Physical
Apple iPhone 4S - 115.2x58.6x9.3mm,
140g
Samsung Galaxy S3 - 136.6x70.6x8.6mm, 133g
Apple'siPhone 4S retains the distinctive iPhone ‘candy bar' shape from its
predecessor, the iPhone 4, with the same rectangular format and fairly heavily rounded
corners.
The build
quality is top notch, but then you'd expect as much at Apple's price point.
Some may be bored of Apple's visual style, while we're not the most avid fans
ourselves we can appreciate good aesthetics and quality when we see it. The
iPhone 4S has both of these in spades.
The Galaxy
S3, Samsung's latest Galaxy S model, has gone for a more curvaceous shape than
its predecessor and, indeed, its opponent for this comparison.
It reminds
us of HTC's One S and the Galaxy Nexus, which is a good thing. What's not so
good is the build quality. We thought the Galaxy S2 had a cheap feel but the
Galaxy S3 really takes the cake. The plastic has a very unpleasant tackiness
and shininess to it which doesn't lend a premium feel whatsoever.
We applaud
Samsung for offering some interesting colour choices this time round with the
Galaxy S3 being available in white or blue, but the build quality is a real let
down.
Display
The iPhone 4S uses Apple's famous
Retina display technology, which means a 3.5-inch IPS LED-backlit LCD
touchscreen with a 960x640 pixel resolution and a pixel density of 330
pixels-per-inch (ppi). Other features include Corning Gorilla Glass and an
oleophobic coating to repel fingerprints. Picture quality is incredibly sharp
and the screen is bright.
Samsung's
Galaxy S3 has one of the largest touchscreens on the market, coming on only
slightly smaller than the Galaxy Note. It has a 4.8-inch Super AMOLED HD with a
1280x720 pixel resolution and a pixel density of 306ppi, this is also reinforced
with Corning Gorilla Glass.
The
clarity for a screen this size is seriously impressive, although the iPhone's
screen may be noticeably sharper by the more discerning eyes. Colours look good
and there's plenty of contrast with deep blacks.
The iPhone's
screen is technically better with the higher pixel density, but a 3.5-inch
screen is a bit small for our tastes. Your mileage may vary, as they say. We're
calling this one a draw and it'll swing differently depending on your
preferences for clarity or size.
Storage
Apple's iPhone 4S has three storage
variants with either 16GB, 32GB or 64GB of space depending on how much money
you're prepared to spend. All the different models have 512MB of RAM but
there's no card storage to be found.
The Galaxy
S3 has an identical range of options for internal storage at 16GB, 32GB and
64GB but each of these has 1GB of RAM and micro SD support up to 32GB.
A fairly
easy win for Samsung here offering more RAM and greater flexibility through
cards.
Processor
The iPhone 4S is Apple's first dual
core smartphone running on a 1GHz ARM Cortex-A9 based processor with Apple's
own A5 chipset and a PowerVR SGX543MP2 graphics processing unit (GPU).
Running
iOS, this setup glides along without a care in the world. That's partly due to
the fact it's a powerhouse and partly the excellent optimisation of iOS, but
either way, you're not going to see any chugginess here.
Just as
the iPhone 4S is Apple's first dual core, the Galaxy S3 is Samsung's first quad
core device. It's ARM Cortex-A9 based and runs Samsung's latest Exynos 4212
chip clocked at 1.4GHz with a Mali-400MP GPU.
Like its
opponent, this processor build runs very fast and we didn't encounter any
stuttering when we used it at Samsung's unveiling.
Samsung
may have crammed a more impressive sounding processor into its handset but the
performance output is, relatively speaking, comparable. They both offer
excellent performance on their respective operating systems.
Operating System
With the Samsung Galaxy S3 on
Android and Apple's iPhone 4S on the company's own iOS platform, this is
something of a long-standing blood feud. The Galaxy S3 runs the latest build of
Google's Android system, version 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) while the iPhone
4S is on iOS 5.1.
Ice Cream
Sandwich is leaps and bounds ahead of the previous Android smartphone build,
2.3 Gingerbread, with a much cleaner menu layout, a more colourful and reworked
interface and some handy multi-tasking app switching tools.
It also
performs faster than previous builds and is generally more stable. On the
Galaxy S3, Samsung has overlaid its TouchWiz interface, which we're not
tremendously fond of but it doesn't exactly mar the experience completely.
