New wave of superphones poised to challenge iPhone 4

We have already pointed out that the iPhone 4 faces far more credible competition than its predecessors in terms of smartphones integrating advanced hardware design with a distinctive user experience. As we wait for Symbian^3 and Windows Phone 7, the challenge focuses on Android, and its supporters are certainly rising to the …

[Adam T]

Standby, yawn.

12 or 24 hours of standby, on a phone; either is getting to the point where it's kind of a non-issue.

Operating battery life is what's of interest... and will you be able to upgrade the OS without mailing all your pics and text messages to yourself (like a certain HTC...)?

Enough about phones anywaay - where's my 42" AMOLED TV?

[Ian Yates]

Which HTC?

Can't speak for current WinMo phones, but for Android, my pics are already miniSD-based, and my text messages were easily backed up/restored through WaveSecure - and that's just one of the apps that will do it.

Agreed on the battery life comment - usage time on smartphones is far more important.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Standby, yawn.

On my HTC HD2 (WinMo) I have flashed the firmware and have not needed to email anything to myself. The Microsoft My Phone service syncs my data to the cloud and I sync it back when I upgrade the firmware. Other stuff I simply keep on the solid state storage. Just common sense.

[Steve Todd]

Will someone please explain

Why the AMOLED power advantage would have any effect on STANDBY time? If it produces better talk time, video playback time etc then I could see the point, but that was an utterly useless comparison.

[Tobor]

Standby time...

Why say AMOLED = less power then quote standby by times; I would have thought the display would make no difference to the standby time... seeing how the screen is off in standby mode.

[Anonymous Coward]

Competition is good

Odd, isn't it, how it took the introduction of the iPhone for other handset manufacturers to join the 21st Century and start innovating, creating products that people were actually enthusiastic about buying and using. Good job, Apple.

[Anonymous Coward]

What about Blackberry?

I'm surprised to see no mention of the forthcoming Blackberry 9800, a touchscreen and slider keyboard combined. No sure press either!

[PatrickN]

All well and good,

the iPhone has certainly livened up the market which can only be good for the consumer. But what worries me are statements like:

"and LG has promised 20 'Google phones' by the end of this year."

Too much choice will not help Android.

[Anonymous Coward]

@PatrickN

My reaction is the same - how many different versions from the same manufacturer do we really need? Fragmentation, here we come full steam ahead.

[Dirk Vandenheuvel]

Hardware

It is not about the hardware silly.

[The Other Steve]

Apps, and more to the point, the app sales channel

Are what it's about. To attract customers, get apps. To get apps, attract developers, to attract developers, more than almost anything else you need a channel to market that can compete with the ease of Apple's offering, which means that devs can register and sell into an OS market from a single point of contact, and all users of that particular OS can easily access the store. They need to be able to start doing it from their phone on day one of ownership. Oh and customers, customers who are willing to part with cash. That helps.

Google are halfway there, they have the Android Market, but not yet the customers, everyone else is still playing catch up.

And as someone mentioned, fragmentation is an issue. Competition is a wonderful thing, sure, but there are what ? 4 models of iPhone out there, plus a couple of iPod touches and the iPad.

And single manufacturers are talking about having three times that many devices each in the market, each with slightly different hardware capabilities ? All either adding to the development time or subtracting from the market base for an app ?

Haters who are already reaching for the downvote button might pause a moment to consider why MS are copying Apple's business model so closely.

[not sure]

Nokia...

...conspicuous by their absence. mmmmm

[Jean-Paul]

Comparing spec sheets

When do they ever learn, comparing spec sheets is not going to determine how easy/good it is to use. That's something people with the mental age of a 5 year old do.

Standby hours wow ;-) I'd be more interested in actually useage hours when the screen, processor, telephone elements are working...Much more interesting opposed to leaving it alone and not using it...

Me, I'm the one where you can actually update the software on the phone to the latest function and are not crippled by waiting on the operator or HTC saying they won't support that version on a 3 months old phone ;-) Or Sony releasing their top of the line with a full release behind what is current. Or each and every manufacturer making their own UI on top making the phone look an inconsistent mess....

Guess what my phone is

[Drew Scott]

Profits?

