TechnoManiacz: The Surprisingly Crowded Smartphone Market

Finally, here is a brief comparison between the very bitter rivals of the smartphone segment.

1. Apple iphone 4

2. Nokia N8

3. Sony Ericsson Arc

4. Samsung Galaxy S

5. HTC HD7

6. Blackberry Torch 9800

1. Apple Iphone 4:

We all know that there are a lot of iphone fanatics but this phone right here is not what you are looking for. Yes, the iphone 4 has a lot of issues including poor signal reception, requires micro sim card, file sharing through bluetooth only via other Apple products. Coming to the OS part , the iphone 4 uses iOS 4 and its quite good and has a lot of applications to download and use. The phone weighs at 137 gms and is 9.3 mm thick. It has got a primary camera of 5 megapixels with LED flash and the hd video recording is done at 720p@30 fps. The very interesting thing is that the photo flash can be used for video light as well. The screen measures 3.5 inches and is a LED-backlit IPS TFT with capacitive touchscreen interface. The phone has a stainless steel finish and is really sturdy. The battery life is not so good as usual. It has accelerometer sensor for auto rotate, a three axis gyro sensor for excellent gaming experience and a proximity sensor for auto turn off. The phone comes with 16/32 GB storage and no card slots :( The phone runs on the Apple's A4 processor and is supported by a 512 MB RAM, but still multi-tasking is not quite overwhelming. It has two microphones for active noise cancellation.

Price: 40000-42000 INR / around 50000 INR (16GB/32GB)

Bottom-line: Go for it if you don't value money and all you are looking for is fun compromising on some tiny lil features. Good phone over all but not enough to challenge with Android phones. [I do feel thats it a good idea to wait for iPhone Gen 5 hitting the market by around September... There are speculations that this new one has improved hardwares that none can match]

2. Nokia N8 :

N8 is one of the better smart-phones provided by Nokia. But i don't know why Nokia had to go with the Symbian^3 OS for the N8. I have got only two words for it- it sucks, maybe 3 it sucks big-time!!!!!! In the last quarter of 2010 Nokia lost about 7% of smart-phone market to the Google's Android powered smart-phones. Since then Nokia has started to work with Microsoft to provide them with an OS to over-power the Android. But leave all that, coming back to the N8 the battery cannot be removed since it is sealed with screws under the Stainless steel body. One of the very interesting features of the N8 is that an adaptor is provided with the USB cable so that the phone can be connected to external hard disks or pen-drives. This is a very unique thing is very much suited for transfers on the go. N8 has a 12 mega-pixel camera with Carl Zeiss lens. The image quality is simply superb and the video recording is hd and @25 fps. The phone has a 512 MB RAM and multi-tasking is quite good. It has a 3.5 inch OLED screen which is no deal when compared to the Super AMOLED of the Samsung Galaxy S. This time Nokia came up only with a single hardware key below the screen and a keypad lock key at the right side. Nokia gets the upper-hand in providing very superior battery life.

Price: 24000 INR

Bottom-line: Everything is awesome about the phone except for that bull-shit Symbian^3 OS.

3. Sony Ericsson Arc :

The much awaited Xperia Arc is due to be released at the end of the first quarter of 2011. It is just 8.7mm thick and is very light @ 117 gms. The Arc is run by 1GHz Scorpion processor, Adreno 205 GPU, Qualcom MSM8255 Snapdragon and a 512 MB RAM. The screen is LED-backlit LCD and measures 4.2 inches and is rather long than wide. The card slot is micro SD and is expandable upto 32 GB. The Camera is 8 megapixels and takes excellent snaps paired with the LED flash. Some additional features include touch focus, smile and face detection, geo tagging and image stabilization. Sadly no secondary camera available. The Xperia Arc will be the first phone to run on the Android OS, v2.3 Gingerbread.

Price: 30000-35000 INR (rumoured)

Bottom-line: The phone looks like 4-5 sheets of papers stacked on. Awesome offering and is sure to shake up Samsung's Galaxy S!

