Introduction
It’s not like you’re out of options. Here’s one. Another one would be to get a friend’s iPhone 4 and another friend’s Galaxy S, put them on a table, close your eyes and… tell your friends to bugger off. Or you can do it the old-fashioned way. Flip a what?
Yes, we’ll be comparing the best screens in business. But it’s not even the beginning of what this is all about. There’s not just muscle being flexed here – it’s about ideology too. It’s open source Android against control freaks Apple, democracy against the royalty.Now seriously, do we need another iPhone vs. insert phone of choice thing? Well, do you need Retina display when it’s more than the human eye can see? Do you need a 4” Super AMOLED when 3.5” would’ve been just fine – and easier to handle?
And technically, the Samsung Galaxy S is not alone in this fight. It’s backed by an army of overseas mercenaries, marching to take on the Apple phone on different markets: Samsung Vibrant, Samsung Captivate and the Epic 4G.
The different call signs aside, we have two of the best phones you can get today and this is not a kill-or-get-killed game. The first thing we try to find out when reviewing phones is who they are for. The tech inside is always exciting but ultimately it all comes down to whether the right users are getting the right treatment.
The specs are the players – the phone is the team. You can always tell a star player. But the winning team isn’t always the one with the better players. And sometimes you don’t even want to look at the score. That’s when we know it’s been a hell of a game.
Samsung Galaxy S over Apple iPhone 4
- Android 2.1 Éclair, 2.2 Froyo update just around the corner
- 4” SuperAMOLED display with a 15:9 widescreen aspect ratio
- Regular SIM card support
- DivX/XviD video support
- FM radio with RDS
- Notably cheaper
Apple iPhone 4 over Samsung Galaxy S
- iOS 4
- 640 x 960 pixel Retina display
- Scratch-resistant, high-quality glass panels
- LED flash
- Precise movement tracking via a gyro sensor
It’s Android’s finest against the iPhone but that’s how we tend to look at it on our side of the pond. The truth is, there are meaner and keener droids out there. The Motorola DROID X and the HTC Evo 4G are obviously not part of our story but are the kind of phones to merit a place in history.
Anyway, there’s enough firepower here even without the US heavyweights. Screen and OS are the most powerful weapons of both the Galaxy S and the iPhone 4. SuperAMOLED came first and impressed the world but now the Retina display is claiming the crown.
With platforms it’s a mirrored image of the same events: iOS (known as iPhone OS at the time), redefined touchscreen usability but Android claims to have leapfrogged it with Froyo.
To further complicate things, even absolutely identical specs don’t produce the same performance. The cameras on both devices may look similar but the rival camps took a completely different approach to processing – that holds true for both still imaging and video recording.
At times, it will look like the Galaxy S is competing against a first-gen iPhone. There are still things Apple will never bother put in their phones. Elsewhere, the Samsung Galaxy S might find it hard to match the stature and eloquence of the iPhone. That’s how we like it though – punches flying both ways. Be right back.
Design and construction
Say what you will about specs but they're not the first thing you notice about a handset. What we have here is some amazing pieces of technology - phones you'll want to show off. But a touchscreen bar isn't exactly the form factor to let designers unleash their creativity. Plus, a large, bright, high-res screen is enough to make any handset a looker.
We have two completely different approaches here. Design is a rather broad concept: there's handling and ergonomics - and there're engineering choices that affect the actual performance. In terms of pure looks though, the iPhone is having a walkover here.
Apple deserves much credit for the styling of their latest phone. They did a complete overhaul of one of the most minimalist designs ever. The iPhone 4 has the right measures of simplicity and sophistication. And it's all meaningful. It's the latest in a line of phones that redefined user-friendliness but it's the next generation too in features and technology.
The new iPhone 4 has a brand new design
Samsung on the other hand, don't seem to care too much about the packaging. The Galaxy S does little to stand out among the multitude of affordable mass-market touch phones that the company has been churning out. The simple and plasticky phone is quite in line perhaps with Android's egalitarian nature.
Simplicity was key for Apple too, but premium finish for their latest and greatest must've been a matter of noblesse oblige. Some of Apple's innovative design solutions are questionable to say the least but the glass-covered, metal-framed iPhone 4 is a joy to behold.
