4-inch 800x480 pixel screen, which puts out a slightly higher 233ppi pixel density than its rival.

This is another draw as both manufacturers have delivered excellent quality displays.

Winner - Draw

Storage

The HTC 8S has 4GB of onboard storage space, providing only half of the Lumia 820’s 8GB. Fortunately, both devices have MicroSD card capability allowing memory expansion by up to 32GB.

Even so, Nokia has a clear advantage here.

Winner – Nokia Lumia 820

Processor

As usual for Windows Phone handsets, we’re dealing with Qualcomm tech all round here, specifically, the company’s Series 4 (S4) dual core chipsets.

Both handsets run Adreno 225 graphics processing units (GPUs), but where the HTC is clocked at 1GHz and sports 512MB of RAM, the Lumia 820 is much quicker at 1.5GHz and with 1GB of RAM.

In practical use, performance for running the Windows Phone 8 operating system should be much the same, as the platform is well optimised to Qualcomm hardware.

However, there may be a noticeable difference in performance when running certain apps and games, particularly going forward as gaming becomes more advanced – in the future, there may even be apps and games the Lumia can run which the HTC simply cannot.

Winner – Nokia Lumia 820

Operating System

With both handsets on the same Windows Phone 8 platform there’s little in the way of a features war here as each will sport more or less the same features, particularly as Nokia has donated a sizeable chunk of its once exclusive app suite over to Windows Phone 8 generally - meaning all Windows Phone 8 handsets can make use of them.

Because the bulk of Windows Phone 8’s features are still being kept a closely guarded secret by Microsoft we still don’t know what it’s really capable of.

We know that it’ll have extensive support for voice control, a tweaked and more customisable interface, Skype integration and an extensive list of support for various games development protocols, such as DirectX, meaning that in the long run it should have a very rich mobile gaming experience.

In any case, both phones will share the same set of features, so this one’s a draw.

Winner -Draw

Camera

As usual, camera tech is a little less adventurous here than in the premium models.

The Lumia 820 uses an 8-megpixel primary with an f/2.2 aperture (lower numbers are better) and Carl Zeiss lens with dual LED flash, 1080p video capture, geo-tagging, autofocus, touch focus and continuous video autofocus.

HTC’s 8S comes with a 5-megapixel primary with an f/2.8 aperture, LED flash, touch focus, autofocus, face detection, geo-tagging and 720p video capture.

Both are decent cameras for the mid-range, but the Lumia 820 does have a better setup here.

Winner – Nokia Lumia 820

Final Thoughts

HTC may have made a bold and altogether competent bid in the Windows Phone 8 space but, as usual, Nokia is delivering one of the better experiences for the platform, with more high-end kit, even in the mid-level category.

Both are great devices but the Lumia 820 would be our choice.


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Offline Smithk4

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Re: Windows Phones compared to their competition
« Reply #3 on: September 23, 2012, 07:55:02 AM »
Windows phone vs Windows phone:

Windows Phone 8X by HTC vs Windows Phone 8S by HTC



Form

Windows Phone 8X by HTC - 132.35x66.2x10.12mm, 130g

Windows Phone 8S by HTC - 120.5x63x10.28mm, 113g

Both these handsets are part of HTC’s first foray into Windows Phone 8 territory and they’re also the first premium phones the company has produced since the emergence of its bold new styling with the HTC One range of Android smartphones.

The most immediate thing which strikes you when looking at these two devices is how they resemble some kind of HTC One and Nokia Lumia crossbreed.

In terms of build quality they’re both as solid as we’ve come to expect from HTC’s One handsets and although it feels a little different the finish does bear some similarity to that satisfying ‘piano key’ texture the company boasted with its premium Android line.

Being the flagship model, the 8X uses a unibody outer shell, it’s slightly smaller than the HTC One X but it’s still a large-scale phone.

The design as we mentioned is somewhat reminiscent of Nokia’s Lumia range, being starkly rectangular, but it takes inspiration from the One range with softened corners and a contoured back which gives a distinctive lozenge-shaped profile to the handset.