LG want to produce 20 android phones by the end of the year? That's a big number. With all these Android producing manufacturers I'd begin to worry about the race to the bottom that a number of PC manufacturers have suffered from and seriously think about what makes my phones different.

[John Molloy]

So...

Which of these iPhone killers allows users to run the apps that they have already spent money on? The iPhone has a bit of a lock in there.

Also it's very easy to build a phone with the same list of features as the iPhone or even exceed them but it is far, far harder to exceed it's ease of use. And that can't be put in a bullet list of features.

Oh, and remind me, just when is Nokia going do well in America? They have never had any pentitration in the US in any significant amount. And with the current competition it is very unlike they ever will.

Yes Android will probably rule the world. There will be a load of so so phones that will sell for rock bottom prices and no one will be making any money. Apart from Apple. Who will be making shed loads.

[vic 4]

World is bigger than America

> Oh, and remind me, just when is Nokia going do well in America

It's pretty big elsewhere, you now, that small bit of the world outside the US. Sorry, I forgot consumers it the US have pretty low expectations of mobiles. Apparently sending an sms or mms is so revolutionary Apple even have a TV advert saying you can actually record a video and send it to someone, wow why didn't anyone else think of that.

Joking aside, I think consumers elsewhere, or at least Europe (based on experience) have greater demands and requirements, so our leading suppliers are not as skewed towards Apple as the US.

> There will be a load of so so phones that will sell for rock bottom prices and no one will be making any money.

I doubt there will be much of a larger selection as there currently is, choosing a new phone has always been a choice of a lot of companies/models, say anyway where between 10-30 models per company.

[Frozen Ghost]

Apple reinvents an old technology

IPS LCDs have been around almost as long as regular LCDs, yet because Apple uses the technology in a new product everyone acts like its some revolutionary invention.

[Anonymous Coward]

The title is required, and must contain letters and/or digits.

'... using a technology called Retina Display ...'

Oh please. It's marketing BS. IPS displays have been around for donkey's years. I've had one on my desk for at least 5. The retina bit is their spin on not seeing the pixels at a certain distance. My 160x120 Nokia display is 'retina' at two feet.

Please stop swallowing the kool-aid. Apple largely buy displays from LG - any LG phone can have an equivalent panel. Samsung can happily make one the same. I'm sure AU will supply same on request.

960x640 is higher than the 800x480 available on pretty much all else now, but nothing like the game changing jump the move past 480x320 was ... and a whole list of competitors did that more than a year ago.

Please do at least *some* research and don't just regurgitate the apple press pack ...

[DrXym]

AMOLED screens

My HTC Desire has an AMOLED screen and it's generally excellent, except in bright sunlight when it is atrocious. Allegedly Samsung have a "super" AMOLED tech which resolves this but its still a major shortcoming in existing implementations.

As for Apple's new display, calling it a retina display is taking the piss when it is nothing of the kind. The dpi has some way to go before it can be called that.

[guybles]

Darn right

Yes, how dare they name it after a part of the human body. There's no rods or cones in there, and what about a blood supply to let it function? And it's not actually attached to the inside of an eye. It's marketing gone mad, I tell you.

Meanwhile, here's some science:

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2010/06/10/resolving-the-iphone-resolution/

[Giles Jones]

It's all about support

Let's face it, which other handset maker would support their handset for near three years? the original iPhone has only just been omitted from the latest iOS version. So two major updates and many intermediate releases. I myself have installed 10 software updates since buying my iPhone 3G.

Sure, you can buy a handset with more hardware features than the new iPhone, but don't expect more than a couple of software updates to fix bugs or add new features. There's simply no money in it for the handset maker to spend lots of time doing so.

I could bear having a handset for 18-24 months without new features being added and bug fixes being done. This is why I couldn't ever have an Android phone on contract. I would end up installing DIY ROMs (and suffering the instability).

[Geoff Campbell]

10 Software Updates?

Whatever happend to "It just works"?

GJC

[John 62]

iTunes :)

It may be bloatware, but you plug in your phone and it updates it. though granted an updater by any other name would be just as sweet.

