Chart: iPhone 5 vs. Galaxy S3 vs. One X vs. RAZR HD

by: Kellex | posted 09.12.12 | News

Apple is wrapping up their iPhone 5 announcement as I type this, but so that you can see how this new phone of theirs stacks up to the top dogs in Android, I thought a chart would be a good way to display it. As you can see, Android devices have been doing what the iPhone 5 introduced today, for months now. But truthfully, Android devices have moved in a completely separate direction and the iPhone is driving down its own path. Android phones are big, the iPhone remains smaller. Android enthusiasts care a lot about specs and seem to want OEMs to push the envelope, while Apple is more into fine tuning and making incremental updates. Comparing them is sort of silly, but that’s what we do in the tech world. And while a chart only tells one side of the story, the paper side, it’s still worth a look.

344

Scott Bowen

Apple is still spoon feeding updates to it’s users… and spending more time making devices thinner… ok, after a certain point who cares how thin a phone is …
http://www.scaryuncledevin.com/ Devin Rodriguez

Wait wait wait, the RAZR HD has Android 4.1, not 4.0. Just being nitpicky =)
http://www.facebook.com/bmyton Ben Myton

No Galaxy Nexus in the comparison chart?
Guest

I see a lot of talk about NFC, but what’s the big deal? What does NFC offer me that a remote starter for my car, a Credit Card, and a simple key for my house don’t already?
- nhizzat
  
  File sharing and mobile wallet for starters
- SeanBello
  
  umm…it offers you not having to use those.
- Master O’Disaster
  
  Here are some NFC features: The opportunity to have viruses inserted into your cell phone by some dude who bumps into you at the subway station and (possibly) get your identity stolen, and credit information hacked. Proof of concept for the passerby NFC virus has already occurred. I hope that all manufacturers start to implement “NFC Off” by default, with an automatic time-out after NFC enabling. It’s the smart thing to do. For me, NFC is always “Off” until I manually turn it “On”, and then “Off” when I’m done.
Fattie McDoogles

I think @Kellex said it right… Its not about reinventing the wheel for Apple. They have always been about tweaking and fixing instead of innovating. Now they have an amazing marketing and sales team who can make people believe they reinvented the wheel with each tweak but thats just spin. Its probably a better version of the 4s but bigger with LTE
bogy25

How does the Rezound stack up against the iphone 5
Nick

Is it me, or does the new iPhone look like a cross between a Nexus S and a Galaxy S II? this could be a Trade Dress issue, right?
- tnfcngs
  
  It’s you. Everybody agrees first sight this is an stretched 4s.
http://www.facebook.com/logicprophet Pedro Moreno

All the apple fanboys I know are like “oooo I want one” when I showed them that specs wise it was a weaker product than the S3 they just said “apple is better” I asked how is it better..no response…damn sheep
http://twitter.com/BlackBlizzNerd Ben Landwehr

Apple will next announce that they copyrighted Apples are are going to sue God for eleventy billions dollars for copying their design of the fruit.
http://www.vgchartz.com SuperChunk

The A6 is a quad-core CPU and quad-core GPU. The chart is wrong. Really, that’s the only part where iPhone5 best the various Androids (even those not in list). Of course that will be the same as the fall line-up is announced and releases.
- Robert Jakiel
  
  The A6 is a DUAL core CPU and a quad core GPU. According to whats been written about it it is using Cortex A15 cores and the GPU is the same as the A5X.
  - http://www.vgchartz.com SuperChunk
    
    AH… A15s in that bad boy. I’ll have to research that as I was thinking they just upgraded to the quad-core A9s… i.e. same as Playstation Vita. Interesting overall.
Viciousking1914

iPhones are like Jordans…They keep releasing the same thing and these people keep buying them.
fixxmyhead

wheres that manny guy,wonder what he will praise about this gaiphone.
http://www.facebook.com/douglas.martin.5076 Douglas Martin

Hey I didn’t hear anything about multiple accounts on ios6. Still lagging behind Android.
http://twitter.com/jonathanwow Jonathan

I thought the A6 was Quad Core. According to multiple sources it IS Quad Core O_o
John Davids

Kellex!!!!! Make a chart with all the “new” features that Apple announced today and compare each one with when it was implemented into Android. Would be hilarious.
- axeman25@
  
  Why don’t you take that chart back a few years. Apps, pinch to zoom. And if you put any phone from 2007 next to it’s current android model, guess what? It’s evolved into a close resemblance of……..wait for it………an iPhone. The iphone still resembles it’s predecessor and weather you hate them or not, they make some of the longest lasting and durable products. And their turnaround time for repair is ridiculous.
  As far as speed goes. You need to realize that the OS and processor makes a HUGE difference in speed. The S3 has a great processor and 2gb or ram. It’s a good phone, my kids got one and he loves it.
  - John Davids
    
