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Nokia 900 |
Samsung SIII |
Outlook | |
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Nokia's Lumia 900 follows on
from the Lumia 800, which in turn is styled after Nokia's older Symbian
model, the N9. This means an extremely angular slab-like device with a
unibody design made from polycarbonate with a very ‘premium' look and feel.
The Lumia 900 is easily the best in terms of build quality and design |
The
Samsung Galaxy S3 is a move away from its predecessor as it abandons the
angular and sharper form factor in favour of more smoothed-out surfaces and
curved shapes like HTC's One S and Samsung's earlier model, the Galaxy
Nexus.
Samsung has opted for some of the cheapest feeling plastic we've yet seen
from the manufacturer. This is a major problem with the phone as it does not
live up to expectations of a premium handset. |
Memory |
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With the Lumia 900 you get a fairly typical Windows Phone
storage and memory setup which includes 16GB of internal space and 512MB of
RAM for processing tasks but no micro SD capability to offer memory
expansion. |
Samsung, as usual, has been much more generous here with a
spread of onboard storage options. This includes 16GB at the lower end, a
32GB middle option and 64GB for those with cash to splash. All of these have
1GB of RAM propping up the processor along with a micro SD slot for cards up
to 32GB |
Processor |
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Nokia's Lumia 900 has the same processor as
the Lumia 800 and, indeed, many other Windows Phone
models. Qualcomm is the order of the day here,
it's a single core setup on the APQ8055 Snapdragon Scorpion chip clocked at
1.4GHz with an Adreno 205 GPU in tow. |
The Galaxy S3 is the first quad
core smartphone from Samsung and uses the company's fourth generation Exynos
chip, the Exynos 4212. The processor setup is ARM Cortex-A9 based and clocked
at 1.4GHz with a Mali-400MP graphics processing unit (GPU) |
O/S |
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The Lumia 900 is, as we
mentioned, a Windows Phone and runs on version 7.5 ‘Mango', Windows Phone is
based on Microsoft's ‘Metro' user interface (UI) which uses its distinctive
Live Tiles, effectively small widgets and app shortcuts rolled into one. These
tiles not only let you access an app by tapping on them, but while on the
homescreen they will push out information, visually or via text, relevant to
that app. This means you can get snippets of information fast from the
homescreen without needing to enter an app |
Samsung's Galaxy S3 uses the latest version of Android, dubbed 4.0 Ice
Cream Sandwich (ICS). These platforms are pretty far removed from each other,
but we find ourselves liking both for different reasons, As we mentioned
briefly in the processor section, Windows Phone doesn't have true
multi-tasking like Android, instead it uses a hibernation system where
inactive apps are temporarily deactivated. |
Camera |
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Being an enlarged Lumia 800, the Lumia 900 uses the same camera
configuration, which is an 8-megapixel primary with a Carl Zeiss lens and a
3264x2448 pixel resolution. Video capture is 720p. |
Samsung's Galaxy S3 is a much better offering. It's an 8-megapixel
back-illuminated sensor (BSI) with a 3264x2448 pixel resolution. The
megapixel rating and resolution might be the same as its Lumia rival but
we've seen the pictures it takes and that back-illuminated sensor must make
all the difference as they're much sharper. |