HTC Vivid vs iPhone 4S | Apple iPhone 4S vs HTC Vivid Speed, Performance and Features | Full Specs Compared
HTC Vivid is one among the first two 4G-LTE smart phones unveiled by AT&T on 31 October 2011. HTC Vivid will be available nationwide from 6 November 2011. iPhone 4S is the latest iPhone by Apple and it is already available in the market. Both are great phones, but Vivid has a massive 4.5” Super LCD qHD (960 x 540 pixels) display, and powered by 1.2 GHz dual core processor while iPhone 4S is comparatively smaller device with 3.5” 960 x 640 pixels Retina display and powered by 1 GHz Apple A5 processor. HTC Vivid is priced at $200 with a 2-year commitment. iPhone 4S is available in different variants based on the internal storage. The price is from $199 to $399 on a two-year contract.
HTC Vivid
HTC Vivid was officially released on 31 October 2011. This latest Android smart phone for AT&T by HTC is an Entertainment phone with a huge 4.5” qHD display, and an 8 mega pixels rear camera with f/2.2 aperture, 28mm wide lens, low light CMOS sensor. It is one of the first phones to be released for the AT&T’s 4G LTE network, which was launched in September 2011.
HTC Vivid stands tall with 5.07” and its 2.64” wide. The thickness of the device is 0.44”. Considering the current smart phone market, HTC Vivid is not very slim, but it is not bulky too, it is slimmer than HTC Rezound released at the same period. The device also weighs 177 g (6.24 oz) with the battery and that make this incredible smart phone a little hefty than its contemporaries. However, as a multimedia phone, the screen size of 4.5” very impressive. The HTC Vivid boasts a 4.5” super LCD capacitive touch screen with qHD (960 x 540 pixels; 245 PPI) resolution. It is the same type of display used in HTC Sensation 4G, but as the screen size is bigger the pixels density is less. HTC Vivid has an Accelerometer sensor for UI auto-rotate, Proximity sensor for auto turn-off and a Gyro sensor. Vivid is available in both black and white colors. Vivid looks little different in appearance than the other HTC phones of recent time; slight differences in the edges are seen compared to the characteristic HTC design.
HTC Vivid is powered by a 1.2 GHz dual-core Qualcomm APQ8060 Snapdragon processor (dual 1.2 GHz Scorpion CPU and Adreno 220 GPU) in tandem with MDM9200 multimode modem for LTE/DC-HSPA+. Coupled with 1 GB memory, the device has 16 GB worth internal storage. In addition, an SD 2.0 compatible micro SD card slot is available to expand storage up to 32 GB using a micro SD card. In terms of connectivity Vivid supports Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth ver3.0, 3G-Triband UMTS/HSPA+ and 4G-LTE connectivity as well as micro-USB. It is also a world phone.
For those who love clicking with the phone, at the rear side Vivid has an 8 megapixels camera with f/2.2 aperture, 28mm wide angle lens, low light sensor and dual LED flash. The camera allows video capturing at 1080p resolutions. Vivid also includes a 1.3 megapixel, fixed focus camera facing the front allowing video conferencing.
HTC Vivid includes built-in FM radio, music player, AT&T music, AT&T U-verse Live TV and supports 1080p video playback, as well. Audio playback formats supported by HTC Vivid are .mp3, .wav and .wma. Audio recording is available in .amr format. Supported Video playback formats are 3gp, .3g2, .mp4, and .wmv (Windows Media Video 9) while video recording is available in .3gp. However, as a multimedia phone more is expected.
HTC Vivid comes with Android 2.3.4 (Gingerbread). The user interface is customized using HTC Sense 3.0. Home screens on Vivid come with richer content such as friends’ stream and new visual designs. The active lock screen brings all interesting details in home screens without needing to unlock the device. The browsing experience on Vivid is fast and flawless with 3G HSPA+/4G speed, and Flash player 10.3 offers seamless browsing experience. Social networking integration is tight with HTC Sense like in other HTC phones. The device is pre loaded with Facebook, FriendSteam, and Twitter applications specially designed for HTC Sense. Photo sharing/video sharing is made easy with Facebook, Flickr, Twitter and YouTube integration. Amazon Kindle is integrated for e-reading. Additionally HTC Hub are available and more applications can be downloaded from Android Market.