    Did I ever say that virtually all smartphones did not evolve from the iPhone in 2007, 2008, and 2009? No. They did, its pretty obvious. But beyond that, your 2007 musings are totally irrelevant to my point, which is that iOS6 is just another catch-up / copy of the Android OS (or of tech that Android has adopted long ago) which is what the chart that I requested would have illuminated.
  - jboogie1289
    
    And I bet you play with your kids phone all the time. LOL.At least they have the best!!
http://twitter.com/Lexcyn Devin

The Galaxy Nexus I own still feels new after reading the specs of the iPhone 5.
djdsf

Should have used the International version of the S3 or maybe the Korean version
Bob

What the hell is Passport for if you don’t have NFC? Do the vendors scan my barcode off the phone to get my ticket info?
- http://twitter.com/TubbyMofo Marcus Villabrille
  
  Apparently it’s going to use QR codes
Dan

Battery life: 8 hours of browsing on a cellular connection, up to 8 hours of talk time, and up to 10 hours of video playback time.
Answer2K1

Truer words were never spoken… I salute you Kellex.

“But truthfully, Android devices have moved in a completely separate direction and the iPhone is driving down its own path. Android phones are big, the iPhone remains smaller. Android enthusiasts care a lot about specs and seem to want OEMs to push the envelope, while Apple is more into fine tuning and making incremental updates.”
holmes221b

apple has still not revealed if A6 chip will be dual core or quad core !!!
soo it will be wrong to make assumptions :/
- Adam
  
  I’m guessing dual, since quad’s dont play nice with LTE
Jeff

The software line up there is why I’m seriously considering breaking down and picking up an iPhone. I know 4.1 is coming, but it’s so god damn frustrating to see phones released after the OS was don’t have it at launch. Add to that my BIONIC still hasn’t “officially” received ICS almost a year after THAT was released.

I absolutely love Google, and I love certain freedoms I get with Android, and I’m absolutely I hardware fanatic, but I think I’m at the point where I just want some consistency. I want to know that when a new OS is released my phone will definitely be getting it, and that when I buy my phone I wont be pissed at the better one that comes out to weeks later. The BIONIC > RAZR > Nexus release block from 2011 still irks me…

I still have a few months to decide, but, an iPhone may possibly be in my future.
- Paul
  
  If you go with apple, then you will have to buy a new phone to get the new OS. And you seem to not understand that once an OS is released, manufacturers have to make sure any drivers, etc will work on their phone which is a lot of work.
- Adam
  
  Just flash a ROM
AZguy

Apple will add NFC and more ram in the next Iphone, that will be called the Iphone 5s.

There all about making money not innovation…lol
http://profiles.google.com/ewhitak Eric Whitaker

@kellex you should put the nexus on that document as well.
goldenfootball12

iPhone 5 postives: it is both lighter and thinner then the Razr (top Android phone in those categories) and the build quality is great. But all other things aside, Apple is no longer innovative. The past three phones they released (4, 4S, and now 5) have been playing catch up to Android’s high end devices.
- Jason James
  
  the razrHD and razr maxxHD have 2x and 3x the talk time. so are the fewer mm and grams really worth it at that point?
Anil Reddy

the iphone 5 looks like shivering n standing thin and starved(it looks like stretched out iphone4s) in comparision with the androids which look bold, strong and have a wider, prouder stance!hahaha!
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=726049039 Ian S Ximinies

Haha, the 5S will be NFC enabled and built in Wireless Charging
Alan Ng

S3 rulling the world
holmes221b

galaxy s3 has 1 GB ram and not 2GB…and the processor being 1.4 GHZ and not 1.5 !!
i gett the name of the site is droid life but that doesn’t mean u have to fovour it by giving wrong info !!!!
- Droid4All
  
  Not the us version.
iamneuron

The S3 has a quad core and 1gb of ram. Also 4G i believe.
Chris Clancy

letterboxing legacy apps = fail
DR001

NFC will come on the *phone 5S. They need something to sell the *phone 5S.
http://www.facebook.com/douglas.martin.5076 Douglas Martin

Who gets to the courthouse first? HTC or Samsung? Both are seeking sales bans on any and all lte products by apple.
Southrncomfortjm

Anyone else notice that the headphone jack is now on the bottom of the phone? Nice move Apple!
- jboogie1289
  
  Can Samsung sue for that? Lol.
S.D.

