Well, it's been coming for centuries. Byzantine monks prophesised the battle between three phones, with each looking for touchscreen supremacy... and now we bring you that battle. We hope the edge of your seat is comfortable...
Home screen
The place where it always all begins: the home screen needs to look good, or else you'll just get lost in a sea of options.
The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic (we'll be calling it the Tube for simplicity) has an innovative four-photo option on the front screen - each person's details are updated with Facebook status, photos from Flickr or texts and calls. The menu key gives easy access to the normal grid Nokia lovers will be familiar with.
The iPhone's home screen just makes sense. No innovation, just simple icons all in front of you. No space for more? Well, just slide the screen along and see the next set.
The G1's Android home screen is innovative too, but incorporates the smart ideas of the iPhone. Icons can be moved around; open applications can be pulled down from the top of the screen, and a swipe to the right gets you into Google search. It also just makes sense, but in a more complex way.
The verdict The G1's interface is nice and simple with some good bells and whistles, and the swishing and swooshing means it edges the iPhone's simplicity and the Tube's innovation.
Media
Every handset worth its salt these days (how much is salt worth exactly?) can do all manner of tricks and features... if it can't play tunes, show movies and showcase your photos, what's the point eh?
The iPhone is a handset for media, given that it's an iPod touch plus (or the iPod is an iPhone lite). Movies are a dream to watch, photos are easy to flick through thanks to the touch screen and music uses Apple's great cover flow system.
The G1 doesn't even come with a video player in the box - photo viewing is average at best and music playback is a bit bog-standard compared to its peers. Must do better for Android... but the development community will probably be on the case quick-smart.
The Tube is a great media device too, with the media bar accessible at all times. The Comes with Music functionality will open the handset up to a wealth of tunes, video looks crisp and nice, and photos, while slow to load, are OK to whizz through.
The verdict Unfortunately for the others, the iPhone lords it over all kinds of media, and we haven't even covered the YouTube ability of the handset...
OS
It might LOOK fancy, but how does it actually work in real life? A dodgy OS will make you want to cry every time you open a new menu screen... a slick interface might make you forget you're even using a phone.
The G1's interface is nothing short of breathtaking, even if it is more about the potential of Android rather than the way it works now.
It's slick, changes windows quickly and allows you to move in and out of applications with ease, thanks to the pull down menu.
The Tube's interface is a little cluttered throughout, and the simplistic menu system of old is starting to look a bit dated.
S60 is an ageing system, and although it's been re-designed for touch, it still creaks under multiple applications.
The media bar gives decent access to the important applications on the phone, but it still is slow when switching.
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Your comments (5) Click to add a new comment
lyriki11
October 5th 2008
5. jtjdt-
All three of your points are flawed: It doesn't say that there is cover flow for photos, I think you'll find Google Maps has recently been updated to include Streetview on the iPhone (update shortly, think there's a story on it here somewhere) and multi-touch is mentioned and highlighted, though it's not the be all and end all.
That said, the reviewer could have put something in about the price: the Tube costs half of what the iPhone does, and will prob be free on most contracts.
The G1 hasn't got a price yet, but will prob be pretty high end... so the Tube should have had a category win there! Still would have lost though...
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hardeep1singh
October 5th 2008
4. This is what sounds like a typical apple fanboy review.
Somehow it forgets to talk about Symbian's strong music and video formats support, 30FPS video recording and huge third party application library.
Also I'm amazed to see how the reviewer talks about the browsing speed of a 'flash'less, 'javascript'less browser that mostly browses lo-fi versions of websites specifically made for the iphone.
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jtjdt
October 4th 2008
3. Please update your review:
1: The iPhone cannot view photos through cover flow
2: The iPhone cannot view street view, only satellite
3: The iPhone supports multi-touch, the others do not. Until others do, they fail in comparison
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sidneylopsides
October 4th 2008
2. The Nokia is much more capable as a video player, you could just drop a divx video on the memory card and watch it, plus Nokia maps offers turn by turn voice commands, as well as Google maps. It should win in both those parts.
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clustertim
October 4th 2008
1. I dont think either one can hold a candle to the IPhone. I finally traded in my Blackberry for an IPhone and I love it!
Jiff
www.privacy-center.ru.tc
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