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iPhone 5 vs. Galaxy 3, the ultimate in Android vs iOS

One of Android’s top seller versus Apple latest iOS smartphone goes one-on-one — the iPhone 5 vs. the Galaxy S3. But OS aside, we looked at both devices and pit their hardware features against each other.

Samsung’s Galaxy S3 has been launched in the Philippines since May this year and Apple’s iPhone 5 is yet to be released. Samsung’s got a head-start but Apple has the advantage of time to polish its contender.

Display. The Galaxy S3 comes in a large 4.8-inch Super HD AMOLED display while the iPhone 5 only has a 4-inch Retina Display. Both screens have pixel density that’s above 300ppi so there’s no noticeable difference in resolution. Samsung gets the score for a bigger screen, a move that Apple is following by increasing the display size of the iPhone. Galaxy S3: 1, iPhone 5: 0.

Network. The iPhone 5 can run on selected LTE networks and so is the Galaxy S3 (in some regions). The international version of both phones also supports HSPA+. It’s an easy tie for the two phones. Galaxy S3: 1, iPhone 5: 1.

Camera. Both the Galaxy S3 and the iPhone 5 sport an 8-megapixel rear camera that records full HD 1080p videos at 30fps. It’s a tie again for both. We made numerous tests on the Galaxy S3 in our previous review here and so far, the sample photos/videos we took using the iPhone 5 is as impressive. We say it’s a tie.Galaxy S3: 1, iPhone 5: 1.

Storage. Internal storage is normally at the 16GB, 32GB and 64GB range for the iPhone 5 and the Galaxy S3. However, you can extend the storage of the Galaxy S3 with an additional 64GB microSD card (to a total of 128GB). This gives the S3 an edge. Galaxy S3: 1, iPhone 5: 0.

Battery. Battery is a huge consideration with any smartphone. The Galaxy S3 has a removable 2100mAh battery while the iPhone 5 has a non-removable 1440mAh battery. The S3 wins by a mile, not because it has a higher capacity but because it’s user-removable. Galaxy S3: 1, iPhone 5: 0.

Build Quality. Samsung takes a bit of criticism for using plastic materials in the Galaxy S3’s body. Apple has been doing impressive work with the build quality and materials for the iPhone 5 with a combination of aluminum and glass parts in a thinner body. The iPhone 5 wins this round. Galaxy S3: 0, iPhone 5: 1.

OS. The choice between iOS and Android is a matter of personal choice. The strength of iOS integration and refine-ness is contrasted by Android’s flexibility and customizability. Both platforms have their merits so it’s a tie. Galaxy S3: 1, iPhone 5: 1.

Samsung Galaxy S3 i9300 specs:
4.8-inch Super HD AMOLED screen @ 1280×720 pixels (306ppi)
1.4GHz Samsung Exynos 4 Quad processor
Mali-400MP GPU
1GB RAM
16GB, 32GB, 64GB internal storage
up to 64GB via microSD card
HSPA+ up to 21Mbps, LTE 100Mbps
Bluetooth 4.0
WiFi 802.11 b/g/n with WiFi Bonding
8MP rear camera with LED flash
1080p @ 30fps video recording
1.9MP front-facing camera
720p HD video recording
NFC
GPS w/ aGPS support
2,100mAh Li-Ion battery
Android 4.0 ICS with TouchWiz UX

Apple iPhone 5 specs:
4-inch display @ 1136×640 pixel, 326 ppi
Apple A6 chip @ 1.2GHz dual-core
16GB, 32GB, 64GB
HSPA+, LTE up to 100Mbps
WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, dual-band
Assisted GPS and GLONASS
Bluetooth 4.0
8MP rear camera, LED flash
1080p video recording
1.2MP front-facing camera @ 720p
1440mAh battery
iOS 6

There are other several minor features we no longer highlighted in the match-up above — like NFC and FM Radio tuner.

We wanted to include the suggested retail price as another criteria but since the iPhone 5 is not yet officially released in the country, we can’t really compare them yet. However, based on previous year’s pricing, both smartphones might be within the same price range.

In our tally above, the Galaxy S3 got 6 points while the iPhone 5 got 4 points. The Galaxy S3 wins by several notches against the iPhone 5. Again, it’s still a matter of personal taste and for this case the lines are drawn not by the hardware but mostly by the operating system.

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Avatar for Abe Olandres

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines. He is also a technology consultant, a tech columnist with several national publications, resource speaker and mentor/advisor to several start-up companies.

