Difference Between iPhone 4S and Samsung Droid Charge

iPhone 4S vs Samsung Droid Charge | Samsung Droid Charge vs Apple iPhone 4S Speed, Performance and Features | Full Specs Compared 

Apple finally released iPhone 4S on 4 October 2011, and it will be available from 14 October 2011. The external appearance of 4S seems identical to iPhone 4. The much anticipated iPhone 5 has been delayed for 2012 release. iPhone 4S is the first dual core smartphone from Apple. iPhone 4S will be compatible with wide range of networks. It will be available in US for all major carriers except for T-Mobile. iPhone 4S carry a price tag similar to that of iPhone 4 at release; 16 GB model is priced at $199, and 32GB and 64GB are price $299 and $399 respectively, on contract. Apple has brought down the prices of iPhone 4 now. Droid charge is an Android smart phone by Samsung for Verizon Wireless, which was officially announced in January 2011, and is available in the market since May 2011 for $300, on contract. Following is a review on the similarities and differences of the two devices.

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 expectations more. Will iPhone 4 deliver to the expectations? 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 resolution. 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 7 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.

Samsung Droid Charge

Droid charge is an Android smart phone by Samsung. The device is also known as Samsung SCH-i520, Samsung Inspiration, Samsung 4G LTE, and Samsung Stealth V. Droid charge was officially announced on January 2011, and is available with Verizon Wireless since May 2011.

Droid charge stands 5.11” tall and its 0.47” thick. This smart phone is available in black with a black plastic chassis and 4 buttons in front of the phone. The phone weighs 143 g. Droid charge comes with a 4.3” Super AMOLED Plus capacitive touch screen with 480 x 800 resolution. Accelerometer sensor for UI auto-rotate and touch-sensitive controls are available with Droid Charge.

The Droid Charge runs on a 1 GHz ARM Cortex-A8 processor (Hummingbird Chipset). The device has 512 MB RAM and comes with a micro SD card slot for storage, and it can be extended up to 32 GB. Droid Charge has micro USB support. In terms of connectivity, the device supports LTE connectivity up to 15 Mbps. Wi-Fi and Bluetooth is also available on this device.

Droid Charge includes an 8 MP rear facing camera with autofocus, LED flash, Geo-tagging, touch focus, face and smile detection. Video recording is also available with the rear facing camera. A 1.3 mega pixel front facing camera is also available with Droid Charge, which will enable video conferencing.

Droid Charge doesn’t have the availability of FM radio; however, the device includes a MP3/MP4 player, inbuilt speakers and 3.5 mm audio jack.

Droid Charge is powered by Android 2.2. Applications for the device can be downloaded from Android Market. It can be noted that a large number of applications comes installed with Droid Charge. These applications cannot be uninstalled. While they may not take much storage from the device, it will give a cluttered feeling. Droid Charge is pre loaded with the usual Google Applications, YouTube, Calendar, Picasa integration, Flash support and image and video editor. The user interface is customized using the TouchWiz 3.0 by Samsung.

Overall, Droid Charge is not at the very high end smart phone category according to smart phone standards of today. But for the specifications given the device gives good performance and comes with really good battery life. Droid Charge has a single 1,600mAh battery, which is generous for a smart phone.

What is the difference between iPhone 4S and Samsung Droid Charge?

IPhone 4S is a smart phone by Apple Inc. and the device was released on October 2011. Droid Charge is an Android smart phone by Samsung, which was released in May 2011. Samsung Droid Charge was available in the market few months before iPhone 4S, which is currently (at the time of this review) the latest iPhone in the market. While iPhone 4S is available in black and white, Samsung Droid Charge is only available in black color.

In terms of dimensions, iPhone 4S is only 4.5” of height and 2.31” of width while Samsung Droid Charge stands 5.11” tall and 2.66” wide. In terms of thickness iPhone 4S is the slimmer device with only 0.37” thickness while Samsung Droid Charge is 0.47” thick. Between iPhone4S and Samsung Droid Charge, iPhone 4S is the lighter device since it weighs only 140g while Samsung Droid Charge weighs 143g. According to dimensions just discussed, iPhone 4S is a more portable and a smaller device than Samsung Droid Charge.

However, since the Samsung Droid Charge is a bigger device it can accommodate a bigger display. iPhone 4S includes a 3.5” touch screen with 960 x 640 resolution. The screen also includes the usual fingerprint resistant oleophobic coating. Samsung Droid Charge comes with a 4.3” Super AMOLED Plus capacitive touch screen with 480 x 800 resolution. Samsung Droid Charge has a bigger screen, and the super AMOLED plus screen is capable of bringing out the best colors among displays, however, iPhone 4S display has a larger screen display and will have higher quality when displaying images and video. Both displays are touch screens and have accelerometer sensor for auto-rotate.

The iPhone 4S is powered by a Dual core A5 processor and Samsung Droid Charge runs on a 1 GHz ARM Cortex-A8 processor (Hummingbird Chipset). Since iPhone 4S has two cores, it has more effective processing power than Samsung Droid Charge. Both iPhone 4S and Samsung Droid Charge come with 512 MB worth RAM. While iPhone 4S is available in 3 versions of storage, 16 GB, 32 GB, and 64GB, it does not allow extending the memory by using a micro SD card. Samsung Droid Charge allows extending the storage by a micro SD card and, as a result, storage can be extended up to 32 GB.

In terms of connectivity, iPhone 4S has HSPA (3G), CDMA and Bluetooth. At the moment, iPhone 4S is the only smart phone which can switch between two antennas, to transmit and receive. Samsung Droid charge supports LTE connectivity up to 15 Mbps. Wi-Fi and Bluetooth is also available on this device.

iPhone 4S comes with iOS 5 installed and Samsung Droid Charge comes with Android 2.2 installed. The operating system on iPhone 4S is the latest in the Apple platform at the moment while Android 2.2 is not the latest but a mature operating system in Android platform. While applications for iPhone 4S can be downloaded from Apple App store, applications for Samsung Droid Charge can be downloaded from Android Market and other third party application stores. In addition to useful applications such as ‘Facetime’, iPhone 4S introduced ‘Siri’ a voice assistant and a searching facility activated by voice commands. Though a similar application such as ‘Vlingo’ is available in the Android market, the functionality is not as complete as that of ‘Siri’. Since Samsung Droid Charge has a more mature operating system, the market will have more applications than iPhone 4S.

Both iPhone 4S and Samsung Droid Charge are equipped with a rear-facing camera with 8 mega pixels, and these cameras are equipped with LED flash, as well. The rear-facing camera on iPhone 4S is capable of HD video recording and playback at 1080p, and Samsung Droid Charge is only capable of 720p video recording and playback. Though the cameras have similar mega pixel values, video recording and playback on iPhone 4S has a superior quality than that of Samsung Droid Charge.

While iPhone 4S records a massive 14-hours continuous talk-time, Samsung Droid Charge gives 11-hours of continuous talk-time. In terms of battery life, iPhone 4S is a better performer.