Samsung Galaxy Nexus vs BlackBerry Torch 9860
Samsung and Google unveiled their first Ice Cream Sandwich Phone, the Galaxy Nexus (aka Nexus Prime or Droid Prime) at their Ice Cream Sandwich event in Hong Kong today (19 October 2011). Galaxy Nexus by Samsung is Google’s premium phone to give the pure Google experience. The Galaxy Nexus has 4G LTE and HSPA+ variants. BlackBerry Torch 9860 by Research In motion was officially announced during August 2011. It is the first full capacitive touch screen BlackBerry smart phone. BlackBerry Torch 9850 is the CDMA version of the same phone. BlackBerry Torch 9860 is available for $200 on contract. Following is a comparison of the similarities and differences of the two devices.
Galaxy Nexus
Galaxy Nexus is the latest Android smart phone released by Samsung. This device is designed for Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich). Galaxy Nexus was officially announced on 18 October 2011. It will be available to users from November 2011. Galaxy Nexus is launched in collaboration of Google and Samsung. The device is designed to deliver a pure Google experience, and the device will receive updates on software as soon as it is available.
Galaxy Nexus 5.33” tall and 2.67” wide and the device remains 0.35” thick. These dimensions are related to a quite large phone in comparison to the current smart phone market standards. It is important to note that Galaxy Nexus is quite thin. (IPhone 4 and 4S is also 0.37” thick). Bigger dimensions of Galaxy Nexus will make the device appear even thinner. It is also important to note that for above dimensions Galaxy Nexus weighs reasonably less. The Hyper-skin backing on the battery cover will make a firm grip on the phone and will make it slip resistant. Galaxy Nexus has a 4.65” Super AMOLED screen with 1280X720 pixels resolution. Galaxy Nexus is the first phone with a 4.65” high definition display. The screen real estate will be appreciated by many Android fans and the display quality and high resolution is quite promising. Galaxy Nexus is complete with sensors such as accelerometer for UI auto rotate, compass, gyro sensor, light sensor, Proximity and barometer. In terms of connectivity, Galaxy nexus supports 3G and GPRS speeds. An LTE variant of the device will be available based on the region. Galaxy Nexus is complete with WI-Fi, Bluetooth, USB support and it is NFC enabled.
Galaxy Nexus is powered by a 1.2 GHz Dual Core Processor. According to the official press release, the device includes 1 GB worth RAM and internal storage is available in 16 GB and 32 GB. The processing power, memory and storage are in par with the high-end smart phone specifications in the current market and they will enable a responsive and an efficient Android experience to users of Galaxy Nexus. The availability of the micro-SD card slot in order to expand the storage is not yet clear.
Galaxy Nexus comes with Android 4.0 and it is not customized in any way. This is the first time users get to have a look at Galaxy Nexus. The much talked about new feature on Galaxy Nexus is screen unlock facility. The device is now capable of recognizing the shape of the users face to unlock the device. The UI is re designed for a better experience. According to the official press release the multi tasking, notifications and web browsing is enhanced in Galaxy Nexus. With the screen quality and display size available on Galaxy Nexus, one can anticipate a unique browsing experience combined with the impressive processing capacity. Galaxy Nexus comes with NFC support as well. The device is available with many google services such as Android Market, Gmail™, and Google Maps™ 5.0 with 3D maps, Navigation, Google Earth™, Movie Studio, YouTube™, Google Calendar™, and Google+. The home screen and phone application has gone through re design and has acquired a new look under Android 4.0. Android 4.0 ( Ice cream Sandwich) also includes a new people Application allowing users to browse friends and other contacts, their photographs and status updates from multiple social networking platforms.
Galaxy Nexus has a 5-mega pixel rear-facing camera with LED flash. The rear-facing camera has zero shutter lag reducing the time between the time the picture is taken and the time the picture is actually shot. The camera also has additional features such as panoramic view, auto focus, silly faces and background replacement. The rear-facing camera is capable of HD video recording at 1080 P. The front facing camera is 1.3 mega pixels and is capable of rendering good quality video for video conferencing. The camera specifications on Galaxy Nexus fall under middle range specifications and will deliver satisfactory photo and video quality.