4. Samsung Galaxy S :

This phone right here is Samsung's Masterpiece. The phone has very less or no flaws to speak about. It has no flash, no flash support for web browser, the loudspeaker is really feeble that you cannot simply call it a "loud"-speaker. The all plastic body makes it all the more lighter and thinner. It weighs at 118 gms and is 9.9mm thick. Multitasks with 1GHz Cortex A8 Hummingbird combined with 512 MB RAM and 2GB ROM. The huge 4 inch Super AMOLED screen is the best in a phone till date (forgetting about the much hyped Retina Display of Apple). The 5 megapixel camera has smile, face and blink detection and captures videos in HD. There is a secondary camera for video calling. Galaxy S comes with internal memory of 8/16 GB with hot-swappable slot for micro-SD cards upto 32GB. The phone runs on Android OS, v2.1 Eclair and is update-able to Android 2.2 Froyo, but the v2.2 is not quite stable and is quite slow compared to the Eclair. The Android market has a lot of interesting and useful applications. It has proximity and accelerometer sensors. The Live Wallpapers is a special feature not to be forgotten.

Price: 27000 INR

Bottom-line: The first Android powered smart phone is worth every single penny from your earnings.....or your dad's.

5. HTC HD7 :

This Windows mobile from HTC has a huge 4.3 inch screen and weighs at 162 gms. The phone works on the 1GHz processor and 512 MB ROM and 576 MB RAM. The internal storage is 8GB for Europe and 16GB for Asia. The 5 mega-pixel camera captures high quality pictures with dual LED flash and records HD videos. The phone runs on Windows Phone OS 7. Additional to G sensor and Proximity sensor the HD7 also has digital compass and Ambient light sensor. The phone has a kick-stand for awesome movie experience with great audio quality boosted by SRS WOW HD. It has in-built flashlight app that turns the dual LED into flashlight with 3 brightness levels and even flashes SOS signal in case of emergency. The HTC Hub has a wide variety of applications which is not currently available in India. WTF!!!!!!!!

Price: 29000 INR

Bottom-line: It is more of a tablet than a phone, that is exactly why we (TechnoManiacz) did not compare Dell Streak with these smart-phones.

6. Blackberry Torch :

The 3.2 inch slider mobile with TFT capacitive touch screen and qwerty keyboard weighs 161 gms. The 5 mega-pixel camera has features like geo-tagging,image stabilization, continuous autofocus, LED flash. The video recording is one place where Blackberry let down the Torch 9800. It records video at 24 fps in 3gp format, yes no HD recording unlike the other smart phones. The optical trackpad adds beauty and ease of access to the several menus and applications. Sadly there is no secondary camera for video calling. The Torch has a 624 Mhz processor , 512 MB RAM and 512 MB ROM. The internal memory is 4GB and is expandable upto 32GB with a micro SD. The phone runs on the Blackberry OS 6.0 which is so far the best for multitasking. Plus the new feature of OS 6 is that the whole way of navigation has changed - there is a navigation bar for icons at the bottom which can be pulled up to display a row of 5 shortcuts and two rows of 10 shortcuts, all these can be accessed without a single hardware button pressed. The blackberry server allows maximum file hosting and stuff. The touch interface is not very perfectly crafted like the N8 or the Galaxy S which is not a major drawback but seems a lil sluggish. The phone can play many video formats including DivX and other DVD formats.

Price: 35000 INR

Bottom-line: Quite the feel of a smart-phone and you can surely go for it if you are looking for a multimedia phone that is a smart-phone.

Sneak-Peak into Galaxy S II :

Till now all we know about the Galaxy S2 is that it is to have a launch by the end of the 1st quarter or the starting of the 2nd of 2011. The Galaxy S2 looks over its preceedor in many areas :

1. S2 has a bigger 4.3 inch Super AMOLED screen

2. 8 mega-pixel camera with LED flash and secondary camera is 2 mega-pixels

3. S2 gets Dual Core 1GHz Cortex A9 processor, Orion chipset and 1GB RAM

4. weighs just 116 grams lighter than the Xperia Arc by a gram

5. thinner than its preceedor and measures only 8.49 mm

6. Comes with Android OS,v2.3 Gingerbread.