BlackBerry Z10 vs Samsung Galaxy S3 vs Apple iPhone 5: Clash Of The Mobile Space Champions

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With the advent of 2013, it seems like it is going to be a great year for BB handsets RIM re-branded as BlackBerry. After fighting a shaking off battle for a couple of years with the tech titans, the company has put in all its effort in launching BlackBerry Z10 and Q10 smartphones based on its new operating system.

 

While many might consider if the smartphone market really needs another operating system, already dominated by Google's Android and Apple's iOS alongside Microsoft's Windows Phone 8, tech experts believe that BlackBerry will face an uphill on its take with all the three mobile platforms.

 

One of the biggest challenges which BlackBerry will have to overcome is in the number of apps on offer. Given that Android and iOS have been around for quite a while, they each have over several millions of apps that users can choose from. Contrastly, the BlackBerry 10 has less than 100,000 apps on offer.

When it comes to the smartphones based on BlackBerry 10 - Z10 and Q10 are the two handsets of which the flagship device Z10 comes with a full touchscreen display and Q10 has a QWERTY keyboard.

Moreover, several media reports claim that Z10 has a faster browser as compared to the other existing handsets and that it can handle multitasking with ease.

BlackBerry Z10 vs Samsung Galaxy S3 vs Apple iPhone 5: Champions Clash

Hence, now that the handset has been officially unveiled and is in queue to be released, it is time to compare and analyze the positives and negatives of Z10 with other market champions including Galaxy S3 and iPhone 5.

Galaxy S3, the hottest selling smartphone in the world is based on Android OS and has achieved a sales figure of 40 million units and counting. Moreover, based on Android OS, the platform that is used by almost three in every four devices shipped across the globe, can be considered the best smartphone launched ever.

At the same time, Apple's sixth generation iPhone - iPhone 5 is the best selling handset at least within the US market, despite criticism on few hits and misses in terms of specs and features. Further, the handset has the reputation of the Cupertino tech giant and has the ability to offer a tough competition to the Canadian firms new offering - Z10, as it is the second platform with a good market share.

Hence, Gizbot has come up with a comparison detailing the specs, software features and price of each handset in the trio. Lets see how the three handsets differ from each other in terms of every aspect.

Dimensions & Weight: BlackBerry Z10 carriers a dimension of 130 x 65.6 x 9 mm and weighs around 135 grams, whereas Galaxy S3 packs a dimension of 136.6 x 70.6 x 8.6 mm and weighs in at 133 grams while the slimmer and lighter iPhone 5 measures 123.8 x 58.6 x 7.6 mm and weighs around 112 grams.

Display: In this segment, Z10 boasts a 4.2 inch capacitive touchscreen display with 1280 x 768 pixel resolution, Galaxy S3 has a larger 4.8 inch Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen display with 1280 x 720 pixel resolution and iPhone 5 comes with a 4 inch LED-backlit IPS capacitive touchscreen display with 1136 x 640 pixel resolution.

Processor: While Z10 comes powered with a 1.5GHz dual core Snapdragon processor, Galaxy S3 and iPhone 5 score over the former with an extra core. As S3 has a quad core Exynos 4412 Quad chipset and the sixth generation Apple iPhone is equipped with an Apple A6 chip that uses a quad core ARM Cortex A9 processor.

Operating System: This is an important aspect as all the three handsets loaded with rival operating systems. Z10 is a BlackBerry 10 based smartphone, Galaxy S3 is based on Android 4.0.4 ICS and is upgradeable to Android 4.1 Jelly Bean while iPhone 5 is based on iOS 6 and is upgradeable to iOS 6.1.

When it comes to feature enhancements, BlackBerry 10 OS comes with new features and improvements including BlackBerry Hub, BlackBerry Flow, BBM, BlackBerry Balance, Story Maker, BlackBerry Remember, BlackBerry Safeguard and BlackBerry World.

On the other hand, Android 4.1 Jelly Bean OS has features such as Project Butter, which offers faster, smoother and responsive performance, on-screen navigation buttons, expandable and contractible Android notifications, resizable App Widgets functionality, high resolution contact photos, Android Beam app and more.

At the same time, iOS 6.1 update released a couple of days back has new features including 4G LTE support for more carriers, iTunes Match subscribers can download individual songs from iCloud, button to reset Advertising Identifier, improved Apple Passbook, tweaks to Safari, reworked music playback controls from lock screen and back-end changes in the mapping software of Apple.

Camera: In terms of camera optics, all the three handsets come with an 8MP rear camera, however, iPhone 5 scores more with the iSight camera technology, which includes features like backside illumination, spatial noise reduction, dynamic low-light mode and faster photo capture.

When it comes to front camera for video calling, Z10 has 2MP front 3X zooming camera, whereas, Galaxy S3 has 1.9MP camera and iPhone 5 has a 1.3MP secondary camera.

Storage: Speaking of memory capacity, Z10 has 16GB internal storage, 2GB RAM and a micro SD card slot up to 32 GB.
Galaxy S3 comes with 16GB/32GB internal storage, 2GB RAM and a micro SD card slot, however, iPhone 5 has 16GB/32GB/64GB and 1GB RAM. It is to be noted that iPhone 5 does not include a micro SD card for expandable memory support.

Connectivity: Detailing on connectivity features, Z10 and Galaxy S3 come with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, NFC and 4G LTE, but the former does comes with a mini HDMI port which is not present in S3. On the other hand, iPhone 5 has Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and 4G LTE, however lacks NFC and mini HDMI port both.

Battery: Z10 comes with a removable 1,800 mAh battery of undisclosed decent backup, Galaxy S3 is loaded with a bigger 2,100 mAh battery delivering 11.5 hours talk time and iPhone 5 has a Li-Po battery offering up to 8 hours talk time.

Price: Reportedly, BlackBerry Z10 is estimated to be priced around Rs 35,000 in India, whereas Galaxy S3, already present in Indian market is priced at Rs 31,900 and Rs 34,900 for 16GB and 32GB variants respectively. An iPhone 5 will cost you more, holding price tags of Rs 45,500, Rs 52,500 and Rs 59,500 for 16GB, 32GB and 64GB variants.

Verdict

Being high-end smartphones based on different operating systems, each of the handset have software features that are respective to their own platform. Galaxy S3 has exclusive S features including S Beam, S Voice, Pop-up Play, AllCast Share and more, which are not available in any other platforms.

If the concern is on an all new platform with integrated social networking, instant messaging features and more and front camera with digital zoom apart from usual features including NFC and LTE and not too concerned on a quad core processor, Z10 could be a right choice.

On the other hand, if the concern is on a larger display real estate, expandable memory support, efficient processor and NFC connectivity, Galaxy S3 should be the better option.

However, if the concern is on a better display and increased internal storage capacity, iPhone 5 might be a good one.

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