HTC’s clever ‘stepped’ construction from the One X also makes a return – from the front only a thin strip of coloured bodywork can be seen around the outside of a black panel embedded into it, and this houses the touch display inside a secondary bezel.

Overall the effect makes the display appear bigger at a glance, but the contrasting layers mean it’s a striking look in its own right.

The 8S isn’t strictly using a unibody as a lower panel on the back pops off to reveal the card slots, but the majority of it is still one piece.

Generally the handset is a little less flashy than its higher-end cousin as it doesn’t have that stepped effect we just described and it’s also smaller, but overall the shape, fit and finish is very similar to its stable-mate.

The 8X will be available in three colours, though so far we only know of a mid-blue variant.

Meanwhile, the 8S jazzes things up a bit with two-tone colour schemes in black and white, called Domino, and silver and yellow, there’s also ‘California blue’.

Winner – Draw

Display

The 8X is the larger of the two handsets and sports a 4.3-inch Super LCD 2 touch display with optical lamination. It’s reinforced with Gorilla Glass and has a crispy 1280x720 pixel HD resolution with excellent colour reproduction.

The pixel density clocks in at an iPhone 5-beating 341 pixels-per-inch (ppi).

The 8S uses a 4-inch Super LCD with an 800x480 pixel resolution and a pixel density of 233ppi.

Obviously this isn’t going to be as good as the flagship but it’s still a reasonable display for a mid-range model.

Winner – Windows Phone 8X by HTC

Storage

Storage is not a strong point of the 8X, it only has 16GB onboard and no provision for MicroSD, even though Windows Phone 8 now supports external cards.

Don’t get us wrong, 16GB is still a good amount of space generally, but for a premium flagship? It’s not enough.

The 8S fares a little better, it only has 4GB of internal capacity but it supports Micro SD cards up to 32GB, meaning it effectively outclasses its comrade in terms of overall quantity available.

Winner – Windows Phone 8S by HTC

Processor

Both handsets are running Qualcomm dual core Snapdragon S4 (Series 4) processors. The 8X is clocked at 1.5GHz with 1GB of dual channel RAM while the 8S sits at 1GHz with 512MB of RAM.

While the gap in clockspeed and RAM will probably not be noticeable in general use we expect the 8X to perform considerably better with higher-end apps and games.

Winner – Windows Phone 8X by HTC

Operating System

This is one of the most important areas but also the one most shrouded in mystery as Microsoft is determined to keep further details under lock and key until the official Windows Phone 8 launch.

Consequently we only have a limited idea of what Windows Phone 8 offers to users.

We know that it’ll feature a more customisable interface – Live Tiles will now be resizable and you’ll have a wider choice of theme colours, but we don’t know how much further this customisation will extend.

We also know it’ll support deeply integrated Skype video calling, an extensive suite of voice controls and unprecedented support for advanced mobile gaming.

Suffice to say, however, that both phones will be offering more or less the same experience here.

Winner - Draw

Camera

Both devices are using the same solid camera tech found in HTC’s One range, which means back-illuminated sensors (BSI), large apertures (f/2.0 for the 8X, f/2.8 for the 8S), LED flash and, in the case of the 8X, a dedicated chip capable of rapid multi-shot and simultaneous HD video and image capture.

The 8X will be rated at 8-megapixels while the 8S is 5-megapixels but both should deliver picture and video at well above average quality.

The 8X also includes an unusually well-specced front-facing secondary camera for video calls – it has a f/2.0 aperture and 2.1-megapixel BSI sensor capable of HD capture, so it should be great for video calling over Windows Phone 8’s integrated Skype services.

Sadly, the 8S doesn’t have a front-facing secondary.

Winner – Windows Phone 8X by HTC

Final Thoughts

For the most part, the Windows Phone 8X by HTC is going to be the better choice.