Seems like Iphone finally caught up!
- jboogie1289
  
  Yeah, caught up to “next to last” place. Poof….be gone!!!
jseah114

Here’s whats funny. The iPhone is touted as being so thin and light, and yet whenever I see someone with one “in the wild” they always have a thick, bulky Otterbox style case on them. Their iPhone then becomes as thick as my Rezound with the extended battery.
http://www.hammertechnologies.net/ Chase Johnson

how about a chart compairing EVERY iphone version to well itself. oh wait it would almost be the same.
Shawn Kim

A6 is quad core, no?
- Robert Jakiel
  
  From everything I have read on the A6 it is a dual core Cortex A15 based SoC w/ quad core PowerVR GPU similar to the A5X
G_Romero

Please add resolutions to this chart please! PPI is a marketing ploy. I have a 40 inch HDTV. I’m not going to tell all of my friends that own 50 inch TV’s that mine is better because of the PPI.
Tweekex

iPhone is playing catch-up now. Ha!
root4life

Most under whelming apple event ever….well other than the foo fighters showing up
Southrncomfortjm

The big takeaway here is that Apple is set to release a new phone that is, at best, a mid range Android phone on its best day, except for maybe the build quality. Everything in it is contained within the RAZR M, or even the GNEX from a year ago. Without the extra half inch of screen and LTE there would be *nothing* to talk about.
enerjak

Apple should implement a dedicated camera button then maybe the Android OEMs can follow suit.
- http://twitter.com/jheyneman James Heyneman
  
  Um, the Droid X?
  - enerjak
    
    I haven’t seen one since.
    - http://twitter.com/jheyneman James Heyneman
      
      True. I had the DX and was able to take some decent pictures, I got by on my Thunderbolt because Gingerbread still had a delay. With the S3, I’m having a hell of a time taking decent pictures, tapping the screen makes it shake and I end up with blurry pictures.
possomcrast

The reason apple left out 2gb of ram and nfc: iPhone 5s. Like all iterations of the iPhone features that could have been in the last iPhone are pushed off so they have things to put in the next one.
- http://www.facebook.com/andrew.t.roach.90 Andrew T Roach
  
  2 gigs of ram is a total waste 99 percent of the time and apple users don’t care about specs anyho
  - possomcrast
    
    I have an s3 2gb of ram makes a huge difference over my galaxy nexus.
Futbolrunner

Can we lose this ridiculously huge ABSOLUT Punch ad on DL??
- Nathan Cox
  
  No, we NEEEEEEEEED it.
zaxwashere

LTE?

do i smell a lawsuit from samsung/htc?
https://www.facebook.com/aaron.williams.125 Champion1229

This is why I will never buy an iOS product (I can’t say Apple in general bc I have a MBP lol) and its because the people who own them are the people that feel as if Apple is a social statement. Such as if they have anything with an Apple Logo they are immedietley somehow better than everyone, and it is this elitist idea of thinking that makes me mad. My Droid Razr cost just as much as the 4S when it was released but yet you don’t see me walking around trying to waive it like its a hundred dollar bill! Now I may take it out and wave it in some iSheep’s face but thats only because I basically have had all the features the iPhone 5 now offers but I’ve had mine for almost a year now. T
- axeman25
  
  What makes me mad is someone who is ignorant enough to classify everyone who owns a specific brand because of a few douche bags. It’s like if I was to say that everyone who owns an android posts angry messages on boards because they secretly want an iPhone, or are just trying to prove what a giant douche bag they aren’t by being a douche bag to a brand they don’t own or have any experience other than before mentioned douche bags. Or they have little wieners, and cottage cheese thighs. Maybe they are compensating for something by needing a 4.8″ screen. Who knows? I’m probably just a douche bag. LOL
MKader17

As someone said in the Live Chat – you guys NEED to do an info chart that shows the “new” iPhone features and when they were first introduced on Android.
- Answer2K1
  
  +1000
- axeman25
  
  Really? Apps, pinch to zoom, rotating screen, why don’t you take that time line back to 2007. At least the iphone still looks like an iphone, just as it started. The average user wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between the iphone and an android if they were shown only the screen. You always hear of the next great phone to come out to be the ‘iphone killer’. Why do you think that is? I don’t own an iphone but I sure am not blinded enough by the stereotype to know that they have come out with some really great ideas over the years (as well as a few turds. And not just phones). I think the closest thing I’ve seen to something ‘new’ in the mobile market is the windows phone. Apple see’s the current state of NFC as a security issue (go ahead and throw up the IUD issue……who leaked them again?). How long do you think it’ll be before a fourteen year old kid comes up with his own little NFC device (Numbers For Collecting) and walks through a Starbucks and then walks over to buy a new xbox with your money. I get a little sick of beta testing everyones ‘great idea’. Sure, they could just do like hundreds of other companies do and just throw crap and see what sticks. I.E. vista (or ME), betamax, laser disc, esata, netbooks, jersey shore. I do own a macbook, my son has one as well, we have three other pc laptops in the house, and a couple iPods. The one thing I can say for sure is that their customer service is next to none regarding turnaround. It’s amazing how bothered people are with a product they may have never even owned. Imagine if people liked their phones as much as the hated iPhones? LOL. Just remember that the great thing about this country is you get to choose. No ones forcing you to buy it.
  - apple_pie
    