Certainly
we didn't notice it causing any performance issues. Added features, unique to
the Galaxy S3, include‘intelligent' S-Voice control for performing smartphone
tasks via spoken commands (not hugely unlike the iPhone's Siri).
iOS on the
iPhone is one of the most straightforward and reliable systems available and if
you're after a ‘no fuss' solution we can't recommend it highly enough. However,
it doesn't have the same multi-tasking or customisation capability of Android,
it's a much more static system, though in truth this is what gives it its
stability and ease-of-use.
As usual
with these operating system comparisons, it's impossible to pick a winner
because it depends entirely on personal preference. If you want customisation
then Android is a clear winner, and these days it's also stable. But, if you
want something anyone can pick up with no problem then it has to be the iPhone.
Camera
The iPhone features Apple's iSight
camera setup, which is an 8-megapixel back-illuminated sensor (BSI) with a
3264x2448 pixel resolution. On the features front there's an LED flash,
geo-tagging, autofocus, touch focus, face detection and HDR mode.
For video
it captures in 1080p with an LED video light, video stabilisation and
geo-tagging. A front-facing VGA camera supports video calling via Wi-Fi on
Apple's FaceTime service.
This is a
really good camera setup, Apple has added an additional lens and a wider
aperture to improve image quality and video recording with the stabilisation
feature is excellent.
Samsung's
Galaxy S3 has a similar setup with the same 8-megapixel BSI configuration at
the same resolution. Picture and video quality looks great but what really
makes the difference is the added features.
Not only
does it have the usual run of autofocus, LED flash, geo-tagging, touch focus,
face and smile detection and image stabilisation, but there's some excellent
other stuff on top.
You can
capture 1080p video and still images simultaneously and there's a rapid
multi-shot mode which will pick the best photo from a stream of snaps. It also
features a 2-megapixel secondary with 720p video capture and video call
capability.
SUMMARY
|
iPhone 4S
|
Samsung Galaxy S3
|
Notes
|
OS
|
Direct updates by OS vendor
|
Yes
|
No
|
It can be updated directly by the OS vendor, so
no need to wait until the manufacturer or network provider releases an update
|
More apps available
|
425,000
|
400,000
|
7% more apps available
|
Plays Adobe Flash
|
No
|
Yes
|
Adobe Flash with Video and Sound is supported
in the phone's browser
|
Has free navigation software
|
No
|
Yes
|
Free navigation software with free map data and
updates included, no need to buy an dedicated navigation device
|
Camera
|
Has a dedicated camera button
|
Yes
|
No
|
A dedicated camera button lets you taking
snapshots more easily
|
Has a back-illuminated sensor
|
Yes
|
No
|
|
Front camera
|
0.3
|
1.9
|
6.3x less megapixel (photo, front camera)
|
SCREEN
|
|
|
|
Slightly higher pixel density
|
326ppi
|
313ppi
|
5% higher pixel density
|
Two pixels share one subpixel
|
No
|
Yes
|
On some displays, especially AMOLED, two pixel
share one subpixel like green; screens w/o sharing are crisper
|
Has a Corning® Gorilla® Glass display
|
Yes
|
No
|
Special glass that is durable enough to resist
many real-world events that commonly cause glass failure
|
Screen resolution
|
640 x 960 px
|
720 x 1280 px
|
1.5x lower screen resolution
|
Screen size
|
3.5”
|
4.8”
|
37% smaller screen size
|
CONNECTIVITY
|
|
|
|
Vastly faster uploads
|
3.0MBits/s
|
5.76MBits/s
|
1.9x faster uploads
|
Has DLNA
|
No
|
Yes
|
It can stream videos and movies to other
devices over-the-air
|
Has NFC
|
No
|
Yes
|
Near-field-communication (NFC) allows wireless
transactions like payments
|
PHYSICAL
|
|
|
|
Significantly less body volume
|
60.6cm³
|
82.9cm³
|
27% less body volume
|
Considerably narrower
|
58.6mm
|
70.6mm
|
12.0mm narrower
|
Sizably shorter
|
115.2mm
|
136.6mm
|
21.4mm shorter
|
Weight
|
140.0g
|
133.0g
|
7.0g more
|
Thin
|
9.3mm
|
8.6mm
|
0.7mm bigger
|
CPU
|
|
|
|
CPU clock speed
|
2x 0.8Ghz
|
4x 1.4Ghz
|
3.5x slower CPU clock speed
|
MEMORY
|
|
|
|
Significantly more internal storage
|
64.0GB
|
16.0GB
|
48.0gb more internal storage
|
|
|
Lotsa more RAM memory
|
0.5GB
|
1.0GB
|
0.5gb less RAM memory
|
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