The multimedia support on Galaxy nexus is also note worthy. The device is capable of HD video playback with 1080 P at 30 frames per second. By default, Galaxy Nexus has video codec for MPEG4, H.263 and H.264 formats. The HD video playback quality on Galaxy Nexus coupled with the impressive display will deliver a superior movie watching experience on a smart phone. Galaxy Nexus includes MP3, AAC, AAC+ and eAAC+ audio codec formats. The device also includes a 3.5 mm audio jack.
With a standard Li-on 1750 mAh battery, the device will get by a normal working day with calling, messaging, email, and browsing with ease. The most important fact with Galaxy Nexus is the availability of updates on Android as soon as it is released. A user with a Galaxy Nexus will be the first to receive these updates as Galaxy Nexus is a pure Android experience.
BlackBerry Torch 9860
BlackBerry Torch 9860 is the first full capacitive touch screen BlackBerry smart phone by Research In Motion. It was officially announced during August 2011, but the release to market is still expected on September 2011, to be exact. The much anticipated phone has a plastic chassis and a black glossy finish to it with a 3.7″ multi touch screen.
Unlike the majority of touch screen smart phones in the market, BlackBerry Torch 9860 has few hardware buttons in place. The power button is at the top of the device and allows easy locking of screen as well. Volume control buttons and camera button lives nearby. A micro USB port is available on the side of the device, while an optical track pad, call button, end call button, as well as, back button are situated right beneath the screen, in the front of the device. Nearby the volume buttons, one will find the 3.5 mm Audio jack. Overall, users should prepare for a 4.7″ long, 2.4″ broad and a 0.45″ thick device complete with a virtual keyboard.
What sets BlackBerry Torch 9860 apart from other devices of the BlackBerry series is the full capacitive touch screen. With its 3.7” screen real estate, the display makes BlackBerry Torch 9860 ideal for web browsing, gaming, reading, social networking and more. The resolution of the screen is 480 X 800 making it perfect for video viewing. It’s also important to note that BlackBerry Torch 9860 has a scratch protected plastic display.
BlackBerry devices have always had their signature QWERTY key pad. Even with the presence of a virtual keypad, the hardware keypad was part of most BlackBerry smart phones. However, BlackBerry Torch 9860 strays from the norm and comes with only a virtual keypad. Loyal BlackBerry users with heavy texting habits might find texting using the virtual keypad a little difficult at first. On landscape mode, the virtual touch pad utilizes a good screen real estate.
BlackBerry Torch 9860 comes with admirable processing power. The 1.2 GHz Snapdragon processor by Qualcomm and an Adreno Graphics processing unit of the device supports the hardware accelerated graphics of BlackBerry Torch 9860. The new and improved graphics is known as “Liquid Graphics” by RIM and promises superior quality. In addition, BlackBerry Torch 9860 has 4 GB internal storage, which can be extended up to 32 GB using a micro SD card. BlackBerry Torch 9860 also has 768 MB worth RAM.
Though, a front facing camera would have been ideal on the new BlackBerry Torch 9860, one is nonexistent. However, the rear facing camera is 5 Mega pixel and comes handy with autofocus, geo tagging and face detection. The camera records HD video at 720 p. Overall, users can be really happy with the rear facing camera quality.
BlackBerry Torch 9860 is running on BlackBerry OS 7. This new version of BlackBerry has been optimized for full touch screen devices with improved browser performance. The interface and graphics is smoother and more appealing. The browser has impressive performance with rendering and responsiveness to touch gestures. Voice activated universal search is available in BlackBerry Torch 9860. The only drawback as far as the applications are concerned would be the lack of it in comparison to Android and iPhone applications.
BlackBerry Torch 9860 will last more than 300 hours standby and provides more than 4 hours of talk time with Wi-Fi on. BlackBerry Torch 9860 might be the ideal BlackBerry phone for heavy web surfers, and users used to touch screen devices best.
Samsung introducing Galaxy Nexus (Pure Google Experience)