Apple has officially announced the iPhone 4S, and many have criticsed it for being just a little too much like the previous iPhone 4. It adds a new powerful processor and a more capable camera, but it looks the same, and has the same “old” Retina Display screen.
To see how it really stacks up to the competition, we’ve collated the specs of current and future smartphone rivals to see whether the iPhone 4S is already stuck in the past. For reference, “Ice Cream Sandwich” and “Gingerbread” all naturally refer to the Android OS editions – we only snipped out “Android” to save space. In the CPU field, “Dual” and “Single” refer to whether the processor has one or two cores.
As the Google Nexus Prime, set for an official unveiling soon, proves, the dual-core A5 processor is arguably already a little bit out of date. iOS devices set their own standards for speed, running a completely different OS from their rivals, but by this time next year the iPhone 4S A5 processor will seem positively lethargic in pure spec terms.
The Sony Ericsson Xperia Duo trumps the iPhone 4S on megapixels, but will it offer a better, sharper sensor? The jury’s out.
The current smartphone elite
What these spec round-ups show is that the 64GB of internal storage offered in the top iPhone 4S model is seriously impressive next to virtually all rivals. That’s dampened by the high price and that it’s not expandable, but for big music or video fans, it boosts the iPhone’s cred as a portable player.
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We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
