Personally, I don’t comprehend the appeal of Vertu phones. There’s definitely something in finely crafted objects. Mechanical watches and supercars immediately come to mind. However, phones, especially smartphones, are definitely don’t. At the rate electronics are going, a top-of-the-line smartphone is no longer top in a year and is practically obsolete in 2-3 years. Certainly not comparable to mechanical watches. When that happens, the only thing of value is the casing. Vertu should just turn to crafting the world’s finest crafted phone cases out of titanium, leather, or other luxury materials.
Apple iPhone 5S vs Apple iPhone 5 vs Samsung Galaxy S4
Now that Apple has announced the iPhone 5S, it’s time for a side-by-side for comparison against the previous iPhone 5 and the de facto Android flagship, the Samsung Galaxy S4.
The first question is, is it an upgrade over the iPhone 5? The answer is yes, specifically in the processor, the camera, and Touch ID. Apple’s “S” releases are normally minor updates. So this is actually significant. Apple obviously is feeling the competitive pressure.
The next question is how does it fare against the Galaxy S4? By the numbers you would see that Galaxy S4 would win. But most numbers don’t matter much (e.g. processor speed, and megapixel count) without context. So I won’t even go into the 64-bit (although really that is significant). Numbers are nothing compared to the experience.
I’d say you can’t go wrong with either iPhone 5S or Samsung Galaxy S4. Personally, I’d go for the iPhone 5S due to four reasons: design (understated elegance), the size (I like my phones small and light), the camera (True Tone flash, 2.2/f aperture and 15% larger sensor) and Touch ID (definitely more secure than Android’s rather gimmicky face unlock).
| Apple iPhone 5S | Apple iPhone 5 | Samsung Galaxy S4 | |
| Size | 123.8 x 58.6 x 7.6mm | 123.8 x 58.6 x 7.6mm | 136.6 x 69.8 x 7.9 mm |
| Weight | 112 g | 112 g | 130 g |
| Network | GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 | GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 | GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 |
| HSDPA 850 / 900 / 1900 / 2100 | HSDPA 850 / 900 / 1900 / 2100 | HSDPA 900 / 1900 / 2100 | |
| LTE | LTE | LTE | |
| Display | LED-backlit IPS TFT, capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors | LED-backlit IPS TFT, capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors | Super AMOLED HD capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors |
| 640 x 1136 pixels, 4 inches (326 ppi) | 640 x 1136 pixels, 4 inches (326 ppi) | 1080 x 1920 pixels, 5.0 inches (441 ppi) | |
| Processor | unspecified processor, unspecified GPU, Apple A7 chipset, 64-bit | unspecified processor, unspecified GPU, Apple A6 chipset | Quad-core 1.6 GHz Cortex-A15 & quad-core 1.2 GHz Cortex-A7, PowerVR SGX 544MP3 GPU |
| RAM | unspecified | unspecified | 1/2 GB RAM |
| Internal Storage | 16/32/64 GB | 16/32/64 GB | 16/32/64 GB |
| External Storage | No External Memory | No External Memory | Up to 64GB |
| Data | Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n dual-band | Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n dual-band | Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n dual-band |
| Bluetooth | v4.0 with A2DP | v4.0 with A2DP | v4.0 with A2DP |
| NFC | none | none | yes |
| Operating System | iOS 7 | iOS 6 | Android v4.2 Jelly Bean |
| Camera | 8 megapixel AF with True Tone dual-LED flash and f/2.2 aperture lens, 15-percent larger sensor, 10fps burst | 8 megapixel AF, f/2.4 aperture lens | 13 megapixel AF, f/2.2 aperture lens |
| Video | 1080p at 30fps, LED video light | 1080p at 30fps, LED video light | 1080p at 30fps, LED video light |
| Apps | About 900K from the Apple App Store | About 900K from the Apple App Store | About 1M from Google Play + access to non-market apps |
| Battery | Standard battery, Li-Po | Standard battery, Li-Po | Standard battery, Li-Ion 2600 mAh |
| Standby | Up to 270 h (3G) | Up to 225 h (3G) | Up to 370 h (3G) |
| Talk-time | Up to 10 h (3G) | Up to 8 h (3G) | Up to 117 h (3G) |
This Should Brighten Everyone’s Day
Apple has sent out invites to their much anticipated September 10 event. This should brighten everyone’s day. Well it, did make my day more colorful. And I expect September 10 to be colorful, too. The new iPhone 5S, the iPhone 5C as well as iOS 7, of course, is expected to be revealed. Based on rumors, I thinks the two will bring in many colors. The iPhone 5S will come in Black/Slate, White/Silver, and White/Gold. The iPhone 5C will come in even more colors: Black, White, Purple, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange, Pink, and Red. I guess C in 5C stands not only for China or Cheap but also Colorful!
OtterBox Commuter and Defender for iPhone 4/4S (Class A)
After a few months of use, my knock-off OtterBox Commuter chipped and cracked so I looked for replacement case. Over the holidays, Edong accompanied me in the search. It was tough going because every shop were carrying mostly iPhone 5 cases. We did find a knock-off OtterBox Commuter at the place where he got his own case. But it was P650 and it wasn’t even well-made. Today, I dropped by the phone accessories section of a nearby mall and ended up at the stall of this Chinese guy at the far end of the section. He showed me not just a Commuter (P250) but also a Defender (P700). They were good copies. Definitely better than my old one. The Commuter even had stiffer silicone similar to the one being used by OtterBox. I asked for his last price and he said P200 for the former and P600 for the latter. I asked him if I can get both for P750 and after some thought he agreed. But I’m sure he still got a tidy profit. In fact, the other stall keepers were actually getting stocks from him while we were transacting.
LG Optimus Black on CyanogenMod: A New Lease on Life
Leslie flashed a CyanogenMod 10 (CM10) nightly build on my LG Optimus Black (Thanks, Les!). HUGE improvement! I previously said “it’s a little bit laggy due to the low-end specs as well as all those virtual machinery and hardware abstraction layers”. Scrap that! The lagginess, it seems, was due to the Android version (Android 2.2 Frozen Yogurt and later Android 2.3 Gingerbread) and the LG Touch UI. With CM10, which was based on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, everything was snappier. There’s a fair bit of instability (hangs mainly, this is a nightly build after all) but it’s quite usable. Looks like this phone can go on as test phone for another year. Maybe I could even use it as secondary/backup phone.