I also detect "why would it need updated?" smarminess and will concede that in many cases it would be nice if more things could silently upgrade themselves the way chrome does, unlike a reboot for Safari 5.

[Geoff Campbell]

So....

....you are saying that the answer to the question "Whatever happened to 'It just works'?" is "iTunes"?

Yes, I can see how that would work. Thanks for making it clear for me.

GJC

[vic 4]

10 updates

And how many of those have broken something?

At least it looks like iOS4 is going to be a free upgrade for us ipod users for a change.

[The Original Steve]

Because "other handset"s have a feature complete OS at launch...

The title says it.

iOS4 is the first version of the platform I've thought "wow - now it's nearly on par with the platforms I've used in the past 5 years".

The iPhone NEEDED the updates as it was so weak when it was first out. MMS, Cut and Paste, video sending, propper bluetooth, threaded text messages, Exchange support... I mean come on...!!!

So it's hardly something to boast about when a handset NEEDS that many updates. Just shows that the OS was originally polished visually but with FA in terms of features.

If I could only ditch iTunes, use whatever I want as my ringtone and give two fingers to a locked down app store then I'd probably get one.... as long as the tarrif was the same as my Desire.

[Anonymous Coward]

Writer's understanding of display tech sounds questionable

No offence, but as a casual observer of the march of technology, I can see numerous issues in your description of screen technology and features Apple's new display "technology" (I think you mean new resolution).

To name a few, ipads do not "combine" IPS and LCD since IPS is a form of LCD screen, and IPS was not first seen in ipads, it has been around for years.

I'm writing this using an S-IPS screen!

The article makes a good point but is undermined by careless write-up of the tech involved which could be a problem on a tech-news site...

[Parax]

and LG has promised 20 'Google phones' by the end of this year.

thats not very many! or perhaps they mean 20 Google Phone Models. in which case there lies the problem. if you spread youself so thin that you become transparent the purchaser will see right through you. Phone companies these days are trying to be the 'jack of all trades' but are persistantly failing to become a master of any. this is where Apple(cr) is doing things right instaed of making 20 they make 1 and they do it right first time. (well ok nearly right) the point is that a range of models with extra pixel here or a different colour button there just leads to a weak diluted market. with no product evolution, where every model is different, the customer fails to see improvement, with a new model what can you compare it to? with an iPhone you can see how it changes and improves. not only that but the stability of the iphone encourages third party integration and having limited hardwarwe configurations enhances the productivity of the developer! and more third party development makes the product more useful and desirable.

Whilst you should not put all your eggs in one basket you should equally not put three eggs into 12 baskets.

[RichyS]

Rethink need a rethink

These Rethink people still don't get it. Talking about a 'new wave of iPhone competitors', then touting 2GHz chips and other spec-whore nonsense misses the point of the iPhone.

The iPhone has, over the years, made some interesting uses of technology, but rarely has had the latest and greatest of technology. Never the fastest chips or highest mega pixels of largest screen. You get the picture. The iPhone has always being about the sum of its parts -- and that includes the software. To ignore all these aspects and only concentrate on the raw specs of these 'super phones' is to simply not get it.

[GotenXiao]

More keyboards please

Can we please, please, PLEASE have some high-end handsets with landscape sliding keyboards please? With decent layouts? Ideally a 5-row.

There hasn't been a good followup to the G1 yet. The MyTouch 3G Slide has next to no performance improvement, the latest swathe of HTC handsets are all touch-only, the Droid 2 *might* have a decent keyboard (but it's a 4-row and thus has no dedicated number row). Using SSH with an on-screen keyboard is painful. And it's one of the biggest reasons I will never buy an iPhone, besides the massive list of restrictions Apple dictate to its users.

[Geoff Campbell]

Keyboards

Samsung have just announced the Galaxy S Pro, with a slide-out keyboard. Should be around next month.

GJC

[Anonymous Coward]

Flood the market with models

"LG has promised 20 'Google phones' by the end of this year"

20 phone models in less than 6 months! You can forget about most (any) of these getting software updates.

Rather than trying to come up with one, two or a few good models. The plan seems to be to flood the market with so many different models. This may increase Android's install base, but I doubt it will help the Android user experience much and application developers are going to have a big job dealing with all these different models, with different features (screen res, etc).

