Design
iPhone 5 - 7.6mm thick, metal casing, non-removable battery
Samsung Galaxy S3 - 8.6mm thick, plastic casing, removable battery
Apple
has taken aggressive measures to make the iPhone 5 as thin as possible.
The rear layer of glass has gone, the phone uses a teeny nano-SIM and
the screen technology merges its constituent layers to squish everything
down as far as possible. As a result it's just 7.6mm thick, a full
millimetre less than the Samsung Galaxy S3 - which is 8.6mm thick.
It's
extremely impressive, and Apple has also tweaked the design of the
phone to make it feel a bit less severe in the hand, despite being
mega-thin. Its edges are slightly bevelled, rather than stepped, so it
feels little more… hand-friendly. You still might want to grab a case
for the utmost in hand comfort though. Crucially, the new etched
aluminium back is much less slippy than previous versions and build
quality is exceptional.
There is one slight issue, though,
that's a bit of a problem if you opt for the black version of the iPhone
5. As its rear is aluminium, it is quite scratch-prone. In the black
edition, any scratches are clearly visible as they reveal the bright
silver of the aluminium underneath.
It's not such a problem with
the white version, but has already left many new iPhone owners a little
annoyed. Apple has admitted this issue, but says it's normal for an
aluminium device.
Samsung's
great white (well, pebble blue and white) hope for 2012 has an
all-plastic finish that uses a flimsy, ultra-thin back cover. This is
the one part of the phone that has caused the most criticism, as it
doesn't make it feel all that much like a device you should be spending
£500 on, even if in practical terms it's just as tough.
The
Samsung Galaxy S3 is also significantly larger than the iPhone 5,
thanks to its ginormous 4.8in screen. It's 71mm wide, while the iPhone 5
is around 58mm wide. Our top recommendation is to get hold of a Galaxy
S3 before buying if it's on your hit list. Some will find it a bit too
big for comfort.
Accessories
iPhone 5 - new-design Earpod headphones, new Lightning power connector
Samsung Galaxy S3 - microUSB charge cable, Samsung noise isolating IEM earphones, adapter
We
don't normally compare the accessories of phones when we give them the
head-to-head treatment, but Apple's accessories this time around are of
note. The
iPhone 5's headphones have been given a completely new design, one you just don't see elsewhere.
The headphones are called
Earpods,
and they're not the typical iPhone buds of old, or the common noise
isolating IEM type either. They're small, made of plastic and are
designed to nestle into your ear canals, offering a bit more noise
isolation than the earbuds of old.
They're incredibly
comfortable and fit securely too, and crucially for fellow
train/coach/car/plane passengers, the Earpods leak much less sound to
the outside world. They also sound pretty good too. Apple has completely
redesigned the sound ports to boost bass and even out mid-range. The
result is a surprisingly good listen, with good bass response and a
notably wide sound stage. That said, they still don't block out external
noise enough for our liking and we're only talking good for a £25 set
of earphones - don't ditch your custom IEMs just yet.
The power
cable of the iPhone 5 is also different, using the new 8-pin socket
rather than the 30-pin type that has been in use for years. Apple calls
it Lightning, which linguistically fits-in rather nicely with its
Thunderbolt computer port. You also get a power adapter for the cable
and a SIM removal tool.
Samsung's Galaxy S3 is more ordinary in
its approach, though no less useful. It features a microUSB charge
cable, a power adapter to plug this cable into and a standard pair of
Samsung-branded IEM noise isolating earphones. The latter offer some
external noise isolation but aren't actually that great when it comes to
sound quality.
Screen
iPhone 5 - 4in IPS, 1,136 x 640 resolution
Samsung Galaxy S3 - 4.8in Super AMOLED, 1,280 x 720 resolution
Every
generation of iPhone since the original of the species back in 2007 has
uses the same size screen - 3.5in. That has all changed with the iPhone
5. It now has a widescreen 4in display of 1,136 x 640 pixels.
It's
this change of screen style that will make the iPhone 5 able to offer a
larger screen without making the phone any wider. Pixel density is the
same as the iPhone 4S too, although the new aspect will make it much
better to watch movies on.
Many apps have already been tweaked
to support the new longer screen while older ones will just leave bars
where the extra pixels now live.
The
Samsung Galaxy S3 cares a lot less about how wide it is than the iPhone
5. With a gigantic 4.8in display, the Galaxy will be too wide for some
hands - it's a whopping 7.6cm across. Screen pixel density will be
comparable to the new iPhone, though, with 720 x 1,280 spread across the
display.
Each
phone uses quite a different screen tech type. The Samsung Galaxy S3
features a Super AMOLED panel, while the iPhone 5 uses a new take on the
IPS technology that has been used in iPads and iPhones for years.
Super
AMOLEDs offer superb black response and vivid colours, but IPS screens
tend to look a little more natural. In our recent comparison of the
Samsung and the HTC One X, we found in favour of the HTC's IPS type.
In
bright sunlight, the iPhone 5 is the clear winner of the two. It's less
reflective, offers greater maximum brightness, supplying much better
visibility in this sort of challenging situation. In a dark room,
though, AMOLED comes into its own.
Software
iPhone 5 - iOS 6
Samsung Galaxy S3 - Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich (4.1 incoming), TouchWiz UI
The
battle of iOS versus Android is one we've been watching ever since
2008, when Android was born. Android has changed a good deal more than
iOS in that time, and is finally getting close to becoming as slick and
quick as iOS. Apple's OS has always been pretty nippy.
