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I thought with all the furore over the Apple iPhone of late, that I would write my own analysis of the product. My reasoning was mainly because I was generally underwhelmed with Apple’s new baby, so I thought a little research may open my eyes a little.

What I’ll do, is compare the Apple iPhone with my current phone; The Nokia N93. This should give me a good basis for comparison, as the N93 is one of the more advanced phones on the market at present.

I’m going to completely forgo the aesthetics for each phone, as something that has always irritated me about Apple in general is there is too much focus on looks. The other reason is that the iPhone outright wins on looks alone anyway. lol

With the iPhone information, I am using the Official Apple website for reference on the technical specs. You can read them HERE.

For the Nokia specs, I am using both the Official Nokia site, as well as the Symbian site. You can visit these pages HERE and HERE respectively.

I have aimed for the most direct comparisons possible.

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1) Firstoff, the official technical specs.

The standout features in favour of the iPhone are the Display Size and Resolution, as well as the Battery Life & Storage.

* * * * * * * * * *

Display
Apple’s product has double the height in display size – this allows them to remove the user interface whenever they like, and utilise the whole screen during video playback, or when using the camera.

Battery
The battery life of the iPhone is outstanding – it matches the Nokia (almost) for talk time, and completely trounces it for Audio playback at an amazing 16 hours to Nokia’s 6.

Storage
The 4gb or 8gb storage is huge for a phone, but remember Apple are basically making an iPod with a phone attached. However even when comparing to just a normal mp3 player of iPod, this is still pretty impressive.

* * * * * * * * * *

Where the Nokia N93 comes out on top is the Camera quality, Connectivity, and Operating System.

Camera
The Nokia N93 has the most advanced camera available on a phone at present, at a huge 3.2 Megapixals. This is prettymuch the main feature of the phone, as it uses Carl Zeiss optics with a 3x Optical zoom.

Connectivity
Wi-Fi, Bluetooth as well as the 3G features in the Nokia phone are prettymuch as standard in phones at the moment.

Operating System
The N93 uses the Symbian OS v9.1 – the most advanced, and user-friendly user interface for a phone to date. This also supports the installing of 3rd-party software.

* * * * * * * * * *

N93 vs iPhone
Some of the main things I noticed between the two phones is that most of the important stuff is pretty equal (battery life), GSM connectivity etc. The iPhone falls down most drastically on the camera (the 2mb camera is fairly basic by today’s standards), the rigidity of OS X and the lack of 3G connectivity.

Purists would advise that the camera is not an essential feature of the phone, and Apple most likely left the camera at 2gb to conserve space, and battery life.

With regards to the lack of 3G with the iPhone; 3G is not widely used in the US, and an alternative in the EDGE connectivity is more widely used. I’d imagine that in the second-gen iPhone models, 3G would be present. However the lack of 3G support does mean that any mobile internet users may be annoyed at the slower browsing speeds.

With regards to the OSX rigidity, we have been advised by Steve Jobs that we will NOT be able to install software on the iPhone at all. According to David Pogue of the New York Times, “Apple wants to control the look and feel and behavior of every aspect of the phone.” This could work against Apple though unfortunately.

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Overview
Looking at both phones side by side, its plain that Apple have done a decent job at their first attempt making the iPhone. The main aspects all stand up to scrutiny when compared with the latest Nokia phone without a problem.

The iPhone will appeal to several groups of users, but most likely to phone purists that don’t want or need extra features like Cameras, Games etc. It will definitely appeal to users looking for music-orientated devices too, obviously. Gadget freaks like myself may get bored quickly with the iPhone with the lack of 3rd Party application support.

What I’m most impressed with is the battery life of the iPhone – 16 hours audio playback is awesome for a phone, but it does feel more like an iPod with a phone built in.

Aesthetically-speaking, the iPhone is gorgeous… and the web browsing methods for zooming in and out of webpages is very slick – those are the main features that pull me towards the device.

The only thing putting me off the iPhone is that its touch-screen. Ever since having an XDA 2, I got put off touch-screen devices for life (I didn’t like the screens being decimated by a stylus, and the inaccuracy of using fingers to navigate the device).

Overall, the iPhone looks pretty sturdy against the phones of today… however when the phone is released in Summer… we shall have to wait and see.

To view the Keynote speeches on Apple’s iPhone, click HERE

Disclaimer: This is my first attempt at doing a basic technological critique, so please be gentle! lol
All constructive feedback etc is very very welcome… and I hope my future ventures in this vein improve.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 23rd, 2007 at 08:11 and is filed under Tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.