141 Responses

  1. Avatar for Mike M Mike M says:

    OMG. You guys keep on blasting Abe for this review, when it is not a review AT ALL. I will post again what I just said a page back and will add new insights to it:

    It’s an objective review. It’s basically a comparison of hardware of each phone. He never indicated it’s an “in depth” review. To quote what Abe specifically said in the 1st paragraph:

    “But OS aside, we looked at both devices and pit their hardware features against each other.”

    So as Abe is comparing “hardware” features, to reply to your first point, bigger IS better, hardware wise. PPI above 300 is barely noticeable. It’s just both are using different displays. Samsung with their AMOLED, Apple with their Retina Display. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. Re: Drop test, wtf dude, if Apple did include that as a “feature”, then it surely would’ve won. But it’s not.

    Also, can you elaborate completely how unstable Android OS is? I have the 4S and the S3, and I can’t seem to find anything “unstable” about the Android OS. I have no qualms with the iOS either.

    Battery life, you do have a quad core running with the S3, including a larger screen, + other features running like NFC. And do remember iOS does not really do multi-tasking “properly”.

    And do remember, S3 was released a few months ahead of iPhone 5, which gives Apple time to “polish”.

    I love both my 4S and S3. But for the 40-50k price tag of the iPhone 5, vs. the 24-28k of the S3, I’d keep my 4S nalang then wait till the iPhone 5 price drops to the safe 30k (which I believe is the most logical pricing for that phone)

    Basically to the guys who were quick to give off a negative reaction to this article…

    …Read (and comprehend)

  2. Avatar for ip5sucks ip5sucks says:

    IP5 SUCKS!!! OVERPRICED POS!!!

  3. Avatar for Danica Danica says:

    iPhone 5 = over-rated and over-priced
    S3 FTW!

    • Avatar for overprice overprice says:

      I think, if you sum up all the engineering done and the quality of IP5, S3 overpriced. Same thing goes with the pansit in carenderia and pancit sa restaurant, parehas pancit pero iba ang luto, ingrdnts at sarap ng s resto. S3 and IP5 are great products, may mga tao lang n mahilig manira ng iba. Kanya-kanyang taste yan, kung mahal ung isa pabayaan mo na, hindi naman ikaw ang magbabayad eh. Tsaka wag tatanga-tanga.

  4. Avatar for BATAS BATAS says:

    MGA PUTANGINA NYO!!

  5. Avatar for braddd braddd says:

    Ok here’s a summary of reviews you can find all over the net with regards to iPhone 5 and Galaxy S3:

    Display: iPhone 5 beats the S3
    http://www.displaymate.com/Smartphone_ShootOut_2.htm

    Camera: iPhone 5 beats the S3
    http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-6454_7-57519018/apple-iphone-5-vs-samsung-galaxy-s3-vs-htc-one-x-the-cameras/

    Performance: iPhone 5 beats the S3
    http://www.theverge.com/2012/9/22/3371818/iphone-5-vs-galaxy-s3-gpu-benchmarks

    Durability: iPhone 5 beats the S3
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6M5q5TRuAsY

    Funny how, on paper, Samsung have this looong description of specs on their phones that’s clearly just trying to hard sell you. On the paper, it’s as if the S3 is superior to that of the iPhone 5. But on real world applications, the iPhone 5 beats the crap out of the plastic S3.

    • Avatar for Engot Engot says:

      I smell something fishy on the big international tech websites. Is that the iMarketing?

    • Avatar for To engot To engot says:

      Your reply made you look like your name, ENGOT. What kind of test do you want?? The results are conclusive and clear. Why don’t you do the test yourself then??

      Bakit ganun ang mga fandroid, and daming excuses pag natatalo mga android nila. HAHAHAHA

  6. Avatar for Grover Grover says:

    Mas madami features yung iphone 5!!!

    It has the innovative

    iScratch – yup you can etch your name of the aluminum body hehe. Since di kaya mag customize sa phone mismo then might as well go creative and etch your names

    iLight – (iLeak) light leaking from the cracks of the body. Boy you get automatic flashlight in the dark ei? now that is a real feature

    iLost – oh boy this map of theirs takes you to another dimension. Really innovative

    iDepend – of course this is an old one, you have to depend on iTunes for your vids, music, etc….sa android USB TO GO BABY!!! Diretso salpak files wala nang inarte inarte pa

    iTipid – tipidin ang memory space kasi non expandable e…hehe di tulad sa SIII may 64gb internal ka na may option ka pa to expand another 64gb

    iNggit – well go figure

    • Avatar for Justin Justin says:

      Nice one, Grover. But you forgot…

      iNutil – Yup. Mga inutil lang ang bumibili ng iPhone. Mga walang laman ang utak kundi porma.

    • Avatar for alainL alainL says:

      Hahahaha. Nice one bro.