Choosing an all-plastic case for the I9000 Galaxy S, Samsung were able to keep the phone's weight to the incredible 119 grams (the iPhone 4 weighs in at 137 g). Quite an achievement this one - don't forget we're talking a 4" screen. Among other things, the plastic body makes the Galaxy S much cheaper to make too.
The Samsung I9000 Galaxy S is amazingly light for a 4" phone
Now depending on how you look at it, the lower weight might be an advantage, as it makes the handset less of a burden in the pocket, or a disadvantage, as it takes away some of the solid feel we've come to expect in premium phones.
The glossy plastic body of the Galaxy S doesn't look quite so nice after a short while - it doesn't take long for it to become a greasy mess. The rear of the phone is less affected by this unpleasant effect. The bluish dots on the back cover were also an attempt perhaps to give the premium handset a bit of personality. The subtle holographic depth effect might have seemed relevant to the phone's name too.
One aspect where the Galaxy S does beat the iPhone 4 however is handling. The Samsung handset has a subtle chin at its back that makes the handset both comfortable and more secure to hold. A 4" screen does push the limits of comfortable single-handed use but the Galaxy S feels good in the hand - especially with the tapered edges, which previous iPhones had too.
The Apple's latest on the other hand has top-notch finish but this is somehow at the expense of secure handling. The iPhone 4 is so slick and smooth with all that glass up and front that it makes you take extra care not to drop it.
The iPhone 4 has a quality finish and feels great in the hand
This brings us to the next aspect of design - durability. Firstly, the iPhone 4 has a clear advantage as far as day-to-day wear and tear is concerned. The scratch-resistant glass panels can suffer quite a lot of abuse and will look as good as day one.
However glass, sturdy as it may be, is still pretty sensitive to dropping. Early tests showed that the iPhone can survive landing on its face, but falling on a side is likely to cause a nasty crack on the front or bacl. And with glass panels that are pretty hard to replace this is not something you want to have to deal with.
A bumper case is usually good enough to stay out of trouble but those cheap looking (but pretty expensive to buy) pieces of plastic do take away quite a lot of the device's appeal.
The plasticky Galaxy S on the other hand is far easier to scratch but is less vulnerable to dropping. Not to mention that replacing its full-face back panel is far easier and cheaper and requires less technical knowledge. We'd rather call it a tie here.
The Samsung Galaxy S is plastic all around
On a final note we'd like to point out the size difference. The 4" screen of the Galaxy S is marvelous to look at but might be an issue for some users. We guess 3.7 inches is as far as phones should go to. Our two rivals here are keen to support that claim. It just seems the iPhone puts the majority of people at ease. The big screen of Galaxy S will delight power users, but might turn off the average Joe.
Apple iPhone 4: 9/10 • Samsung I9000 Galaxy S: 7/10
Telephony
The fact aside that telephony is still one of the main jobs of a mobile phone, we don’t think we would have normally included such a chapter in a shoot-out. But this has quite a lot to do with design, as many unfortunate iPhone 4 users have come to learn the hard way.
If you are reading this, chances are you already know everything there is to know about the so-called Antennagate. In the end, it’s not about a weak spot in a phone that’s pitched as the pinnacle of evolution. It’s about how Apple handled the whole thing.
The iPhone 4 dialer
Apple thought it had nailed it with their all-new antenna design giving the iPhone 4 better signal reception than any iPhone before it plus keeping thing as compact as they come. But it didn’t quite work the way they hoped. It could’ve been an oversight. Or they knew contact with skin will most certainly interfere with the antenna and cause the phone to lose signal – but didn’t care to act when they should have.
Either way, the thing was blown out of proportion, fueled by Apple’s own high-octane mix of arrogance and denial. It seems it’s all heading towards a happily-ever-after. Our own tests showed iPhone’s reception was mostly problematic in areas of spotty coverage . And bumper cases are certain to sort all issues out.
So there you go, Apple decided to give away free bumpers.
Of course not every iPhone 4 owner is happy to have a piece of plastic wrapped around their shiny handset. Not to mention that depending on the bumper you choose it might take up to 3 months for it to arrive. Not quite the best way to treat the customers, who paid good money for your device.
