New Delhi: The rapid increase of smartphones in the market is proof of the digitally-aware gizmo freaks around the world and their growing number. With two major companies – Apple and Samsung – pushing out two flagships in a relatively small timeframe, it might be difficult to decide between the two.
The battle between Apple’s iPhone and Samsung’s Galaxy has been raging for years, but the latest two flagship handsets have put the companies more neck-and-neck than ever in 2014. With the launch of the iPhone and Galaxy Note 4, the competition got even bigger.
DISPLAY
The iPhone 6 is Apple’s slimmest, sleekest smartphone yet, with curved edges that make the handset’s transition into the 4.7-inch arena a graceful one. The phone’s aluminum back panel has a smooth, premium-feeling finish, which comes in Apple’s usual trio of Silver, Space Gray and Gold color choices.
The iPhones – 6 and 6 Plus comes with Retina Had and sport a near-unscratchable ion strengthened screen. The iPhone 6 Plus is the first iPhone with a full HD 1920 x 1080 resolution (401ppi). Color display is natural, viewing angles are excellent, and text and images are extremely sharp. Watching videos, particularly those from the iTunes store, on the 6 Plus is marvellous, with the 16:9 aspect ratio, rendering the black bars obsolete.
As far as the Galaxy Note 4 is concerned, it boasts a whopping 5.7-inch Super AMOLED 2K display. Samsung has upped the display resolution in Galaxy Note series, from Full HD (1080x1920p) in Note 3 to QHD (1440x2560p) in Note 4.
PROCESSOR
Apple pioneered the 64-bit concept with mobile processors and it continues to push the technology with the iPhone 6. Opting to avoid big power-draining quad-core units, the chip inside is a brand new A8 processor. Apple says it’s up to 50x faster than the original iPhone. The unit is Apple’s second-generation 64-bit setup. It is said to feature up to 50% faster graphics performance than original offerings.
Under the hood, Samsung Galaxy Note 4 packs the 2.7GHz quad-core Snapdragon 805 processor, the most powerful mobile chip in the world. The phablet comes with 3GB RAM and the only storage option now is 32GB, with support for 64GB microSD cards for more storage.
CAMERA
The all new iSight camera comes with an 8-megapixel sensor, a true tone flash and an even faster aperture. The iPhone 6 has digital image stabilisation, but for serious photo nerds, the iPhone 6 Plus uses optical image stabilisation which will make it even better at capturing photos in low light.
Slow motion is also improved, doubling from 120 fps to a full 240 fps. That means even smoother slow motion that, when demoed to us, looked amazing. Time lapse video is also built into iOS 8 (operating system), which will help you get Hyperlapse-style footage from the iPhone.
Meanwhile, the Galaxy Note 4 has a 16 MP back camera with Optical image stabilisation and of course lots of other modes like any premium Samsung Galaxy device. From burst mode to rear camera selfie to panorama to selective focus, users who love to take pictures have a lot of options as well.
The front camera is a 3.1 megapixel one and has a wide-angle selfie mode, where you can take selfies with a much larger group, without forcing everyone to squish each other.
BATTERY LIFE
iPhone 6 Plus clocks in with the more impressive numbers with 16 days of standby, 80 hours of audio playback, 14 hours of video playback and 12 hours of Internet use. The iPhone 6 claims up to 10 days of standby time, 50 hours of audio playback, 11 hours of video playback and 10 to11 hours of Internet use (depending on the type of connection).
However, Galaxy Note 4 delivers 7.5% more battery life than its predecessor due to an optimized interface. The phablet has a 3,220mAh battery (just 20mAh more than that of Galaxy Note 3), and features fast-charging technology, so the battery can go from 0% to 50% in 30 minutes.
ADDITIONAL GEARS
Apple’s two new iPhone will also support a new mobile payment system called Apple Pay, which lets users pay their bills on retail stores by simply tapping their smartphones on the payment terminals. Its features also include Health, HomeKit, and Handoff among others.
The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus support 802.11ac, the superfast new Wi-Fi band that’s all the rage. Apple claims the new iPhones can browse up to 3x faster on Wi-Fi which is good if you happened to have put down a lot of money on one of the first 802.11ac modems.
Galaxy S5 features like fingerprint sensor embedded in the Home key and heart rate monitor on the back also find a place in Galaxy Note 4. Samsung has also included a barometer and hall sensor in its new phablet.
The Galaxy Note 4 phablet will come pre-loaded with support for 14 regional Indian languages, including Hindi, Punjabi, Bengali, Gujarati, Urdu, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Marathi, Oriya and Assamese. It also comes with additional software optimized to make use of the S Pen stylus.