    • Avatar for John John says:

      LOL@iSheep

      galaxy s3 problem?
      here are some:
      1. poor battery
      2. microphone malfunction
      3. wifi low signal
      4. overheating
      5. camera bug
      6. memory bug problem
      7. back cover issue
      8. charging issue
      9. easy-to-hack software

      sa iphone, ano nga ba ang problema?

      1. scratch sa aluminum? LOL!
      2. Light leak, really? 1 out of 1million ang kaso, consider na problem agad?
      3. maps? hundreds of other maps ay nasa market.
      4. mahal – oo wala ka kasing pang bili.

    • Avatar for iRam iRam says:

      iNoCuent- Kasi walang kwenta. Pati ikaw! Hehehe…

  7. Avatar for roland roland says:

    i was disappointed with this review.. to add for the display test, here is a real review

    http://www.macrumors.com/2012/09/24/displaymate-rates-iphone-5-screen-as-best-smartphone-display-theyve-seen/

  8. Avatar for JohnPQ JohnPQ says:

    Poor comparison, halatang walang alam.

    look here about sa display:
    http://www.displaymate.com/Smartphone_ShootOut_2.htm

    search all other reviews about sa battery, iphone5 got one of the best batter sa smart phone, halos kinocompare nga sa razor maxx

    • Avatar for braddd braddd says:

      Nice review on the display! The iPhone 5 beats the S3 in all tests! Again it’s not all about the specs with all the fancy description blah blah blah like those on the S3’s papers just to sell the phone.

    • Avatar for Justin Justin says:

      “Both screens have pixel density that’s above 300ppi so there’s no noticeable difference in resolution.”

      Paki basa nga ng mabuti yung article. The point of the writer is that BOTH displays are already so ultra fine that the greatness of one over the other is not noticeable anymore by the naked eye. Kahit sabihin mong 500ppi ang iPhone at 400ppi ang S3, the bottom line is, IT DOESN’T MATTER kasi nga hindi kapansin-pansin ang lamang ng iPhone sa S3.

  9. Avatar for Edu Edu says:

    @Abe, I’ll give you some fare view on how to give point on the display comparison. I don’t think the S3 deserves a point coz the iPhone 5 won by a mile when overall display feature is considered. I’ll quote the conclusion made by Dr. Soneira of Displaymate.
    “Conclusions:   An Impressive iPhone 5 Display…
    Smartphone displays are continuing their rapid evolution in performance. Apple has again taken the lead in methodical refinements and factory calibration that are necessary to produce accurate very high picture quality. Based on our extensive Lab measurements the iPhone 5 has a true state-of-the-art accurate display – it’s not perfect and there is plenty of room for improvements (and competitors) but it is the best Smartphone display we have seen to date based on extensive Lab measurements and viewing tests. In particular it is a significant improvement over the display in the iPhone 4 with much lower screen Reflections, much higher image contrast and screen readability in high ambient lighting (the highest we have ever measured), and a significantly improved and accurate Color Gamut and Factory Calibration that delivers very accurate colors and very good picture quality. While it’s not quite as accurate as the new iPad, it is still probably more accurate than any consumer display you own (including your HDTV), unless you have a new iPad.
     
    The display on the Samsung Galaxy S III uses OLED technology. It’s a new technology that has not yet been refined to the same degree as LCDs, particularly the IPS LCDs on the iPhones, so it doesn’t objectively test or perform as well as the iPhone 5. But OLEDs have been evolving and improving very rapidly as shown in our OLED Display Technology Shoot-Out so it has a very promising future. Here are the biggest issues we found in our extensive Lab measurements and viewing tests of the Galaxy S III: the Brightness is about half of the iPhone 5 due to power constraints resulting from the lower OLED power efficiency and concerns regarding premature OLED aging. As a result the image contrast and screen readability in high ambient lighting is much poorer than the iPhone 5. The Color Gamut is not only much larger than the Standard Color Gamut, which leads to distorted and exaggerated colors, but the Gamut is quite lopsided, with Green being a lot more saturated than either Red or Blue, which adds a Green color caste to many images. And for some reason Samsung has not bothered to calibrate the Color Gamut on any of its OLED displays, so they are wildly inaccurate and produce inaccurate and over saturated colors.”
    Here’s the link so you can read it by yourself

    • Avatar for Edu Edu says:

      Edit: here’s the link
      http://www.displaymate.com/Smartphone_ShootOut_2.htm

    • Avatar for rene rene says:

      a very long explanation will likely result in a negative reaction, follow the adage “KISS”

    • Avatar for joe joe says:

      fare view?

      hahaha,
      makes me wonder how you were able to wrote a very long explanation in English, yet you don’t know how to spell that one correctly,

      here is what you should notice,

      in abe’s explanation, he said “additional 64GB microSD card (to a total of 128GB)”,

      but in the presentation of specs, it says there “up to 32GB via microSD card”,

      so which is which?