And to make matters worse, the antenna isn’t the only problem of the iPhone 4. Proximity sensor issueshave been reported since day one and this has nothing to do with external factors like the cellular network. We’ve done our own investigation into the issue and you can see, the problem is very much real.
The Samsung Galaxy S has some clever ways to dial
The proximity sensor on the iPhone 4 is somewhat buggy and the screen will sometimes turn on even though you are holding the phone right next to your face. Accidental presses are likely resulting sometimes in dropped or muted calls, which can be quite annoying. At least Apple owned up to this one and promised a fix in the next iOS version (in fact the iOS 4.1 beta is already available and early reports suggest it does fix things up).
Next up is video calling. The Apple FaceTime videochat service only works over Wi-Fi (unless you have a jailbroken device) and both parties must have an iPhone 4. So it’s not exactly the most widely adopted option for video chats.
The Galaxy S has video-calling enabled too. And what do you know, the other person doesn’t even have to have a Galaxy S, just any 3G handset will do (well, okay, most of them). The Galaxy S also brings contact widgets, quick contacts and that neat little feature that allows you to dial or text a contact in your phonebook by a swipe gesture.
Apple iPhone 4: 4/10 • Samsung I9000 Galaxy S: 9/10
Display
This is where it gets serious. The best displays in business, the pride and joy of Samsung and Apple.
In the Galaxy S corner is a 4” SuperAMOLED display of WVGA resolution (800 x 480 pixels). Across the ring we have the iPhone 4 and the Retina display – a 3.5” S-IPS LCD unit at 960 x 640 pixels. Both of course have support for up to 16M colors, so banding isn’t an issue.
There isn’t much to say about the sensitivity of the two touchscreens either – they are both superb. We see capacitive at its best here and with screens this big and interfaces so well optimized you’re likely to enjoy yourselves.
The iPhone 3G, iPhone 4 and Samsung Galaxy S indoors
The SuperAMOLED technology is superior to LCD, especially on hand-held where its relatively shorter life span doesn’t really count. The iPhone 4 has higher nominal resolution, for finer, sharper image quality.
Besides the LCD mounted on the iPhone 4 has out-of-this-world viewing angles and manages to do something we never believed possible. It turns out that from extremely tight viewpoints the iPhone actually looks a bit better. However, considering that no one actually looks at their phone screen from such steep angles it’s a fact interesting to scientists but irrelevant to users.
Now for the resolution – the iPhone 4 is certainly impressively sharp, with pixel density unmatched by a GSM phone. No matter how close you look at it, it’s virtually impossible to see individual pixels. That’s certainly a welcome upgrade over previous iPhones, which had incredibly low pixel density but is not to say that the Galaxy S is the sad loser here.
The three phones outside in the sun
Right on the contrary – the Samsung I9000 with its WVGA resolution is pretty sharp too. What’s more, the way you normally hold your phone (at just under an arm’s length away from your eyes) the difference between the two is hardly that big.
Even at that distance, however you can easily see the superior contrast of the Galaxy S SuperAMOLED screen. Those kind of displays, unlike LCDs, are able to display pitch-black and much more saturated colors in general, which is really what we all want to see. It’s also what makes the difference when watching a movie on your mobile phone, giving the Galaxy S an edge here.
And speaking of video playback, the Galaxy S has another advantage over the iPhone 4. Its widescreen 15:9 display is much better suited for watching movies, which all tend to come in 16:9 aspect ratio or even wider. You still need to lose a small part (where black bars appear) of the screen or crop the edges of the frame, but the iPhone has it much worse here.
Viewing angles compared: Samsung I9000 Galaxy S, Apple iPhone 4 • iPhone 3G
All that said, we really believe that the Samsung I9000 Galaxy S takes an edge on the more important parts of the display performance. Plus it gets an extra point for the extra size to win this one.
Apple iPhone 4: 9/10 • Samsung I9000 Galaxy S: 10/10
Application base and handling and App stores
OK, it’s open source Android against control freaks Apple. It’s iPhone users who are habituated into paying for their apps against Android and its tons of free content. App stores are a key value-adding feature of today’s smartphones. And they are massive money makers for their owners.
