For the last couple of months after following and capturing all the moves in the smartphone war in our previous articles, it seems that the dust around the war field, raised by the ongoing race of the smartphone makers, is settling and three of the smartphones emerge victors of the battle. In this article we would take you through the insight of the three winners in better detail and finally find out the holder of the top slot in the victory stands.
The three top slot holders are undoubtedly Apple’s (AAPL, Financial) iPhone 6, Samsung’s (SSNLF, Financial) Note 4 and Google’s (GOOG, Financial) Nexus 6. We will also classify the phones according to feature priorities and help you make a better buying decision this festive season in terms of the smartphone that suits your need.
Specification war
Obviously before buying any gadget we run through their specs in all forms –Â be it from the internet or print media or even from the word of mouth of our friends. Now that we have managed to have our hand on the specs of all the three smartphones, let us take you through them at a glance and prioritize buyer choice based on specs.
1. Screen and Design: The Google Nexus 6 has come a long way, improving its display compared to its predecessors. The Nexus 6 sports a larger screen of 5.96 inches, the best in its class, but that is not all; even screen resolution has been improved up to quad HD which is 1440×2560 pixels, which means around 493 pixels per inch of display.
The Galaxy Note 4 comes with a 5.7-inch screen with a Quad HD Super AMOLED display of 2560 x1440 pixels resolution that renders a pixel density of 515 pixels per inch. So in the pixels battle, the Nexus 6 and Note 4 are evenly matched with the Note 4 having an insignificant lead in terms of pixel.
The iPhone 6 Plus proves to be a laggard in this segment with a screen size of just 5.5-inches. The screen resolution stands at 1080p and comes to around 401 pixels per inch. Clearly the Note 4 is ahead where the number of pixels go, but size does matter. At the end of the day where screen size is concerned, both the Nexus 6 and Note 4 are offering excellent options with the Nexus 6 having a marginal advantage of size.
As far as design is concerned, the iPhone 6 Plus is still ahead of both phones, despite the bend gate rumors doing the rounds. Note 4 still carries the weird leather finish design in the back although this time the faux stitches have been given a miss. The Nexus 6 has followed the Nexus series design of curved edges. The back cover has a distinct Moto X feel to it with the camera lens resting in the middle and the M logo of Motorola (MSI, Financial) right below that.
To sum up, though design is a personal preference, for now iPhone 6 Plus is the most handsome of the lot, but Nexus steals the show in terms of size. Hence if you want to flaunt your phone as a fashion statement, you should be eyeing the new iPhone, but if you want to do serious work on your phone then the new Nexus should find a place in your pocket.
2. Processor, memory, specs: It’s evident that the Nexus 6 is expected to compete with the Galaxy Note 4. The Nexus 6 comes with a 2.7 GHz Quad-core Snapdragon 805 processor and a fair 3GB RAM which is the same as in Note 4. Nexus 6, however, will come only in 32 GB and 64 GB memory options but it will not support a microSD memory card.
The Note 4, however, does support microSD slot and according to the latest info on the Samsung e-store, it can support up to 64GB.
The iPhone 6 Plus will come with an A8 chip which would support 64-bit architecture and comes with the M8 motion co-processor. Apple claims that it comes with 2 billion transistors, making it 25 percent faster while processing any ordinary computing task and 50% faster for graphics than the iPhone 5s which was also quite agile. According to ChipWorks, who had a detailed look at this processor, it’s still a dual-core processor.
Where Apple’s memory space is concerned, this time it's 16 GB and then a 64 GB and a 128 GB since Apple has discontinued the 32 GB from its bastion, but the OS will take away a considerable portion of the memory.
If you are a person who would like to store the world in your phone then the Nexus 6 and the Note 4 are probably going to be the options for you to consider as far as speed is concerned- both the processor clans are equally matched and give you pretty much the same result in terms of speed.
3. Camera: With the Nexus 6, Google has scaled up the camera to 13 megapixels from 8 megapixels in Nexus 5. The Nexus 6 camera comes with an Optical Image Stabilisation (OIS) as well. The front camera in Nexus 6 is 2 megapixels.