    • Avatar for Edu Edu says:

      @joe. Thanks for that amazing eagle eye! I LOLed a lot when I read your response realizing how silly I am to use the Word “fare” instead of “fair”. I think it was due to the auto fill feature of my phone when I was typing. It actually fills a word when I pressed wrong letters in my virtual keyboard. And overseen the word coz it sounds like;-)) hahaha. Its hard to review my comment before posting due to the small window of the comment box…. Just imagine scrolling up and doen again and again so fast just to post your comment ASAP … I bet some people are prone to silly typos as what I did though.
      PS. I’m typing my comment on my iPhone 4S

    • Avatar for Edu Edu says:

      *up and down

    • Avatar for Jeremy Jeremy says:

      @joe – wow naman. Bilib din ako sa kapal mo magcorrect ng grammar nya. E ikaw mismo ano nilagay mo? “how you were able to ‘wrote’ a very long…”. Sana bago ka magcorrect magaral ka muna. “able to write” ang tama. Smh.

  10. Avatar for Manong Ben Manong Ben says:

    Andoid = Lag
    iOS = Force close

    hahahaha

  11. Avatar for dbron dbron says:

    User experience? Been using iPhones for years and when I changed to SII last year, I suddenly noticed that my User experience in using an iPhone is very limited. If I don’t want to use the TouchWiz by Samsung, there are a lot of alternatives available for free download. I don’t use the default apps as well and that includes the TouchWiz. We can customize the OS even without rooting (jailbreak for iOS) the phone. I enjoy the fact that I can transfer any files from my phone to any computers, send any files via bluetooth even to blackberry, nokia etc. Plus, fully customizable interfaces, like changing the widgets’ size, changing the number of rows and columns for your homescreen, messaging, contacts, etc. Plus Notifications which of course iPhone recently adapted. To each is its own, it depends on how you’ll use your phone. If I want style and status symbol, I use my iPhone 4s, the same case goes for the iPhone 5. But for everyday use, I’ll choose the S3 or Note 2 once it is already available. To each is its own as the saying goes. Both iPhone5 and S3 are high-end devices and getting one or both is definely an experience that each owner will surely enjoy. What will be the use of S3 if all you do is calling and sending SMS without taking advantage of its big screen in playing HD games and videos. It all end up to what we do with our phone that defines its beauty.

  12. Avatar for John John says:

    really? YUGA? hindi ilang beses na napatunayan na mas tumataga ang iPhone 5 pag dating sa battery? hindi naman sa MAH ang sukatan nyan. zzz

    s3’s pentile screen is better than iphone 5’s? really?

    the only thing na mas maganda sa s3 is yung storage kasi expandable.

    IMO, mas maganda ang Android, pero di hamak na mas ok ang iPhone 5 pag dating sa hardware, mapa battery, processor or screen pa yan.

  13. Avatar for andre andre says:

    I don’t agree that S3 and iPhone 5 should be tied when it comes to the camera. The iPhone 5’s camera is superior. I have a friend who has both phones and the photos taken with the iPhone 5, especially under low light, are smoother and more well-defined.

  14. Avatar for wendell wendell says:

    can you add nokia lumia in this?

  15. Avatar for NomerPacundo NomerPacundo says:

    Useless review. AguyTech. Aguy aguy aguy.

  16. Avatar for wreek888 wreek888 says:

    Price of Iphone 5 in HK. 16g, $649, 32g. $749, 64g $849

  17. Avatar for Yuja Yuja says:

    I still love samsung..maybe because i havent tried both. haha. im into the price. No matter what.

  18. Avatar for John Price John Price says:

    Tie for the Camera and OS? YOU’VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME.

    Samsung’s TouchWiz SUCKS btw. The reason why the S3 has a bigger battery capacity is because it’s a huge phone.

    And S3 for the display? Come on! Try having that phone on your pocket. Yes, it’s kind of thin but it’s still huge. And seriously, do you really need a big display? What’s the big display for? Watching movies? Playing games? Well go get a tablet instead.

  19. Avatar for RedSimba RedSimba says:

    Former iPhone user shifted to SIII. (still using the iPhone BTW – contacts are still on this phone)
    Comparison between the two?
    Usability goes to SIII.
    Style for iPhone.

    I just noticed, when I started using SIII then shift back to iPhone for calls or text, I got this feeling that iPhone is a mini-phone ^_^ But still cute though.

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