    I had apps on my Nokia n73 which was sometime in 2006, my nokia n95 had an accelerometer with a rotating screen which was pre- iPhone era.
    - rickshaw
      
      Hey it’s another ex-Symbian/Nokia user! I used to use the N82 and remember when the iPhone first came out, us Symbian users laughed at how the iPhone didn’t have stuff like copy-and-paste or 3G? Back then I never really knew how much Symbian really sucked…
  - MKader17
    
    Man such a crazy rant for such a simple post. let me explain; I’m not saying that the original iPhone was not revolutionary. However Apple did not invent pinch to zoom, rotating screen, or Apps. They were just the first implement it in a way that took the public by storm, and rightfully so. I can say that if the iPhone would have been on Verizon earlier I would have had one at some point.
    
    Now past that, you have to agree that at this point Apple is playing catch up. Thin phones are not that necessary, camera upgrades were incremental and the screen got a little better. Big whoop.
    
    What I’m afraid of (truly) is Apple iPhone just made itself the way of the Apple Mac. The hardware will never be the greatest, it will look good, it will work smooth and it will cost a lot. In the Macbook market Apple is so ahead on form factor that I really want to buy a Macbook pro just because they look so nice. Apple is now going to ride their cash cow of incremental upgrades while Android continues to innovate for the 5% that don’t want a phone that just works. Apple will never introduce and OSX variant when your iphone is docked, they wont ever lead the way in NFC (which, by the way, is more secure than your wallet), while Android will continue to push the envelope creating devices for every niche of person.
    
    The Iphone will resemble Mac in market share (it’s already close now) but will likely have more than its computer market because of carrier subsidies.
    
    Believe me, the last thing I want is for Apple to be mediocre in the innovation department.
  - vzio
    
    I think you don’t understand NFC, for one you would have to be touching the users phone, second, you need to enter your pin into your phone to complete the transaction. So its basically the same as a debit card, as far as security is concerned.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Michael-Hoffman/1529652018 Michael Hoffman

5 rows of icons?? Oh boy. Android has been doing this for awhile, but I smell an addition to the ongoing litigation as Apple clearly just invented it for the first time ever.
MKader17

You know I do realize that Apple has a great product for 95% of people but seriously it took 2 years to upgrade a camera, make a bigger screen and add LTE?
- https://www.facebook.com/aaron.williams.125 Champion1229
  
  Its the same camera as before, its just they made some software enhancements and are now calling it new and revolutionary. I loved the statement they made about the Panoramic mode offering 24mp photos, all the tech illiterate people will now think the iP5 has a 24mp camera when its really just 3 pictures taken at 8mp put together, a complete fail considering the Droid Razr can do I believe 5 or 6 photos together and if you add this the way Apple did that would result in a picture with over 48mp!
  - Answer2K1
    
    Nothing I love more than taking panoramic pictures with a smartphone.
  - MKader17
    
    I was taking into account that the iPhone4 was released 2 year ago and the jump on the 4S camera was noteworthy, but the 4S was certainly not. However, if you consider the jump from the 4 to the 5 Apple did add an “all new” dual core processor.
  - ERIC REED
    
    Come on now let’s not compare the Razrs camera to the 4S camera….that’s a losing battle
    - https://www.facebook.com/aaron.williams.125 Champion1229
      
      I will admit the Razr isn’t the best camera but its great for a phone, I like the Rezound’s better (I actually made a lot of iPhone users jealous with that thing) but thats a whole nother story! I can’t wait to see the Droid Razr HD vs the iPhone 5 and when the new HTC device is released I expect that to put the iP5 to shame!
      - ERIC REED
        
        HTC does have some great cameras, Motorola not so much…
      - https://www.facebook.com/aaron.williams.125 Champion1229
        
        The Rezound beat the iPhone 4S hands down and the Rezound has the display to actually view those pictures in somewhat of their maximum detail (its still not full 1080p but 720p is close enough for me) however I was forced to give up my Rezound because it had bad data connection issues after ICS update and I got the Razr as a CLN, so far the Razr is about identical but the web dock takes the cake and makes this phone the best device I have ever owned (Previous devices- Droid 2, Thunderbolt, Rezound and now Razr)

Chart: iPhone 5 vs. Galaxy S3 vs. One X vs. RAZR HD

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