The Samsung Galaxy S3 isn't
quite there
yet, as in most territories it still uses Android 4.0 Ice Cream
Sandwich rather than the latest Jelly Bean version. Android 4.1 Jelly
Bean sees the start of an initiative called Project Butter. This is
designed to take full use of the processor power available, with the aim
of running Android at a solid 60fps.
Android offers more
integrated features an flexibility than iOS too. You can even change the
way your phone responds to basic functions, such as replacing the SMS
app with a third-party one. Apple doesn't let you do anything like this.
And, of course, the home screens of Android give you much more control
over how your phone looks than the rigid app menu layout of iOS.
The
Samsung Galaxy S3 also benefits from a blunder made by Apple. iOS got
rid of the Google mapping solution that had been in use since the early
days of iPhones, replacing it with Apple's own stab. At present, Apple's
new Maps app doesn't work too well though. Its maps are out of date,
with towns mis-named and many roads simply missing.
The Samsung Galaxy S3 uses good old Google Maps, which works a treat. And actually features maps from this decade.
Samsung's
phone also benefits from a few tweaks added-in with the TouchWiz UI.
Most notably, it brings features that were only introduced in Android
4.1 Jelly Bean. These include monitoring for eye movement before
switching off the backlight and integrated NFC pairing.
Power
iPhone 5 - 1GB RAM, A6 processor, power TBC
Samsung Galaxy S3 - 1GB RAM, Exynos 4412, Quad-core 1.4GHz
One
area where the Samsung Galaxy S3 might beat the next iPhone is its
processor's figures. The Samsung Galaxy S3 uses the impressive Exynos
4412 chip, which has four cores and runs at 1.4GHz.
Annoyingly,
Apple hasn't revealed in-depth technical information about the CPU. At
present, we only know that it is two times faster than the iPhone 4S's
chip, which has a dual-core 1GHz CPU and PowerVR SGX543MP2 graphics.
Will it be quad-core? Will it offer face-melting speed? You'll have to
come back in a while to find out. We'll update this feature as soon as
we have the full details.
Connectivity
iPhone 5 - new proprietary 8-pin connector, no microSD, microSIM
Samsung Galaxy S3 - microUSB, microSD, microSIM
Perhaps
the most earth-shattering change in the iPhone 5 is that it rejects the
30-pin connector used across iPods, iPads and iPhones in favour of a
much-smaller 8-pin model. This is comparable in size to the microUSB
standard, although it's not exactly the same as microUSB. Apple is never
keen on going with the bog-standard option when it can make its own
version.
The
problem with changing connector is that the new iPhone will be
incompatible with current iPhone docking accessories - not good news if
you own something like a
B&W Zeppelin. However, Apple does offer a connector that acts as a bridge between the old 30-pin socket and the new 8-pin one.
It's
all change, but the iPhone 5 doesn't bring expandable memory to the
series - no iPhone to date has offered a memory card slot. You're also
mostly tied to iTunes when transferring content like music and pictures
to the phone.
The Samsung Galaxy S3 is pretty much the polar
opposite in its approach. It lets you use microSD cards and uses the
microUSB standard. Handily, it's MHL compliant, too, able to output HD
video with surround sound audio to an HDMI port when used with the right
cable. Unlike the iPhone, the Samsung doesn't rely on sync software to
transfer files directly either - you can drag and drop files when
plugged into a computer over USB.
Cameras
iPhone 5 - 8MP, LED flash
Samsung Galaxy S3 - 8MP, LED flash
Although
many elements of the iPhone 5 have been improved hugely over its
predecessor, the camera has only been given a slight upgrade. It's still
an 8-megapixel sensor, and it still uses a pretty standard LED flash.
Its aperture is f/2.4 and it uses a five-element lens. Like the iPhone
4S, the sensor offers backside illumination.
The
Samsung Galaxy S3 has an 8-megapixel sensor and reams of features
including image stabilisation, touch focus, 1080p video capture and an
LED flash. However, its image quality is at best on-par with the iPhone
4S's camera (and outperformed by it in some conditions) and we hope that
the iPhone 5 will offer some significant improvements.
The
iPhone 5 also offers an impressive looking panorama mode - just tap and
pan to automatically create an image. Unlike other similar panorama
modes we've seen this one keeps the full size image, giving you up to 28
megapixel images - nice.
Battery
iPhone 5 - 1440mAh
Samsung Galaxy S3 - 2100mAh
The
iPhone 5 hasn't gotten a huge battery increase over its predecessor.
The iPhone 4S has a 1430mAh unit, and the iPhone 5 a 1440mAh unit. It'll
last for 40 hours of audio playback, or up to eight hours of talk time,
with 3G enabled.
Also, like previous iPhones you can't swap out
the battery on the iPhone 5, so if you're caught short without power
you're done for... well, your phone is anyway.
Samsung made a
particularly strong effort with the latest Galaxy's battery,
outstripping most of its rivals by around 20 per cent. For example, the
HTC One X uses an 1800mAh unit and the Sony Xperia S a 1750mAh battery.
In
spite of the larger screen and only slight capacity increase, the
iPhone 5 betters the stamina offered by the iPhone 4S. Apple must have
put some real effort into this.
Verdict
More
than is often the case, the battle between the iPhone 5 and Samsung
Galaxy S3 is the very definition of the case between iOS and Android,
between Apple and Google. The Samsung Galaxy S3 is more flexible, with
expandable memory and a more malleable OS. However, the metal body of
Apple's phone feels a lot more premium, and is a much friendlier design
for those with less than giant hands. And with the larger 4in screen, it
won't feel quite so tiny next to the Samsung Galaxy S3, either.
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