When it comes to the Note 4, the camera resolution is higher at 16 megapixel with OIS and it has 3.7 megapixel front camera which has wide-selfie mode to allow people to squeeze in bigger groups while clicking a selfie. Like any other Samsung Galaxy device, the Note 4’s camera also offers tones of features and modes.
Apple has kept the 8 megapixel rear camera and a 1.2 megapixel front camera. The upgrades in Apple’s camera is with regard to a new feature called focus pixel which is basically face detection sensors that are dedicated to determine the focal distance, which reduces the twitching you see when cameras are trying to acquire focus with the contrast detect AF. Essentially the iPhone 6 Plus will allow you to focus faster when taking a picture. Additionally there’s slow-motion mode for video shooting at 240 frames per second.
In this segment, the Samsung Note 4 emerges to be the fore runner with the Nexus coming second and the new Apple way behind in its league. If you are a person who would like to click through the whole world and do not want to carry your pro camera then the Samsung Note 4 is the one you should be picking up this festive season.
4. Battery life: This is a critical area within the smartphone world with all the smart features in your smartphone eating away its life. Often your smartphone makes you look un-smart when you are travelling back after a long day wanting to smartly use your commute time by surfing through that email which was demanding your attention throughout the day and your phone displays the message- ‘your phone is critically low on battery and you either give-up till you reach home or pull out the power bank to plug it into your smartphone for more life and let it dangle to the tune of your journey. Google claims that the Nexus 6 will have 24-hour battery, yet to be confirmed after a practical use. The smartphone has 3220 MAh battery and Motorola and Google are also providing the Turbo Charger which takes 15 minutes to get to an additional 6 hours of battery life.
Furthermore Nexus 6 will run on Android 5.0 Lollipop OS which has a Project Volta that offers new tools and APIs to help apps run efficiently eating less battery and conserve power.
With the Galaxy Note 4, it has a similar 3220 MAh battery pack and Samsung is also providing something called Fast Charging which will take the smartphone from 0 to 50% battery is just flat 30 minutes.
On the iPhone 6 Plus, Apple too is promising some serious commitments to a decent battery life, although not as high as either Note 4 or Nexus 6. iPhone 6 Plus battery comes with a talk-time battery life of up to 14 hours on 3G, with up-to 10 days standby time and 11 hours of video playback time.
Apple’s treacherous battery life track record scares me to consider the new iPhone in this segment. For those looking to escape the battery worry, the Nexus 6 should be the possible option. Additionally if you want to spend your time gaming while commuting, like me, then God save your battery on any smartphone- in view of this battery blue faced by smartphone users the Google Nexus 6 still sounds to offer some guard than the rest.
5. Price War: This is the part which hits the hardest when you reach the cash counter of the store or have to enter your card details while shopping online. The Nexus 6 will be sporting a price tag of $649- a huge gap between the new Nexus and its predecessors. But the gap is well justified by the specification up-gradation from its predecessors as well.
Coming to the Note 4, Samsung launched it at a price of $799, which is quite a high price to pay for a smartphone with the average features of Note 4. But then of course, Apple’s iPhone 6 Plus steals the spotlight when it comes to pricing flaunting a sticker price of $849. It is quite obvious from the price tags that the Nexus 6 holds the crown in terms of affordability. And the iPhone in keeping with its previous reputation still would lure the premium segment of buyers looking for the Apple as a status symbol only.
Our analysis of the smartphone run
Now comes the real part for the buyers to put on their thinking caps and prioritize what they want to buy. If your phone is more of a fashion statement for you then undoubtedly you should be picking up the iPhone 6 or the iPhone 6 Plus without a second thought and your quest for the smartphone should end for now. But if you really want the perfect value for your money and want to hold good in terms of "what I get for what I pay" then the obvious choice should be the Nexus 6 and you have to wait for some time till it hits the shelves.
Going by the above segments of analysis, the Nexus 6 scores a 3.5 out of 5 making it the best bet for your money, followed by the Note 4 getting a 2.5 out of 5 and the iPhone 6 Plus finishing the last amongst the three with a 1 out of 5 for its perfection only in terms of style and looks. For now just wait for the new Nexus to come into your neighborhood store and then you can have a think on the different aspects we have illustrated and make a wise buying decision according to your own priority, since perception is absolutely personal and can differ from person to person.