Unless of course all these models will just be the same thing with different colours and case designs?

[Alan Denman]

Back to front

It is the other way round

The iPhone was getting decrepit yet now the iPhone HD can now challenge the already dominant HD Android phones.

[EWI]

Roadkill

""Our hope is that we won't lose as many customers this year as we have in the past," he said during an interview, claiming that AT&T's well reported network glitches and its new tiered data pricing would make Sprint look more attractive.

He was also quick to distance himself from Sprint's previous 'iPhone killer', the Palm Pre, which delivered disappointing results. "The Pre was for people who didn't really want the iPhone," he said, as quoted by CNET. "But the EVO is a phone that people can get instead of the iPhone.""

[OrsonX]

SO MUCH POWER!

But to what end??

I love faster tech as much as the next nerd. But I can't think why I need a 2Ghz dual core process in my mobile, surely it just means the battery will be lasting half as long?

So, gaming maybe? Nope, usless on tochscreen phones unless we get some buttons (I know, iPhone games sold in abundance, I've played them... they're rubbish!). As to doing away with laptops, no chance, who wants to work on a tiny phone screen/keyboards.

I await to be enlightened!

[John 62]

handwarmer

get a folding at home client and you can keep your hands warm on a cold day.

[Anonymous Coward]

3:2 Ratio

"The main new hardware feature of the iPhone 4 was its ultra-high resolution display,"

'Bullshit' slight of hand "ultra-high resolution" indeed ,PR in other words, the fine details you and all editors and reporters seem to conveniently forget to include Every single time as a generic thing is:

this screen size is in fact an antiquated 960×640, <b> 3:2 Ratio </b>, 1.5 SAR *, 614,400 pixel display

its not even using your generic old 4:3 Ratio UK PAL never mind a true and current generic world standard 16:9 Ratio screen in whatever size you might prefer.

OC apparently it's no better in the other camp eather, as for the mentioned Samsung AMOLED display of 800x480, that to is a non generic 5:3 Ratio **, 1.667 SAR, 384,000 pixel screen display, again not a current 16:9 ratio and yet again a super low pixel count more akin to antiquated SD D-1 PAL image,than anything remotely near today's generic 16:9 ratio wide-screen

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storage_Aspect_Ratio#Storage_Aspect_Ratio

**a 720 × 576 D-1 PAL image has a SAR of 720/576 = 5:4, but is displayed on a 4:3 display (DAR = 4:3), so it has a PAR of (4:3)/(5:4) = 16:15

.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_resolutions

[Andrew Garrard]

3:2 rant (this is strangely familiar)

I'm sure I responded to a post like this before.

The iPhone (and various early Android phone)'s 3:2 aspect is, indeed, not a perfect match for 16:9 content. This is, in part, because 16:9 is a stupid ratio that doesn't divide nicely into anything that gives multiple of obvious size rendering blocks - it's a standard from an analogue age, where niceties such as powers of two in pixel counts didn't matter.

A better reason for it is that 16:9 is a terrible ratio for doing anything other than video which originated in 16:9 (or wider) format. If all you do on your iPhone is watch videos, paying for the black bars probably bugs you, and one of the 854x480 Android phones would be better (in addition to having the right vertical resolution for NTSC; 1138x640 would actually look worse).

If you want to edit documents, surf the web, etc. a squarer aspect ratio is generally considered to be much better - they just give you more screen area per unit diagonal, which is why monitor manufacturers are trying to push 16:9 panels on the public instead of the more traditional 5:4, 4:3 and 16:10. (Many of these monitors can't run HD video at 1:1, which removes their sole potential redeeming feature. Don't get me started on 1366x768.) 3:2 is also the perfect ratio for displaying images from most DSLRs - hence the 720x480 screens on some Canons.

960 pixels is a relatively small jump over the 800 of my current phone. I'm a lot more excited over the idea of 640 pixels of height compared with 480. However, not excited enough to go down the Apple route - I'm just hoping that Android phones get equivalent displays soon. Preferably with an integrated projector, too. (Samsung? Where's the Beam?)

