

IPhone 5 Compared With Competitors  - neya
http://mashable.com/2012/09/12/iphone-5-compared/

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hesdeadjim
These tables hide a lot of information.

For example, the screen is compared simply by pixels and physical size but
there is no mention of screen quality. I have a desk full of Android devices
and for most of them, the screens are large but really, really poor when it
comes to color reproduction, dithering, and/or brightness.

The same problem manifests with the CPU/GPU comparison. I will take an Apple
A6 any day of the week over a Snapdragon S4 with an Adreno GPU. I've had
nothing but problems with Adrenos -- their performance is poor in comparison
to the newer PowerVR chips and their crappy drivers have required me to dumb
down some of my shaders that work flawlessly on all other mobile GPUs (Tegra,
Mali, and PowerVR).

That said, I'm happy Apple finally enlarged the screen so it's more in line
with where the Android market is. After using some of the higher end Android
phones, my plain-jane iPhone4 is showing its age.

~~~
neya
>their performance is poor in comparison

Benchmarks or it didn't happen.

~~~
pooriaazimi
Benchmarks don't matter one bit, because they just measure "raw" power. These
platforms (iOS and Android) use different operating systems, and they
implement graphics routines, animations, drawing, etc. wildly differently. So,
X could have a 30% more powerful GPU than Y, but the "perceived" speed of X
could be less than Y. That's why iPhone was so much smoother than Android
before 4.1.

~~~
ch0wn
That's absolutely true, but then you aren't comparing CPUs or GPUs anymore,
but the OS.

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thesash
Consumers don't care about product specs, they care about their dreams, goals,
and aspirations.

Compare an iPhone commercial <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EP1YAatv1Mc>

to a DROID commercial <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-K71MpwCko>

Apple commercial => fun, likable personality _using_ the product, and
benefiting from it.

Droid commercial => OMG uber technology forged from a robot beast with a
processor and LTE and a bunch of other stuff. 0 product. 0 benefits.

Droid is selling technology, Apple is selling an experience. It seems so
obvious which one a mainstream consumer with no interest in the innards of
their phone is going to choose. Google understands this concept, judging by
their own marketing: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqiSE-ukmgc>

Maybe now that they've acquired Motorola they'll knock some sense into their
marketing strategy

~~~
neya
Its funny how picky you get when choosing between these commercials. You
should have chosen one of the Galaxy's commercials and it does a great job of
explaining everything, too.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWnunavN4bQ>

~~~
thesash
Samsung has great marketing, picking a fight is a fantastic strategy. However,
this comercial still sells _features_ not benefits. Imagine how much more
powerful the comercial would be if they could capture the _benefit_ to the
samsung user. How does having 4G _improve_ my life?

When I see this Samsung commercial or the Droid commercial from my original
post, I can just picture the company execs giving their ad agency a list of
features that need to be included in the commercial, because the features are
what's important to the company. The problem is, customers don't care about
features at all, they care about what those features allow them to do.

~~~
equark
I'm really not sure this is true. I'd like to see evidence of it because
certainly the people I know who buy android do it for features. That's also
how they evangelize. It seems to work. Apple has a great marketing strategy
but that doesn't mean the best competitive response is to mimic it.

------
runjake
There are numerous errors on this chart, so I'll just cover one. Some of the
items under the Samsung Galaxy S III are wrong, at least on VZW and AT&T.
There are only 16 (AT&T/VZW)and 32 GB (VZW only) versions at $199 and $249,
respectively.

Also, the talk and standby times are a total crock [1]. The battery life is
great -- slightly less than on par with the 4S.

1\. Citation: I own an SGSIII (along with an iPhone 4S) and have tested
battery life quite a bit.

~~~
chojeen
Amazon just lowered the price on the S3 to $99:
[http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Galaxy-Android-Verizon-
Wireles...](http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Galaxy-Android-Verizon-
Wireless/dp/B008HTJLF6/ref=sr_1_1?s=wireless&ie=UTF8&qid=1347481160&sr=1-1&keywords=samsung+galaxy+s3+verizon)

~~~
sukuriant
With contract only, for those of us still on contract. Without, it's still
$600.

~~~
thekillingtree
That's why I was happy to grab my Galaxy Nexus direct from Google for $350 w/o
needing to have a contract.

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tvon
A better comparison over at the Verge:

[http://www.theverge.com/products/compare/6116/5807/6082/6024...](http://www.theverge.com/products/compare/6116/5807/6082/6024/5236/3604/)

------
neya
The Galaxy S3 has a Quad core version too, though.

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fuzionmonkey
This comparison isn't very useful without display PPI, NFC, thickness, etc.

~~~
tvon
It's about as ghetto as a feature grid can get.

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hcarvalhoalves
Only geeks delve into spec sheets comparisons.

That makes as much sense as comparing a Mustang and a Mercedes by horsepower
to decide which car to buy.

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sukuriant
It's funny, but that chart made me want to buy the Galaxy S3 ... on specs
alone O.o.

... also, I tend to like Android, especially for the back-button.

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zem
after getting used to my galaxy nexus, 4" screens look seriously cramped. i'm
actually kind of surprised apple hasn't jumped onto the 4.5"+ bandwagon yet.

~~~
jimsilverman
Not that surprising. Apple's pretty much locked into 640px width. An increase
there would enrage app devs and designers. And cause a heap of compatibility
issues.

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cremnob
Outside of tech geeks, real people don't care about this. They care about the
UX.

~~~
davidpayne11
Oh, please tell me about how having a single button for everything provides
great UX. Seriously, no back button is what you call great UX?

~~~
dmix
Android is removing physical back buttons and iPhone's had the single button
work well with the interface since 2007...

~~~
fernandotakai
Android is removing physical buttons but still have back, home and
"multitasking" buttons.

