Nokia & Sony Unveil Latest Smartphones; How Do They Stack Against Apple & Samsung?
Nokia and Sony have unveiled their first smartphone offering for this year at the on-going Consumer Electronics Show (CES). While Lumia 900 further expands Nokia's range of Windows based Lumia mobile phones, the Xperia S is the first mobile phone from Sony after the company ended its joint mobile venture with Ericsson (with a $1.5 billion settlement). The company will now be known as Sony Mobile Communications. Let's have a look at the specifications of the two mobile phones.
The mobile phone has a 4.3 inch AMOLED capacitive touchscreen (480x800 pixel resolution) and it runs on the Windows 7.5 Mango operating system (OS). It is powered by a 1.4 GHz Scorpion processor, has 512MB of RAM and the internal memory of the device is 16GB.
It comes with an 8 mega pixel rear camera (Carl Zeiss optics) with dual LED flash that can record high definition (HD) videos (720p) at 30 frames per second (fps). A 1.3 mega pixel front facing VGA that can also record videos has also been provided for video calling. On the connectivity front, the device comes with Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and 3G and it also has a micro USB 2.0 port. Additionally, the device comes with Near Field Communication (NFC) and has Stereo FM radio with RDS.
The dimensions of the device are 127.8mm x 68.5mm x 11.5mm and its weight is 160 grams. The device has a 1,830mAh battery that the company claims will provide 7 hours of talk time and 300 hours of stand-by time. The device also comes with A-GPS support and will be available in black and cyan colours (like the Lumia 800). The pricing and the availability of the device is not yet available, but don't be surprised if it burns a hole in your pocket, considering the Lumia 800 itself costs around Rs 30,000 in the market.
This is the first smartphone in the new Xperia NXT series- next generation smartphones from Sony and we have to say Sony is doing a great job so far. Like the recent launches by the company (when it was Sony Ericsson), this mobile phone is also Play Station certified and users can play 3D games on it.
The mobile phone (earlier code named Nozomi by sources) has a 4.3 inch HD (1280 x 720 pixel resolution) display (Reality Display with Mobile BRAVIA Engine) with 342 pixels per inch (ppi) density and it runs on the Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) OS (upgradable to Ice Cream Sandwich). It is powered by a 1.5 GHz dual core Qualcomm MSM8260 processor and the internal memory of the device is 32GB.
It comes with a whopping 12 mega pixel auto focus rear camera (with Sony Exmor R for mobile image sensor) with LED flash that can record full HD videos (1080p) at 30 frames per second (fps) and click still pictures in just 1.5 seconds directly from standby mode. The camera has 16x digital zoom, image stabiliser, and features face detection and face recognition and can take panorama pictures (a feature also present in Galaxy Nexus). A 1.3 mega pixel front facing camera that can also record HD videos (720p) has also been provided for video calling (so basically both cameras can record HD videos). On the connectivity front, the device comes with Bluetooth, Wi-Fi (with Wi-Fi hotspot) and 3G and it also has a micro USB port and HDMI port. Additionally, the device comes with Near Field Communication (NFC) and the music player comes with 3D surround sound.
The dimensions of the device are 128mm x 64mm x 10.6mm and its weight is 144 grams. The device has a 1,750mAh battery that according to the company will provide up to 7 and a half hours of talk time and 450 hours of stand-by time (music listening for 25 hours and video playback for 6 and a half hours). The device also comes with A-GPS support and FM radio with RDS. The availability and price has not been disclosed by the company as of now, but the device will be available in black and white colours.
In comparison to the biggest launches of last year, the Apple iPhone 4S and Samsung Galaxy Nexus, both the mobile phones have better processors; Galaxy Nexus has only a 1.2GHz dual-core Cortex A9 based processor while iPhone 4S has an A5 dual core 1GHz Cortex A9 processor. Little can be compared in terms of OS since Apple runs on iOS5 while Nokia runs on Windows 7.5 Mango and Sony runs on Android 2.3 (Galaxy Nexus has Android 4.0 but by the time Xperia S is launched, it should have the same).
While Apple wins out on internal memory because it also offers a 64GB model, Sony is the clear winner as far as camera is concerned (at least in terms of the number of pixels) with a 12 megapixel camera. Sony and Samsung phones feature 1GB of RAM, while Nokia and Apple have 512MB of RAM. In terms of screen size, Lumia 900 and Xperia S both sport a 4.3 inch screen while Galaxy Nexus has the biggest screen with 4.65 inches and iPhone 4S has the smallest screen that is only 3.5 inches.
Although both the devices are awesome as far as specifications are concerned, we still believe that this is just the beginning and we can expect to see a lot more interesting launches as the year progresses.
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