In other news:

"Samsung says that this will be marginally less sharp than the iPhone 4 even though the pixel density is far lower - the difference, it says, will be three to five per cent, scarcely visible to users"

I (as a potential purchaser) will be the judge of that. Because nobody ever wanted an XGA display when SVGA screens were the norm, after all. I can sure as hell tell the PenTile AMOLED displays in the Nexus One and Desire from the "real" WVGA screen in my Touch Pro 2. I'll be in the market for a phone as soon as there's an Android device with a decent touch screen (sadly, this rules out the Droid/Milestone) and a screen at least WVGA that's not PenTile. But if there's something higher resolution coming, I won't grab an Evo just yet.

Either way, having black bars when watching video isn't my primary concern. I've got a TV for that, and its battery doesn't got flat.

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder...

Will LG's new phones sport their Retina Display screens?

[Christian Berger]

Facepalm

I wonder how those marketing beancounters think.

Now let me explain the situation.

People who buy iPhones, buy iPhones because they are exactly like iPhones.

People who buy different things buy different things because they are different.

You cannot over-iPhone the iPhone, because the iPhone is already the best iPhone per definition.

If you want to sell devices try to do something unusual, something creative. Just think of Maemo, those are portable devices on which you can easily get a root shell. People who buy such a device would not buy an iPhone.

Try to think of something new. Something that's never been there before. Or at least _listen_ to the people and listen to what they say your competitors and you are doing wrong.

[Anonymous Coward]

AMOLED

How do you say it?

It has just occurred to me that it it probably not ay-moled, ie sounding like a past tense of mole.

[F1reman]

missing something

There is no doubt that AMOLED screens have some huge advantages. However, they have one major drawback: u can't see 'em for shit in the daylight. Why did you not mention this in your article please? Were you not aware?

The iPhone 4 looks like a genuinely good product but if it's in-superior to it's current and future competitors why am I ready articles about it? Why does the iphone even feature? why are we constantly bashing it when it's not even been released yet?

[h 6]

Flash?

These roadmaps seem all well and good, but the other night a friend of mine showed off his Incredible running Flash. I asked him to load a Flash website my ad agency devloped, and it failed to load. "Let me know when Flash works correctly on your phone," I told

him. At least he could bring up Homestar Runnner. Cute, but not useful.

[Anonymous Coward]

but

Apple fans will continue buying iPhone's whether they're the best or not because that's what Apple fans do

[Anonymous Coward]

@AC

And anti-Apple-ites will continue not buying iPhones and berating anyone who does, because that's what they do. How predictable. But at least the Apple fans end up with a device they enjoy, and all the anti-Apple-ites do is end up hating more. I'd rather have a new device I'm happy with.

[Macka]

Battery life

--"The Galaxy S is rated at 576 hours of 3G standby while the iPhone 4 is rated at 300 hours"--

This was said in the context of comparing the AMOLED screen on the Galaxy to the iPhone 4, but what has the standby time got to do with screen power consumption? Standby time is when the device is inactive, not being used, it has nothing at all to do with screen power efficiency. The only thing we can deduce from this statement is that the Galaxy will have a bigger battery than the iPhone, so it will probably be a bigger and heavier device. I'm sure Apple could build a bigger phone with a longer battery life if they wanted to, but they don't because they always look to balance form with function. Making a new phone thats 24% thinner than it's predecessor is something they're proud of.

[CaptainBlue]

Hands-free?

Do Android phones actually work with Bluetooth hands-free car kits yet?

[Anonymous Coward]

Toyota

My HTC Hero has always worked fine with the kit in my Aygo.

[Shonko Kid]

Dude..

It's like, Open Source, maaan! You can, like, totally code the carkit profile yourself!

</hacky sack>

</spliff>

</COADHT>

</sarcasm>

[Geoff Campbell]

Hands-free

What do you mean, "yet"? My Samsung Galaxy, a first generation Android 1.5 phone, works perfectly with Bluetooth car kits, currently a Sony head unit with built in hands free.

GJC

[Sgetsuo]

Hands-free

HTC Desire and Parrot MKi9200 - works a treat thanks :)