The iPhone 5 offers a comprehensive upgrade over the iPhone 4S, but how does it stack up against its flagship rivals?
The
iPhone 5 is here and it's predictably already
selling like hotcakes. Over at our sister site
TechLife we’ve taken a look at how the latest iPhone
compares against its iPhone 4S predecessor, but what about its key rivals across the Android and Windows Phone landscapes?
Samsung Galaxy S III
Samsung's hugely successful
Galaxy S III wears the crown as the company's flagship smartphone device, pointedly marketing it as a competitor (and one-upper) to Apple's iPhone. With its currently shipping
update to 4G nicely timed to coincide with the launch of the iPhone 5 (which is also 4G), these two look set to battle for consumers' dollars well into 2013.
Samsung Galaxy Nexus
Wait a minute... the 2011 Galaxy Nexus? It's
nearly a year old and can't hope to compare against 2012's iPhone 5 -- why is it being included? The simple answer is that, as part of Google's Nexus family of devices, the Galaxy Nexus remains the official Android torchbearer of this generation (until it's succeeded, anyway). Yes it might be getting a little long in the tooth now and won't match the S III's appeal in most Android users' minds, but its Nexus status sets it apart as a vanilla, unaltered vision of what Android 4.0 (and now 4.1) is. Plus, you're effectively guaranteed to get OS updates as long as the hardware's up to scratch. Still available outright if you look online but has pretty much lost popularity with the telcos.
Nokia Lumia 920
The Lumia 920 isn't out yet and hasn't even been officially confirmed for Australia (although we'd be highly surprised if it didn't see a local release), but its
recent soft launch marks it as Nokia's (and thus the upcoming Windows Phone 8's) key competitor to the iPhone 5.
Announcement controversies aside, we think the Lumia 920 (and 820) look promising, and we're eager to see the devices if and when they make the trip to Oz.