Samsung Ativ S vs LG Optimus L9
Smartphone vendors look at various options when they want to promote a certain line of product. One prominent strategy is to come up with the best smartphone in the herd. This may be an innovative version of already existing product line, or it might be a product line of its own. Another regularly explored strategy is to test a tradeoff between price and performance to come up with Budget smartphones. This is also a sound plan if a good price exists for a smartphone without performance impairment. Recently LG has been promoting a budget smartphone line, and they have just announced the king of their L series budget smartphone; Optimus L9. Previously, it used to be L7 closely associated by L5 and L3. However, from what we have seen at the IFA 2012 in Berlin, LG Optimus L9 is a high end budget smartphone. However, the promotion strategy used by LG for the smartphones in the L series is questionable for it doesn’t exactly appeal to the market it needs to appeal. LG Optimus L9 is to have a global roll out later this year, and we are hoping LG would have rectified their advertising before then.
Alongside the LG stall in IFA, there was another Samsung that called us for a comparison. The new Samsung Ativ S is the first Windows Phone 8 smartphone, and we hope it’ll be the start of a successful Samsung Windows collaboration. It would also be a good starting point for us to compare with the LG Optimus L9 because their specs are somewhat similar and Samsung has been cautious in designing Ativ S just like LG has been with Optimus L9. Let us look at them individually before comparing them in the same altar.
LG Optimus L9 Review
LG Optimus L9 is a high end budget phone, but it certainly lacks the looks. The front is admirable with the white margin surrounding the screen, but the back plate feels somewhat cheap and plastic-like. The texture also had problems in keeping the grip. However, it has a pleasant bezel and feels good in your palm. Inside this exterior is a 1GHz Dual Core processor with 1GB of RAM. We have no concrete information about the chipset used although we assume it would be a Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset along with Adreno GPU. The operating system in use is Android OS v4.0.4 ICS with their native user interface. LG hasn’t revealed information about the resolution of the display panel either although we know that it has 4.7 inches IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen.
The connectivity is defined through HSDPA that can achieve speeds up to 21Mbps and Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n along with DLNA and the ability to host a Wi-Fi hotspot to share your internet connection. It might have NFC although LG hasn’t made a comment on that. The 5MP camera has autofocus and LED flash, but we don’t have information on the video capturing capabilities. Hopefully it can capture 1080p HD videos @ 30 frames per second like the usual smartphones of the same range. The internal storage is limited at a meager 4GB, but with the ability to expand using microSD cards, it isn’t likely to become a problem. LG has managed to integrate some cool features in LG Optimus L9, as well. For instance, it has the My Style Keypad which enables the user to adjust the placement of the keys as they wish. It also comes with a language translation service that boasts using OCR to translate text from 44 different languages into 64 native languages. LG has dubbed QTranslator for this service. The large sized smartphone comes with a beefy battery of 2150mAh. Although there are no official records, we assume this would enable the consumer to use LG Optimus L9 for more than a day with a single charge.
Samsung Ativ S Review
This Windows Phone 8 smartphone feels good in your hands but lacks the striking looks of its competitors since Ativ S looks plain and simple. It is housed in a 137.2 x 70.5mm exterior with a thickness of 8.7mm. Samsung calls this form factor as “chic hairline design”. The 4.8 inches Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen is present as would in any Samsung high end smartphone. It features a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels at a pixel density of 306ppi and the screen in reinforced with Corning Gorilla glass to make it scratch resistant. Samsung followed their usual Android button and included a physical button in the bottom of the handset and two touch buttons on either side of it. Samsung has decided to market this product with a single color range featuring the Mystic Blue exterior with a brushed Aluminum back.
Samsung Ativ S is powered by 1.5GHz Krait Dual Core processor on top of Qualcomm MSM8960 Snapdragon S4 chipset with Adreno 225 GPU and 1GB of RAM. It runs on the brand new Windows Phone 8 and hence we are unable to report much about the operating system. Microsoft guarantees that it performs very well, but the operating system still hasn’t undergone any benchmarking tests, so we are not at liberty to predict how it would turn out to be. Hence we will primarily base our review on the specs of the handset. Following the usual aspects in a smartphone, Ativ S also has 8MP camera that can capture 1080p HD videos at 30 frames per second with 1.9MP front facing camera for video conferencing. The network connectivity is defined by HSDPA and hopefully Samsung will have 4G versions of the handset in the market soon. Ativ S also has Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n with DLNA and the ability to host a Wi-Fi hotspot to share your internet with your friends. Samsung also noticed that Ativ S supports sharing files through NFC which is a new feature introduced for Windows Phones. It comes with 16 and 32GB version with the support to expand the memory using microSD card up to 32GB. Samsung has been generous with Ativ S and included a beefy 2300mAh battery for prolonged usage times.
A Brief Comparison Between Samsung Ativ S and LG Optimus L9
• Samsung Ativ S is powered by 1.5GHz Krait Dual Core processor on top of Qualcomm MSM8960 Snapdragon chipset with Adreno 225 GPU and 1GB of RAM while LG Optimus L9 is powered by 1GHz Dual Core processor with 1GB of RAM.
• Samsung Ativ S runs on Windows Phone 8 while LG Optimus L9 runs on Android OS v4.0.4 ICS.
• Samsung Ativ S has 4.8 inches Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen featuring a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels at a pixel density of 306ppi while LG Optimus L9 has 4.7 inches IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen.
• Samsung Ativ S has 8MP camera that can capture 1080p HD videos @ 30fps while LG Optimus L9 has 5MP camera with autofocus and LED flash.
• Samsung Ativ S is bigger and heftier but thinner (137.2 x 70.5mm / 8.7mm / 135g) than LG Optimus L9 (131.9 x 68.2mm / 9.1mm / 125g).
• Samsung Ativ S has 2300mAh battery while LG Optimus L9 has 2150mAh battery.
Conclusion
In a conclusion like this, there’s one solid fact that we shouldn’t forget. We are comparing two handsets that are addressed to two distinct markets. LG Optimus L9 is marketed as a budget smartphone while Samsung Ativ S is undoubtedly a high end flagship product representing Samsung’s Windows Phone 8 line to come. Hence Samsung Ativ S will have better hardware specs than LG Optimus L9. For instance, Ativ S has a better processor, better display panel and screen as well as better optics. However, these do not ensure a better performance matrix as we don’t know how Windows Phone 8 handles the hardware thrown at it. Ironically, we don’t have much information about LG Optimus L9, as opposed to the numerous benchmarks we have against the operating system runs on it; Android OS v4.0.4 ICS. So it will be wise to wait until we get to have these handsets in our hands and test them out before making a decision. Besides the inherent advantage of price in the LG Optimus L9, one can surely weigh the app market before making their decision as well because Android Play store has way more applications than what Windows App Store has to offer.