Gadgetory

what's up prize five fans i'm brian tong and this is an epic battle between two of the big boys in the smartphone world it's a prize five put out between apple's iphone 4s and the samsung galaxy nexus on Sprint our judges for this fight are senior editor Brian boom-boom Bennet senior editor Jessica Duke it out dole Court and myself ringa Linga ding dong we'll take all three judges scores and average them out to the nearest tenth each round the final prize five score will be an average of all rounds using the same system it's a five round throwdown round one is designed the iPhone 4s retains Apple's iconic design there's no doubt it's a luxurious phone with its 3.5 inch screen and an all metal and glass body now I might be in the minority that still thinks it's a little blocky but one drop of this phone and guess what you're pretty much screwed now the Samsung Galaxy Nexus brings a four point six five inch Super AMOLED display that pops with vibrant color and a curved glass design it's bigger to hold but it's also one of the few big screen phones that fits in my pocket nicely the phone has a textured plastic backing that may not feel as premium but when you drop it it has more than a chance to survive beauty is in the eye of the beholder and we're calling this round a tie at for next round is user interface and controller some of you might be a little bored with iOS 5 by now but Apple's nailed it with the easiest pick-up-and-play OS on the planet that even my unborn child can use over time they've added features like quick access to the camera a customizable notifications drop-down in Syria is just one button press away but there's also the user that wants something sweeter with more control Ice Cream Sandwich is the answer and there's a higher learning curve but it's the best flavor of Android that we've seen to date that feels modern and is still super customizable this is another round that comes down on what you like but our editors give the iPhone for us a slight edge with the 4.3 after our averaging two rounds the 4s leads round three is features the iPhone 4s has been able to age gracefully over time with HSPA+ support that speedier but isn't true 4G it has a dual-core processor Bluetooth 4.0 and it's bag of goodies from iOS 5 now its Retina display remains it's killer feature Syria's half-baked and still isn't ready for primetime no matter what Apple tells you but the fluorescence biggest drawback is that it's still a 3G phone now the Galaxy Nexus can take a moment to flex its muscle with 4G LTE support that's on its way its larger display is still sharp enough that you won't really miss the Retina display it's voice Actions have been around since day one and it's turn-by-turn directions still have no I o s equal face lock isn't that big of a deal but it's here if you're into yourself it also brings Samsung's S beam similar to Android Beam where you exchange data by tapping it with another phone and it has Google wall for mobile payments which is useful but still has a long ways to go to catch on mainstream and do we mention 4G LTE support neither phone has expandable memory but the Galaxy Nexus has a replaceable battery samsung dominates this round with the perfect 5 and the iPhone gets a poor next round is web browsing and multimedia the iPhone 4s brings one of the best mobile browsers even without flash support and it's crisp and tight with pinching and zooming the Retina display still looks great even if watching media on it feels a lot smaller compared to the Galaxy Nexus and the iTunes ecosystem still delivers the largest library of media content that you can find but his standout feature is this truly amazing 8 megapixel camera that embarrasses Samsung with more natural colors and sharper images with both still pictures and 1080p video it's really no contest the Galaxy Nexus and its monster screen actually makes navigating websites easier and multimedia content looks plain awesome there's an instant youtube feature to upload videos and the Google Play Store is now a legitimate ecosystem with tons of app support and content that's just slightly behind iTunes what hurts of the most though is that in the year 2012 a top-notch phone like this brings a 5 megapixel camera now it brings a lot more editing features and we know megapixels don't mean everything but it's camera quality is disappointing and even it's cool panorama feature and 1080p video can't save it the iPhone 4s gets a perfect 5 this round and the Galaxy Nexus gets a 4.3 so after averaging four rounds we're locked in a dead heat and tied the final round that decides it all is called quality and performance this round partially comes down to carriers in location but the iPhone 4s on Verizon had great overall call quality and clarity and our test now the Samsung Galaxy Nexus on Sprint also sounded excellent and solid as well data speeds will vary wildly but using the speedtest.net benchmark in San Francisco the iPhone 4s was able to beat it out for download speed but the Galaxy Nexus had a better upload speed and that's before the 4G LTE switch gets flipped that will make a significant difference and when it comes to battery life and our video playback test the 4s was able to get over eight hours of juice while the Galaxy Nexus squeezed out over five hours with this larger screen this one's another close round but in the long run 4G LTE data makes the difference and the Galaxy Nexus gets the edge with a four point three to four so let's average out all five rounds and in a prizefight that's a photo finish we had to nail this down to just one hundredths of a point and the Galaxy Nexus just gets by four point three two to four point two six and is your prize buy it wins i'm brian tom thanks for watching we'll catch you guys next time for another prizefight