The iPhone 4S is exactly what it sounds like but not like it was expected – a slight upgrade to the iPhone 4 with a beefed-up processor and a spangly new camera. However, many Apple loyalists were disappointed with the iPhone 4S because the phone did not have any innovative feature, especially as the smart phone competition is hotter than ever. Let’s see how Apple’s new gadget compares to its greatest rival.
The Samsung Galaxy S2 is one of the finest blowers ever crafted by human hands, and blew everyone’s socks clean off our feet when it was the reviewed earlier.
Design
If we compare dimensions of both the handsets, Samsung Galaxy S II is larger, slimmer and bigger than the iPhone 4S. Compared to the Galaxy S II dimensions of 125.3 x 66.1 x 8.5 mm, the iPhone 4S has dimensions of 115.2 x 58.6 x 9.3 mm. Last year, when Apple announced the iPhone 4, it vowed everyone with how slim the handset was. However, it was disappointing to see its successor having the same dimensions as the previous generation iPhone. The Galaxy S II weighs in at 113gms, on the other hand, the iPhone 4 weighs 138gms. iPhone 4S is primarily made of glass and metal and the Galaxy S II is made of plastic. Both the handsets are pretty stylish as well.
Display
The Samsung Galaxy S II has a 4.3-inch SuperAMOLED Plus display with WVGA(800×480) resolution, while the iPhone 4S has a comparatively tiny 3.5-inch IPS LCD ‘Retina Display’ with an eye-popping resolution of 640×960. Like the iPhone 4, the iPhone 4S trumps the Galaxy S 2 in terms of resolution and pixels. However, I would prefer the Samsung Galax S II just because it has a much bigger display with eye-popping colors and contrast ratios.
Hardware
The Samsung Galaxy S II carries an Exynos 4210 SoC, which beasts a 1.2GHz Cortex-A9 dual-core processor along with an ARM-Mali 400MP GPU. Like the iPad 2, the iPhone 4S is powered by an A5 SoC. The A5 SoC consists of a Cortex-A9 dual core, running at unknown frequency and a powerful PowerVR SGX543MP2 GPU. The CPU on the Galaxy S II beats the iPhone 4S in terms of raw processing power but the PowerVR SGX543MP2 GPU is way ahead of the ARM Mali-400MP GPU in terms of performance.
OS
While Samsung Galaxy S II runs on Android 2.3 Gingerbread, with Samsung’s proprietary TouchWIZ 4.0 UI on top of it. The iPhone 4S runs on iOS5, which includes a completely revamped notification center, iMessage, new camera app, and many other changes.
Compared to iOS5, the Android 2.3 Gingerbread OS on the Samsung Galaxy S II looks pretty stale. Hopefully, things will change when Google announces the next major version of Android this month, Ice Cream Sandwich.
Camera and Multimedia
Both the Samsung Galaxy S II and the iPhone 4S have an 8MP camera with an LED flash. While the Samsung Galaxy S II camera has an aperture size of 2.65, the iPhone 4S camera has an aperture size of 2.4. The iPhone 4S has a custom ISP designed by Apple, thanks to which it has features like Face recognition, Hybrid IR filter and auto-white balance. From the camera samples released by Apple, it looks like the iPhone 4S is capable of taking better photos compared to the Samsung Galaxy S II. There is not much difference between the picture quality though. However, in low-light conditions, the iPhone 4S completely outdoes the Samsung Galaxy S II pictures.
Both the handsets are also capable of recording videos in Full HD (1080p) resolution at 30FPS. The most interesting feature of the iPhone 4S is that it sports real-time video image stabilization, along with real-time temporal noise reduction. Thanks to these features, the iPhone 4S records much better videos than the Galaxy S II. This does not mean that the Samsung Galaxy S II camera is bad. It still has one of the best cameras among the Android handsets.
Who’s The Winner?
This is perhaps for the first time, that a product announcement from Apple has led to a disappointment. The iPhone 4S while has evolutionary hardware, still sports a very small screen compared to the competition from its Droid counterparts. Also, it looks exactly like its predecessor, which is not a good thing. Had the iPhone 4S been released at WWDC 2011, it would not have been such a disappointment. But, 14 months after the iPhone 4, the iPhone 4S is nothing but a disappointment.
We reckon that for most people, the iPhone 4S is the better mobile. But Apple and Android fans alike should know that we’re expecting Samsung to launch a brand-new mobile called the Nexus Prime in the very near future, which is rumoured to pack a 4.6-inch screen and an iPhone-trouncing display resolution of 720×1,184 pixels.
Moreover, the Nexus Prime will be the next Android flagship mobile, and is expected to come running Ice Cream Sandwich, the latest version of Android. So while Apple is on top for now, the fact that the iPhone 4S is a relatively minor upgrade means it could be overthrown before long. But right now, comparing all the features,performances and with an ungraded processor, better camera and some new software, the iPhone 4S just edges all.
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