It’ll have more power to take advantage of the higher-end apps and games which Windows Phone 8’s advanced development support (and cross-platform development with Windows 8) will allow. It also has a much nicer display and a better quality camera.

The only downside is the relatively low quantity of storage and the lack of MicroSD support means it may be looking a bit sheepish next to the competition, though we won’t know for sure until more Windows Phone 8 flagships are launched.


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Offline Smithk4

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Re: Windows Phones compared to their competition
« Reply #4 on: September 23, 2012, 08:16:36 AM »
HTC Windows Phone 8X vs. Apple iPhone 5



There are always a host of new smartphones receiving their debuts around this time of year, but the combination of Apple’s iPhone 5, Microsoft’s new Windows Phone 8 platform and the prevalence of Google’s Android OS has made things rather more exciting than usual this smartphone season.

This time around we’re taking a look at Apple’s iPhone 5, which has already sold by the boat-load without even being released, to see how it compares to HTC’s recently unveiled Windows Phone 8X, which makes use of Microsoft’s rejuvenated OS.

Display

The HTC Windows Phone 8X sports a 4.3-inch S-LCD2 screen which operates at a resolution of 720x1280 and offers up a pixel density of 342PPI – which is on the high side even for newly announced devices.

The screen is coated with Corning’s Gorilla Glass 2 for an extra layer of resilience too, so it should stand up to all but the most aggressive of scrapes without indelibly marking.

The Apple iPhone 5 features a 4-inch LED-backlit IPS TFT screen which operates at a resolution of 640 x 1136 and has a pixel density of 326PPI – still in Retina Display country.

The screen features Corning’s first-gen Gorilla Glass for a bit of added protection and also sports an oleophobic coating so you won’t have to worry about your greasy chops leaving marks if you take a call while devouring something unhealthy.

Winner – HTC Windows Phone 8X

Power

The iPhone 5 is powered by Apple’s custom A6 chipset which consists of a dual-core 1GHz CPU and 1GB of dual-channel RAM – both of which have been very well tuned to deliver performance on-par with or in excess of, virtually anything currently on the market.

The device doesn’t offer support for removable memory – but it’s an Apple, so none should be surprised by that omission, and it will come in 16, 32 or 64GB flavours, depending on your requirements (or more aptly, your bank balance).

The HTC Windows Phone 8X is powered by one of Qualcomm’s stellar MSM8960 chipsets, which consists of a dual-core 1.5GHz ‘Krait’ CPU and the understated but impressive Adreno 225 GPU – both of which are capable of delivering superb real-world performance and benchmarks.

The device will be available with 16GB of on-board storage and 1GB RAM but alas no support for micro SD cards, even though Microsoft’s newest OS allows it.

Winner – Draw

Camera

HTC Windows Phone 8X features an 8-megapixel primary camera with LED flash, autofocus, geo-tagging, touch focus, and 1080P video capture with continuous autofocus and video light.

The device also offers a 2.1-megapixel secondary camera capable of capturing 1080P video!

Apple iPhone 5 features an 8-megapixel primary camera with autofocus, LED flash, simultaneous HD video and image recording, touch focus, face detection, panorama, HDR and geo-tagging.

The device captures video in 1080P with video light and video stabilisation too, as well as offering a 1.2-megapixel secondary camera capable of 720P capture.

Winner – Apple iPhone 5

Software

Apple’s iPhone 5 runs on iOS 6, which is a modestly updated version of its 5 year-old smartphone platform which, aside from offering a superb app experience courtesy of Apple’s App Store, and simplicity of use, seems more than a couple of strides behind its peers.

Version 6.0 includes support for FaceTime over cellular data, VIP mailbox, Facebook integration, Do Not Disturb – which is a real boon for those utilising their device for work as well as play – and Passbook, a decent e-ticketing solution.

One drawback with the newer version of iOS is Apple’s Maps, which has been levered in to replace the much more capable and 100% more usable Google Maps – so do beware that, in this case at least, an update doesn’t always equal improvement.

