The release of the Samsung Galaxy S3 has turned up the battle between Apple and Samsung another notch. While the iPhone 4S held sway over the S2 last year in sales, the S3 might tip things in Samsung’s favor. Let’s look at the features of both smartphones and see what’s what.
Samsung Galaxy S3 vs iPhone 4S
The first thing to look at (literally) is the touchscreen. The S3 has that 4.8” Super AMOLED HD screen with the 1280x720p resolution. The iPhone 4S has its 3.5” Retina display with 960×640 pixels. So, the S3 is the winner here in terms of clarity, but the 4S is that bit more portable. The S3 carries it home, though, on account of the sheer size.
Sleek design is another thing users look for. The Samsung Galaxy S3 is 136.6mm by 70.6mm 8.6mm and weighs 133g, while the iPhone is 115.2 by 58.6 by 9.3mm and weighs 140g. The S3 is longer and wider, but is thinner and (just about) lighter. However, the iPhone 4S has a much better build quality and design that looks more like a high-end smartphone, so the iPhone 4S wins out here.
Performance-wise, the Samsung Galaxy S3 has a quad-core processor and 1GB of RAM, whereas the iPhone 4S has a dual core A5 chip and 512MB of RAM. While both processors are great, the S3 has almost double the amount of RAM and more processing power so naturally wins.
Both phones have an 8MP camera on the back, but the S3 has a 1.3MP camera on the front compared to the iPhone 4S and its 0.3MP front snapper. The S3’s better front camera, its burst mode and lack of shutter lag takes it ahead of the iPhone 4S. In addition, a recent examination of the S3 showed that it used the same camera chip as the 4S, so it should have the same picture quality in different settings as well. The S3 wins here, too.
The S3 runs Android 4.0 and the iPhone 4S on iOS 5. These are both the latest versions of the operating systems and will both get the next updates in the future. This makes for a draw.
The Samsung Galaxy S3 battery is 2,100mAh, compared to the iPhone 4S’ 1420mAh offering. Users of the Galaxy S3 get three times the standby time than iPhone users. The battery on the S3 is also removable, which makes repairs and replacements much easier. Samsung takes first place again.
So, the Galaxy S3 seems to stand head and shoulders above the iPhone 4S aside from in the looks department (although this is a matter of personal preference). And it should beat the iPhone 4S on the hardware front given that the 4S is due to be superseded by the iPhone 5. Put simply, if you can’t wait until the iPhone 5 in autumn, the Samsung Galaxy S3 is way better buy than the rapidly aging 4S.