The iPhone App Store has much more apps than the Android Market. The Market passed 100,000 appsand it’s still playing catch-up – that’s how big the Apple App Store is. The Android Market can hardly make up the lack of quantity with quality too.
Take games for example – because of Android OS limitations, games cannot be very big so the Android Market offers mostly simple games. The Apple App Store on the other hand has some really exciting and elaborate games, the new gyroscopes in the iPhone 4 make them even more fun.
Of course, the limitation will be lifted from the Samsung Galaxy S with the Froyo update but we run into another problem – platform fragmentation. Almost half of Androids run v1.5 Cupcake or v1.6 Donut, and there are quite a number of droid phones with different display resolution.
This limits the potential market for an app or game, which in turn limits the number of developers willing to create apps for just that part of the user base. There’s some fragmentation in the App Store too, but it’s much less prominent.
The iPhone 4 can run every iPhone app under the sun. iPad apps are not compatible but that’s not a loss really. The iPad apps are mostly variants of their iPhone counterparts – if an app is available for the iPad, there’s probably a version of that app for the iPhone. Differences between iPhone 4 and iPad apps are caused mainly by the physical difference between screen sizes – nothing can be done about that.“App Store”, “Market”... Clearly they’re meant to sell stuff so let’s get to the topic of money. The Android Market is a haven for free apps (more than half of the apps are free), but the truth is that it’s money that brings in a large number of developers – they make mobile apps for a living.
Here, the iPhone 4 has the clear advantage – the App Store is more profitable and even for free apps, there’s the iAds service which can generate revenue indirectly. Google recently bought AdMob and it’s a safe bet that they’ll put some effort into creating a similar service. But right now, Apple promises the bigger pay off for devs’ hard work.
That’s just one side of the coin though – the other is how users pay. Buying an app on the Apple iPhone 4 is nice and simple – users have an account linked to their credit card. On the Samsung I9000 Galaxy S, you have to use Google Checkout and few people use that service much – if at all.
On the other hand, the Android Market has great return policy. If you uninstall a paid app up within 24 hours from purchase, the Market will give you a refund. If you find out the app you just bought isn’t as useful as you though it would be, this can be quite a cash saver.
Let’s go back to the developers for a moment – Apple have angered quite a few devs with their obscure and inconsistent approval system. They also limit what kind of apps can be in the App Store, which often means iPhone 4 users don’t have access to some apps.
Take Google Voice for example – it’s a great management tool if you have to juggle several phone lines, especially if some are just for work and others personal. But Apple with their “no duplication” policy don’t allow the Voice app into the App Store. Google went around this and created a web app you can use instead, but it’s not as good. The Samsung Galaxy S can run the native app no problem.
Of course there’s the issue of multitasking. Android has true multitasking – it can suspend an idling app when it runs low on recourses but the Samsung I9000 Galaxy S has plenty of RAM and can run multiple apps simultaneously without breaking a sweat.
The iOS4 and Apple iPhone 4 situation is different though – it can very convincingly fake multitasking with apps that support it, but it’s not true multitasking – at least not for the most part. Only a handful of apps get the green light for running properly in the background. And if your favorite app has not been updated to support any of that fast app switching or multitasking, then you’re stuck with the same limitations older OS versions and iPhones had. But still, users hardly ned all apps to run in the background, so perhaps that’s not such a big letdown.
Apple iPhone 4: 9/10 • Samsung I9000 Galaxy S: 8/10
Wrap up
Well, here we are at the end of our grand battle. We tried to be as helpful as possible to everyone wondering which of the two best smartphones currently available to purchase. There's a reason why we won't add up the individual scores for each phone - different people have different needs and you should count only the scores on the chapters that are important to you.
And don't take our word for granted - you are free to disagree with our reasoning. After all, every person out there uses their phones in a different way. That's the beauty of it - the latest and greatest smartphones can do so much for you that you can even afford to not use some of the available features and still have a great experience.
There's no ultimate smartphone out there and the right choice boils down to the compromises you are willing to make. Price is important factor too and currently the iPhone 4 is probably the most expensive smartphone on the market (contract-free). But then again, Apple gadgets are almost always the most expensive among their kind and still, they sell quite well.
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