The HTC Windows Phone 8X runs on Windows Phone 8, the successor to the moderately well received Windows Phone 7.

The next-gen version of the software has ironed out many of the kinks seen in the previous iteration of the software, thankfully, and is, at least, beginning to look like a mobile platform capable of standing up to iOS and, more importantly, Google’s Android.

Among the new features seen in Window Phone 8 you’ll find a new and improved Homescreen, support for multi-core processors, support for removable memory, enhanced browsing via IE 10, background multitasking, Nokia Maps, 128-bit Bitlocker encryption (again, a great feature for enterprise users) and VoIP support out of the box.

The OS is also able to call upon Microsoft’s Windows Phone Marketplace for apps and other consumable media, though the experience is still a way behind the likes of Apple and Google.

Winner – iPhone 5

Form & Build

Apple iPhone 5 – 123.8 x 58.6 x 7.6mm, 112g

HTC Windows Phone 8X - 132.4 x 66.2 x 10.1mm, 130g

The iPhone 5 isn’t a great deal different than the iPhone 4S – though that isn’t necessarily a negative. It’s lighter and thinner than its predecessor though, and wears its larger display well.

Build quality is as high as it has ever been with an Apple device, and you should find the iPhone 5 to be well finished and extremely comfortable to use – and the introduction of metal into its construction, alongside glass, adds a much needed bolster to the device’s durability.

The HTC Windows Phone 8X is a fairly smart looking device crafted from polycarbonate, which seems to be built with the company’s usual high standards. It’s quite chunky in comparison to the iPhone 5 though, at 10.1mm, but that doesn’t disrupt the device’s simple aesthetic and even balanced.

The device will be available in four colours – California Blue, Flame Red, Graphite Black and Limelight Yellow – which should allow users to make a bold fashion statement and advertise their readiness for mugging in equal measure.

Winner – Apple iPhone 5

Final Thoughts

While the HTC 8X and Apple iPhone 5 has unique software features that are restricted to their own operating systems, however the Beats Audio integration in the HTC handset is an added advantage.

When it comes to features, HTC surely it has the capability to defeat the Apple offering with its added features including NFC, Beats Audio, better front camera and a larger screen display.

Moreover, the Taiwanese tech giant offers the handset in a range of vivid color options including red, yellow, black and blue while the iPhone 5 comes only in black and white color variants.


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Offline Smithk4

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Re: Windows Phones compared to their competition
« Reply #5 on: September 23, 2012, 09:13:32 AM »
Also for the new Windows 8 phones coming our way, here is a chart comparing three of the top dogs, known so far:


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You don't stop playing because you get old, you get old because you stop playing!!

Offline nCogNeato

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Re: Windows Phones compared to their competition
« Reply #6 on: September 24, 2012, 12:55:11 PM »
Some good bullet points made.

I definitely require an expandable MicroSD slot above all features.  If a phone doesn't have one, I won't buy it.

Offline Smithk4

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Re: Windows Phones compared to their competition
« Reply #7 on: October 18, 2012, 03:20:20 AM »
Another Chart:


[/url]
You don't stop playing because you get old, you get old because you stop playing!!

Offline nCogNeato

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Re: Windows Phones compared to their competition
« Reply #8 on: October 18, 2012, 03:06:01 PM »
The Nokia's are looking pretty good.  I need to check my account to see when my contract is up and I can renew.

Offline zerosum

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Re: Windows Phones compared to their competition
« Reply #9 on: April 03, 2014, 11:28:51 AM »
Thinking this is the nearest related place to drop this clip in...

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhtYIAxLl8g" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhtYIAxLl8g</a>

Offline GamerMan316

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Re: Windows Phones compared to their competition
« Reply #10 on: April 03, 2014, 11:39:41 AM »
Thinking this is the nearest related place to drop this clip in...

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhtYIAxLl8g" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhtYIAxLl8g</a>

Was watching something on this earlier, looking forward to Windows Phone 8.1.   :)


 

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