Will Apple's iPhone reshape the mobile phone market? Are there better devices actually available already? We put the iPhone head-to-head with its competition to see how it stacks up.
Gadget aficionados will no doubt have heard that Apple is launching the iPhone, its first mobile phone, in the US on 29 June. Here in Australia, though, we'll have to wait until next year to get our grubby mitts on the sleek multimedia device. Apple recently published information comparing its hot little handset with the already available Nokia N95, Samsung BlackJack, Palm Treo 750 and the Blackberry Curve 8300 (this last one hasn't been released locally yet).
Apple also recently upped the stated battery life of the iPhone from five to eight hours of talk time, 250 hours of standby, five hours of Internet browsing, seven hours of video playback and 24 hours of audio playback -- 10 hours longer than Apple's hard-disk based iPods.
Image credit: Apple
But why is the iPhone generating so much hype? It's just a phone after all, isn't it? While it does have an elegant design and attractive interface, what could be in this device that's revolutionary? We compare it side-by-side with the N95, the top-of-the line handset from the world's No. 1 phone maker, at the moment, Nokia. We've also colour coded our table to indicate in green which device's feature, in our opinion, comes out on top.
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| Operating system | Mac OS X | Symbian S60 |
| 3G | No | Yes (HSDPA-enhanced) |
| Camera resolution | 2 megapixels | 5 megapixels |
| Browser | Safari | Nokia Web Browser with Mini map |
| Displays HTML-rich; Push IMAP (Yahoo); IMAP/POP3 | POP3/SMTP | |
| Music player | iTunes | RealPlayer |
| GPS | No | Yes |
| Touchscreen | Yes (multi-touch sensors) | No |
| Screen | 8.9cm (320x480 pixels) | 6.4cm (240x320 pixels) |
| Weight | 136g | 120g |
| Memory | 4GB/8GB | 160MB |
| Processor speed | Unknown | 330MHz |
| Expansion slot | None | microSD |
| Replaceable battery | No | Yes |
| MMS (for sending pictures and video) | No | Yes |
| IM (instant messaging) | No | Yes |
| Video capture | Unknown | 640 x 480 (30 frames per second) |
| VoIP | No | Yes |
| YouTube | Yes | Yes (with m.youtube.com) |
| User can install 3rd-party apps | No | Yes |
| Accelerometer (to change screen orientation when rotated) |
Yes | No |
| Spell checker | Yes | No |
| Ambient light sensor (dims screen in low light) | Yes | No |
| Proximity sensor (turns screen off when put up to your ear) |
Yes | No |
| Video output to TV | No | Yes |
| Visual voicemail | Yes | No |
| Threaded SMS | Yes | No |
| Browse music by album covers | Yes | No |
| Flickr integration | No | Yes |
| Supports stereo Bluetooth headphones | Unknown | Yes |
| Price | US$499 - 4GB, US$599 8GB (~AU$590, AU$708) | AU$1379 |
| Locked to carrier | Yes | No |
| Availability | 2008 | Now |
Both Nokia and Apple offer guided tours of their super-dooper devices on their respective Web sites.
We'd like to hear your thoughts on the iPhone versus the competition. Leave your comments below.
what's the point of not having the iphone when its not 3g compatible. you have to plug this device in to your pc to sync music, afaik you cant download directly using wifi, and with no 3g, online downloads are slow.
with microSD the nokia can go up to 2gb, and im guessing soon 4/8gb.
im still out