In the last three months all the major handset players have launched their flagship smartphones and no marks for guessing all of them are priced above Rs 30,000. Here is a list of top 5 smartphones that can be considered before you go out shopping for your latest high end smartphone.
Apple iPhone 5
Price: Rs 44, 429
Pros: Great build, Great display, Quick charging, Fast processor
Cons: Heating issues
Rating: 9/10
Challengers: BlackBerry Z10, HTC Butterfly, Samsung Galaxy SIII, Samsung S4, HTC One and Sony Xperia Z
Review
Apple iPhone 5 has a 4 inch Retina IPS display that supports 1136 x 640 pixel resolution natively. Under its 7.6 mm thin body, it has the Apple A6 mobile processor with triple core graphics. The phone sports a totally new design with a brushed aluminium back panel that has glass strips on the top and bottom.
At the rear, the iPhone 5 has an 8 megapixel iSight camera with five element glass, now comprising of Sapphire glass crystal and hybrid IR filter. There is also a front facing camera that can now indulge 720p HD FaceTime videos.
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BlackBerry Z10
Price: Rs 39,000 ( approx.)
Pros: Smooth user experience, Pleasing camera performance,
Cons: Lacks polished apps, Battery life, Bit costly
Rating: 8/10
Challengers: iPhone 5, Samsung S4, HTC One, Sony and Xperia Z
BlackBerry Z10 features a 4.2-inch LCD touchscreen display with 1280×768 pixel resolution. It’s the first time a BlackBerry smartphone offers 356 pixels per inch pixel density and up to 4 points of multi-touch. Inside its 9 mm chassis, rests a dual-core 1.5 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Plus MSM8960 mobile processor, 2 GB RAM and 16 GB on-board storage. Of course, out of that 16 GB some would be reserved for the system and updates. Thankfully there is a Hot Swappable memory card slot to accommodate a higher density micro SD Card.
At the rear, BlackBerry has packed an 8 megapixel camera with auto focus, LED Flash and 5X digital zoom. This camera can be used to capture high quality images and also record full 1080p HD videos. BlackBerry Z10 also features a 2 megapixel front facing camera with 3X Digital Zoom and 720p HD video recording ability.
Apart from that, the BlackBerry Z10 packs Dual-Band WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0, Accelerometer, Proximity Sensor, Gyroscope, Magnetometer, Ambient Light Sensor and Near Field Communication chip. There is also a micro HDMI out port along with Micro USB port.
The BlackBerry Z10 offers better location locking with Assisted, Autonomous and Simultaneous GPSmodule. BlackBerry Z10 come packed with an 1800 mAh battery.
Samsung Galaxy S4
Price: Rs 39,000( approx.)
Pros: 5 inch HD screen, Great performance, Camera
Cons: Old design, No FM radio, Call drop
Rating: 8/10
Challengers: HTC One, Apple iPhone 5, Xperia Z, BlackBerry Z 10
The Samsung Galaxy S4 is the first Android smartphone to feature an eight core Exynos 5 Octa 5410 mobile processor, clocked at 1.6 GHz and the new PowerVR SGX544MP3 graphics chip. It has 2 GB RAM and comes in three 16 GB storage variant.
The Galaxy S4 features a 5 inch full HD Super AMOLED display, built using Corning Gorilla Glass 3 technology. Galaxy S4 is just 7.9 mm thick and weighs 130 grams.
At the back, Samsung Galaxy S4 has a 13 megapixel camera with LED flash, Autofocus and zero shutter lag features. This camera is capable of recording full HD videos and clicking high quality images. There is also a front facing camera capable of clicking high quality self-portraits and video.
Samsung Galaxy S4 has also something called ‘dual shot’ feature that allows the phone to record video and click images, as well as click two images at the same time using both cameras.
For connectivity, the Galaxy S4 has WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0 and Infrared LED for remote control. The Samsung Galaxy S4 runs Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean with a layer of the latest Nature UX as part of TouchWiz UI. For longer run time, Samsung has packed a 2600 mAh battery and will also offer an extra battery kit as part of accessories.
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Sony Xperia Z
Price: Rs 34,950
Pros: Good display, Build quality, Classy looks & easy to hold, Performance
Cons: Pricey, Display has issues with black levels, Battery back up not so great
Rating: 9.5/10
Challengers: HTC Butterfly, HTC One, Samsung Galaxy SIII, Samsung Galaxy S4
The Sony Xperia Z comes with a 5 inch touchscreen with 1080 x 1920 pixels resolution, which translates to 441 ppi pixel density. It weighs 146 grams and is IP57 certified which means that it is dust and water resistant. Xperia Z has water resistant for up to 1 meter and 30 minutes. Its display is also said to be scratch resistant.
The Sony Xperia Z comes with a quad core Qualcomm processor, with a clock speed of 1.5 GHz which is aided by 2 GB RAM. The smartphone has Android 4.1 aka Jelly Bean operating system, 16 GB internal memory, 32 GB expandable storage slot, 2330 mAh battery, 13 megapixel rear camera with LED flash, an a 2 megapixel front camera.
The rear camera of Sony Xperia Z can capture high definition videos and has many innovative features like Auto Focus, Burst Mode, Face Detection, Geo-tagging, Image Stabilizer, Object Tracking, Red-eye Reduction, Scene Recognition, Self Timer, Smile Detection, Image Sensor, Superior Auto, Sweep Panorama, Touch Focus, White Balance, Smile Shutter, Shutter Sound, and Auto Upload.
For connectivity, Sony has provided a single SIM, WiFi, micro USB, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, DLNA, 3.5 mm jack, A-GPS, GLONASS etc. It has Accelerometer, Ambient Light Sensor, Gyroscope Sensor, Proximity Sensor, and Magnetometer as well.
HTC One
Price: Rs 42,000
Pros: Smooth performance, Good build, Camera, Blinkfeed UI
Cons: Heating, No expandable memory
Rating:8/10
Challengers: Samsung Galaxy S4, Sony Xperia Z, Samsung Galaxy SIII and iPhone 5
Review
HTC One features a 4.7-inch Super LCD 3 display supporting full 1080p HD resolution natively. The display has pixel density of 469 pixels per inch and 1080×1920 resolution.
HTC One has an anodised aluminum unibody. Inside its 9.3 mm thick chassis, the One packs a quad-core 1.7 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 APQ8064T mobile processor with 2 GB RAM. HTC will offer the One in 32 GB and 64 GB onboard storage options because there is no memory card slot.
The most talked about feature of the phone is the HTC Zoe which is a new image gallery with image editor inside that tags along several image editing options on board. By default, the HTC One packs a 4 megapixel camera with Ultrapixel technique to capture high quality images with more clarity and less possible noise. The Ultrapixel camera also enables plethora of features such as 360 Panorama, High Dynamic Range, burst mode, time sequencing, and even object removal.
The smartphone comes with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean with HTC Sense 5.0 user interface that brings a new home screen feature called BlinkFeed. This feature basically collates all the news, web feed and social network updates to the home screen. HTC has places stereo speakers in the front side and loaded the Beats Audio amplifiers to deliver high fidelity sound through them.