If the table above doesn’t work, please click here: Comparison Table. (Slight server issues)
So we thought it was high time someone did a full comparison between some of the more popular devices on each OS. We were actually quite hard pressed in which phones to choose, but in the end we thought the latest iPhone and Windows Phone, with the addition of the best upcoming Android and Windows Phone devices would be the best choice, and we’re pretty happy with the lineup here. In the table above, you’ll see the basic breakdown of specs, and the figures highlighted in light blue means it’s the best in it’s respective category. Now obviously there are a few things to take note, and first is that there are quite a few ties – this is bound to happen when the specs are either the same, or there is no clear way to differentiate the best amongst them. Another thing to note is that higher numbers doesn’t really reflect real world usage as much, so it’s a paper comparison above. The final thing to note, is that Windows Phone devices have requirements that don’t allow it to go above the screen resolution listed above, as well as RAM, and does not support Dual Core processors either – But this effectively does not matter as the Windows Phone OS is very low on resources so higher specs aren’t necessary yet.
Based on the table above, it seems the Motorola Droid Razr takes the plaudits for having a better number in the most categories, followed by the Samsung Nexus Galaxy, then by the iPhone 4S, followed closely by the HTC Titan and rounded out by the Nokia Lumia 800. If you were to look at which phone is the best overall (on paper), you’d go the Droid RAZR, but some people might prefer different categories over others. That much is up to you.
What we’ve done below is pick some categories and given each phone a rating out of 5 based on the individual category, as an addition to the table above. These are our opinions, and you are free to have different opinions but that’s how it stands. At the end we’ll get the average over all the categories and put our winner at the bottom. Remember, all rating’s are out of 5.
Phone Looks
- iPhone 4S: 3.5
- HTC Titan: 3
- Nokia Lumia 800: 4.5
- Samsung Galaxy Nexus: 3.5
- Motorola Droid Razr: 4
The Nokia Lumia 800 takes this one home by storm with a 4.5, with a sleek one piece unibody polycarbonate build and a curvy finish as well. And the best part is it looks better every time we look at it. The Motorola Droid Razr follows closely behind with a 4, just for being so damn thin at 7.1mm. Unfortunately we don’t like the look of it from the front as much which is why it scored lower than the Lumia 800 despite being 4 mm thinner. The iPhone 4S still looks great, but we’re starting to get a little bored of it’s recycled design, while the Nexus isn’t as fancy as we would have hoped. The Titan fares the the worst in looks, as we’re not too big a fan of it’s look but it’s by no means ugly.
Portability
- iPhone 4S: 5
- HTC Titan: 2.5
- Nokia Lumia 800: 3.5
- Samsung Galaxy Nexus: 3
- Motorola Droid Razr: 4.5
The iPhone takes the Portability category with a perfect 5. It’s thin and it’s small screen of only 3.5-inches makes it one of the easiest phones to carry around in any bag or pocket. The Motorola Droid Razr is once again runner up, and despite it’s much bigger screen size it’s thin and light, meaning you won’t notice it at all. The Galaxy Nexus’s large screen size is it’s downfall despite it’s thin frame, while the Nokia Lumia 800 get’s by because it only has a 3.7-inch screen. Having said that, the Lumia 800′s thickness will be noticed. The HTC Titan’s massive 4.7-inch screen is easily the biggest, and we feel it might be a little to big for some.
Sexiest Operating System
- iPhone 4S: 3.5
- HTC Titan: 4.5
- Nokia Lumia 800: 4.5
- Samsung Galaxy Nexus: 4
- Motorola Droid Razr: 2.5
We almost didn’t throw this in, but we felt we didn’t want to compare the OS as everyone (and we mean EVERYONE) has a different opinion on which OS is ‘better’. Therefore, we’re just going to compare which looks the best.
In our opinion, the Windows Phone platform is easily the best looking OS around right now – It’s fresh, different, and looks incredibly sleek. From a glance you’re bound the be more curious by it’s large ‘live’ tiles on the home screen over the other device Operating Systems, so the Titan and Lumia 800 take top spot on this one. The Galaxy Nexus follows suit with it’s much improved Ice Cream Sandwich Android OS, which we gave a 4 (but might change to a 4.5 in the future if we like the look once we test it). The iPhone 4S’s rather plain iOS5 keep’s it ticking, but it’s nothing special here (even with the iOS 5 changes). Android on the other hand deserves the lowest score because we find it old and boring (which is why we’re excited for the next Android OS update).
App Choices
- iPhone 4S: 5
- HTC Titan: 3
- Nokia Lumia 800: 3
- Samsung Galaxy Nexus: 4.5
- Motorola Droid Razr: 4.5
The Apple app store is easily the winner here with the most apps (over 200,000) but the Android Market is catching up at an incredible pace and may surpass it soon, which is why they were deducted 0.5. The Windows Marketplace is by no means in the same game as the other two, but it’s growing at a quicker pace than the Android Market did, which is the reason we gave them a 3 over a 2.5 (we were very close to doing so). However, it’s got all the big apps you would want, and it hovers just under 40,000 apps, and there’s a distinct lack of ‘fart apps’ so that’s always a good sign.
Battery Life (Talk Time)
- iPhone 4S: (8 hours talk time) 3.5
- HTC Titan: (7 hours talk time) 3
- Nokia Lumia 800: (9.5 hours talk time) 5
- Samsung Galaxy Nexus: (estimated 8 hours talk time) 4
- Motorola Droid Razr: (9 hours talk time) 4.5
Results:
iPhone 4S: 4.1
HTC Titan: 3.2
Nokia Lumia 800: 4.1
Samsung Galaxy Nexus: 3.8
Motorola Droid Razr: 4
It seems, somehow we got a tie between the expected winner – The iPhone 4S and the surprise package in the form of the Nokia Lumia 800 (doesn’t hurt that it’s running the sexy Windows Phone Operating System). We’re sure that if we did this test with all the devices in real life we wouldn’t necessarily have the same results, but based on our 5 part special comparison, the 4S and Lumia 800 just shared the crown when we did the averages (surprising us as well, we had to recheck our maths just to make sure). This is clearly a good sign for Nokia and while we love the design we weren’t expecting a tie here.
Following the two was the Motorola Droid Razr losing out by the smallest of margins, 0.1 points. The Samsung Galaxy Nexus was 4th, and while on another day it might have done better, it ended up as a distant dark horse in this race. Rounding out the phones was the HTC Titan, coming in a disappointing 5th (nearly 1 whole point behind the winners). But for this comparison, the iPhone 4S and Nokia Lumia 800 were tied winners.
Remember we didn’t take into account the actual specs here in the table above, we simply gave two different perspectives and it’s up to you as the user to use what we’ve given you and make your choice, and you have to look at what you really want the phone for (not to mention which Operating System!). For instance, for watching movies the Samsung Galaxy Nexus would easily win (big screen size, amazing screen resolution), followed by the HTC Titan with it’s massive screen size, and they were our bottom two phones here. Don’t forget, we chose the best phones so they’re all still great choices.
The choice is yours, but our winners have been chosen. Happy Phone hunting!
