The cultural implications smartphones imposed on people is quite amazing to study. There was a time where you had to make contact with a person through post and then came the age of fixed telephones which moved on to mobile phones. Subsequently the whole inter-personal interaction was readily transferred to websites and social networks. This was accelerated exponentially with the increased use of smartphones. Back in the days, you had to be home with the PC or Laptop to log in to a social network and check what’s new. But now, all you need is a good smartphone and world is at the tip of your hand. People consider calling as an outdated commodity and consider text messages, emails and social networks are the new way of developing inter-personal interaction. It is not our place to evaluate the pros and cons of this and the impact on the society because of this. We are here to talk about how that boosted the use of smartphones and made more money for the smartphone manufacturers. If you look at the smartphones today, every single one is deeply integrated with Facebook, Twitter and other prominent social networks. This act as a strong incentive to buy a smartphone because people are already hooked up with these social networks anyways. Hence today we chose two smartphones to be compared with each other. Apple iPhone 5 was released today after a long duration of anticipation. It certainly seems a great match for our next opponent Motorola Droid Razr HD which was also recently announced in US. Let us look at them individually before comparing them at the same level.
Apple iPhone 5 Review
Apple iPhone 5 that was announced on 12th September comes as the successor for prestigious Apple iPhone 4S. The phone was launched on the 21st of September to the stores, and already getting some pretty good impressions by those who have put their hands on the device.. Apple claims iPhone 5 to be the thinnest smartphone in the market scoring a thickness of 7.6mm which is really cool. It scores dimensions of 123.8 x 58.5mm and 112g of weight which makes it lighter than most of the smartphones out there in the world. Apple has kept the width at the same pace while making it taller in order to let the customers hang on to the familiar width when they hold the handset in their palms. It is made entirely from glass and Aluminum which is a great news for artistic consumers. No one would doubt the premium nature of this handset for Apple has tirelessly engineered even the smallest parts. The two tone back plate feels genuinely metallic and is pleasing to hold on to the handset. We particularly loved the Black model although Apple offers a White model, as well.
iPhone 5 uses an Apple A6 chipset along with Apple iOS 6 as the operating system. It will be powered by a 1GHz Dual Core processor that Apple has come up with for iPhone 5. This processor is said to have Apple’s own SoC using ARM v7 based instruction set. The cores are based on Cortex A7 architecture which was previously rumored to be of A15 architecture. It is to be noted that this is not the Vanilla Cortex A7, but rather an in-house modified version of Apple’s Cortex A7 probably fabricated by Samsung. Apple iPhone 5 being a LTE smartphone, we are bound to expect some deviation from the normal battery life. However, Apple has addressed that problem with the custom made Cortex A7 cores. As you can see, they haven’t increased the clock frequency at all, but instead, they have been successful in increasing the number of instructions executed per clock. Also, it was noticeable in the GeekBench benchmarks that the memory bandwidth has been significantly improved, as well. So all in all, now we have reason to believe that Tim Cook wasn’t exaggerating when he claimed that iPhone 5 is twice as faster as iPhone 4S. The internal storage would come in three variations of 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB with no option to expand storage using microSD card.
Apple iPhone 5 has 4 inch LED backlit IPS TFT capacitive touchscreen featuring a resolution of 1136 x 640 pixels at a pixel density of 326ppi. It is said to have 44% better color saturation with full sRGB rendering enabled. The usual Corning gorilla glass coating is available making the display scratch resistant. Apple CEO Tim Cook claims that this is the most advanced display panel in the world. Apple also claimed that the GPU performance is as twice better compared to iPhone 4S. There may be several other possibilities for them to achieve this, but we have reason to believe that the GPU is PowerVR SGX 543MP3 with a slightly overclocked frequency compared to that of iPhone 4S. Apple has apparently moved the headphone port all the down to the bottom of the smartphone. If you have invested in iReady accessories, you may well have to buy a conversion unit because Apple has introduced a new port for this iPhone.
The handset comes with 4G LTE connectivity as well as CDMA connectivity in different versions. The implications of this are subtle. Once you commit to a network provider and a specific version of Apple iPhone 5, there’s no going back. You can’t buy an AT&T model and then transfer the iPhone 5 to Verizon or Sprint’s network without buying another iPhone 5. So you will have to think rather carefully on what you want before committing to a handset. Apple boasts of an ultrafast Wi-Fi connectivity as well offering Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n dual band Wi-Fi Plus cellular adapter. Unfortunately, Apple iPhone 5 doesn’t feature NFC connectivity nor does it support wireless charging. The camera is the regular culprit of 8MP with autofocus and LED flash that can capture 1080p HD videos @ 30 frames per second. It also has a front camera to make video calls. It is worthwhile to note that Apple iPhone 5 only supports nano SIM card. The new operating system seems to provide better capabilities than the old one as usual.
Motorola Droid Razr HD Review
Droid Razr HD is a device that can be clearly seen as the successor for Droid Razr. We compared Droid Razr M with Galaxy S3 and this comparison would contain some of the same details, as well. The only difference we were able to see was in the size, screen size and the display resolution. It is powered by 1.5GHz Dual Core processor on top of Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 chipset with 1GB of RAM. Android OS v4.0.4 assumes the duties of been the operating system and will soon be retired by Android OS v4.1 Jelly Bean. It has the same UI as of Razr M and gives you a taste of Vanilla Android at times. The operation was crisp, and we felt the device was oozing with power. A Dual Core processor is not much of a deal nowadays, but this processor runs on top of the new Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 chipset which makes it more powerful than the rest.
Motorola Droid Razr HD has 4.7 inches Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen featuring a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels at a pixel density of 312ppi keeping true to the HD label. The screen looks delightful with vibrant colors. It’s really thin at 8.4mm and score dimensions of 131.9 x 67.9mm and weighs 146g. We have to admit the weight is somewhat in the heftier side of the spectrum although it doesn’t really bother you when you’re holding the handset in your hands due to the relaxing bezel it has at the back. The Kevlar coated back plate ensures the ruggedness of this device. Razr HD comes in CDMA version as well as GSM version while supporting 4G LTE connectivity in both versions. Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n ensures that you can stay connected continuously while giving the chance to host a Wi-Fi hotspot to share your super-fast internet connection. The handset has a nominal storage of 12GB, and you can expand it using microSD card up to 32GB which is good. The 8MP camera has become a norm for similar kinds of smartphones; following the line, this one can capture 1080p HD videos @ 30 frames per second, as well. The 1.3MP camera in the front can be used for video conferencing. Motorola has also included a beefy 2530mAh battery which may be enough for the power hungry LTE connectivity.
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Apple Iphone 5 |
Motorola Droid Razr |