One of the weaknesses in HTC is its battery. Although HTC is continuously improving, the HTC Sense consumes lot of power. HTC Vivid has a 1620 mAh rechargeable battery. With 4G on HTC Vivid reportedly gives little more than 7 hours of continuous talk time. The battery life gets worse with all the photo shooting and videoing.
iPhone 4S
The much speculated iphone 4S was released on October 4th 2011. The iPhone which has bench marked standards in the smart phone hemisphere has raised the expectation more. Will iPhone 4S deliver to that? Having one look at the device one can understand that the appearance of iPhone 4S remains similar to iPhone 4; the much raved predecessor. The device is available in both black and white. The glass and stainless steel built that most find appealing remains intact. The newly released iPhone 4S remains 4.5” of height and 2.31” of width the dimensions of iPhone 4S remains similar to its predecessor iPhone 4. The thickness of the device is 0.37” as well regardless of the improvement done to the camera. There for, iPhone 4S remains the same portable slim device everyone love. iPhone 4S weighs 140g. The slight increase of device is maybe due to the many new improvements that we will discuss later. iPhone 4S includes a 3.5” touch screen with 960 x 640 pixels resolution (329 PPI). The screen also includes the usual fingerprint resistant oleophobic coating. The display marketed by Apple as ‘retina display’ has a contrast ratio of 800:1. The device comes with sensors such as an accelerometer sensor for auto-rotate, three-axis gyro sensor, a proximity sensor for auto turn-off and an ambient light sensor.
The processing power is one of the many improved features on iPhone 4S than its predecessor. The iPhone 4S is powered by a Dual core A5 processor. According to Apple, the processing power is increased by 2 X and enables graphics that are 7 times faster and the energy efficient processor will improve battery life as well. While the RAM on the device is still not officially listed the device is available in 3 versions of storage; 16 GB, 32 GB and 64 GB. Apple has not allowed a micro SD slot to expand the storage. In terms of connectivity, iPhone 4S has HSPA+14.4Mbps, UMTS/WCDMA, CDMA, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth. At the moment, iPhone 4S is the only smart phone which can switch between two antennas to transmit and receive. Location based services are available through Assisted GPS, digital compass, Wi-Fi and GSM.
iPhone 4S is loaded with iOS 5 and usual applications one can find on an iPhone, such as FaceTime. The newest addition to the uniquely designed applications on iPhone is ‘Siri’; a voice assistant which can understand certain keywords we speak and virtually do everything on the device. ‘Siri’ is capable of scheduling meetings, checking weather, setting timer, sending & reading messages and etc. While voice search and voice command assisted applications were available in the market ‘Siri’ is quite a unique approach and sounds more user-friendly. iPhone 4S comes with iCloud as well, enabling users to manage content across multiple devices. iCloud wirelessly pushes files across multiple devices managed together. Applications for iPhone 4 S will be available on Apple App Store; however it will take some time for the number of applications supporting iOS 5 to increase.
The rear facing camera is another area improved on iPhone 4S. iPhone 4S is equipped with an improved camera with 8 mega pixels. The mega pixel value itself has taken a huge leave from its predecessor. The camera is coupled with LED flash as well. The camera comes with useful features such as autofocus, tap to focus, face detection on still images and geo tagging. The camera is capable of HD video capture at 1080P at about 30 frames per second. In cameras it is important to have a larger aperture since it allows the lens to collect more light. The aperture in the lens of camera in iPhone 4S has been increased allowing more light to come in however, harmful IR rays is filtered away. The enhanced camera is capable of capturing quality images in low light as well as bright light. The front facing camera is a VGA camera and it’s tightly coupled with FaceTime; the video conferencing application on iPhone.
iPhones are generally good on their battery life. Naturally, users will have higher expectations for this latest addition to the family. According to Apple, iPhone 4S will have up to 8 hours of continuous talk time with 3G on while on GSM only it will score a massive 14 hours. The device is rechargeable via USB as well. The standby time on iPhone 4S is up to 200 hours. In conclusion, the battery life is satisfactory on iPhone 4S. The preorder of iPhone 4S starts from 8 October 2011, and will be available in US, UK, Canada, Germany, France, Australia, and Japan from 14 October 2011. Worldwide availability starts from 28 October 2011. iPhone 4S is available for purchase in different variants. One will be able to get their hands on an iPhone 4S device starting from $199 to $399 on contract. The price without contract (unlocked) is Canadian $649/ Pounds 499/ A$799/ Euro 629.