Apple's tooting its own horn about some new spec upgrades to its imminent
iPhone. No, it's not 3G, GPS or anything crazy like that, but we'll settle for a battery life upgrade anytime, and screen durability doesn't hurt neither. Apple claims that its
preliminary estimates of 5 hours of talk time, internet use and video playback were a tad conservative, and the iPhone instead will be boasting of 8 hours of chatting, 6 hours of internet and 7 hours of video. Audio playback has been boosted from 16 to 24 hours, and standby is at a welcome 250 hours. Of course, Apple does have tendency to exaggerate slightly on the battery life front, but these are promising figures, and should manage to provide a day or two's worth of solid use out of the thing. On the screen side, Apple has upgraded the original plastic surface of the phone to some "optical-quality glass" to improve scratch resistance and clarity. Check after the break for a handy battery life chart.
Update: Not sure how we missed this little snafu, but no Apple, you aren't
the only one on that chart with WiFi. Update to update: Apple updated the WiFi on that chart, so it looks like that's sorted.
posted June 18th 2007 9:25AM
why does it say the n95 has no wifi?
Wow big surprise apple's data says the iphone is better than everything else. Im blown away by that development.
I love my blackjack. And it's 3g eats the battery, but it's damn fast. Plus that's the talk time with the small battery, and the thickness with the large one. I wont be giving it up anytime soon, pretty much the perfect device, sans the OS.
Of course Apple's data looks better than everyone else. It's the same reason that the Honda Accord is WAY better than the Toyota Camry. It's also the same reason that the Toyota Camry is WAY better than the Honda Accord. Why would any company advertise their product as the inferior one.
Is that true that the chart reflects the Blackjack's talk time with the small battery, but thickness with large battery? What a marketing scam.
Right, but Apple is also being a bit generous with the talk time of the N95. Everyone on here is complaining that it DOES have wifi, but they also need to agree that it only has a little over 2 hours of talk time. I don't care if it can make my coffee in the morning, with it being about an inch thick and crappy talk time, no thanks.
Umm... No. That is the battery life and thinkness of what Samsung calls the "standard battery". I'm assuming it's the smaller battery, but you can check out the specs on Samsung's website for yourself. I'm sure that it's for the same battery, though, rather than listing specs for different batteries as if they were the same one. Apple is listing the same specs that Samsung list.
http://www.samsung.com/Products/MobilePhones/ATTCingular/SGH_I607ZKACIN.asp?page=Specifications
Thanks for clearing that up Jason
about dude's blackjack: "pretty much the perfect device, sans the OS."
You Windows users really have been beaten into submission, huh?
Since the only thing you interact with is the OS, I'd say it's easily the most important thing. I've suffered through a year and a halfof WinMo5, i am very ready for the iPhone.
just what are you talking about!?? The N95 beats it comprehensively specwise (5mp camera, GPS, removable battery, 3g, a huge number of 3rd party apps, VOIP. Its the OS that makes the iphone so great, thats what I am looking forward to.
Everything is mentioned but the weight. Did they leave that out for a reason? With a glass screen, etc.. prolly feels like a brick in your pocket. :)
I'm not supprised the data time is that high, it is just 2.5G, not 3G.
Yea, because glass is soooo heavy.
but seriously - if it was lighter than the others, you bet they would advertise it. so we can say: it's not (significantly) lighter than the other phones.
They show that the N95 has no WI-FI thats a bit stupid have they bothered to even look into its specs?
Nokia N95 has Wi-Fi, I'm pretty sure of that.
No wonder sales rep. are not reliable sometimes: they're given false information!
Yeap, the N95 has WiFi
Ya, it does seem to have Wi-Fi... at least every review of the phone I could find online talks about it's WiFi abilities.
Ugh, I hate charts like this where all that is mentioned is the weaknesses of other products, and they didn't even get that right.
Makes me want to make a real chart, showing just exactly what all the iPhone is missing in comparison to other phones. First of all, it's not even a smart phone, yet they are comparing it to phones that have a million more uses and a million more apps.
The data on the Nokia N95 is incorrect. It DOES have wiFi built in.
if it had a sliding keyboard, I would consider it to replace my treo 650. Also, it better have a really good bezel around that glass. I drop my treo and skid it across the parking lot at least once a week.
Good luck seeing the iphone survive that.
yeah, my 60GB iPod (which I bought last summer) was scratched to hell after 2 weeks. Good thing I got the protection plan. once it has an "issue" I'm sure I'll get a 80GB replacement with bluetooth.
Total bull. I mean what the hell, it says the N95 DOESN'T have Wi-Fi! And there should be a row for GPS, video calling, and camera type. Lol, what bull.
does anyone else thats ever dropped their phone think that a glass screen is probably the worst idea since the square wheel?
some people have grown so hateful of this product that is becoming as ridiculous as fanboy-ism. here you are with a claim so extraordinary, a comparison with a square wheel.. damn But yet people seem to like your outlandish remark even though you present nothing to back up your claim. I'm sure any major company would perform some testing, compare pro's and cons and take a lot of consideration when selecting their build of materials. And I'm also sure that their staff in their industrial design/engineering teams would probably be a bit more qualified knowledgeable in the subject than you. So until people get their hands on one of these, i'll give them the benefit of the doubt that this material in fact is good enough for daily use.
they said this is optical grade glass, so if you wear glasses you know that if you drop them (and you have) they don't beak like if you drop a drinking glass .
andres,
frankly, i love the iphone.
i want to get one myself, when i can afford it/ get tired of my Moto Q, or can choke down AT&T.
but i'm criticizing the idea of a glass screen, which is not normal in a device that usually has a fairly high amount of drop potential and abuse.
and i was comparing a glass cell phone screen to a square wheel, aka "a bad idea". I will give you the benefit of the doubt and say you must have misread, because that comparison makes perfect sense.
At the end of the day glass is still glass no matter how much it is treated, and will break under enough stress. If they make glass they is as light, break proof, and pliable as plastic, by all means.
and simply put, you do not need to be on "their industrial design/engineering teams" to know they properties of different types of glass, with different types of treatments. Not to mention for all you know i could be in the industrial design field.
P.s. nice lack of readability and formating
I not only think it, I have personal experience with it. Glass breaks and I've had an all-touchscreen PDA-phone break its screen twice.
I find it interesting that the pro-iPhone author of this article referred to the glass screen as a "durability upgrade" when it is exactly the opposite. More likely Apple had image quality complaints because the touchscreen sensors were interfering too much. Touchscreens degrade image quality and the over-hyped multitouch sensor perhaps more than others.
These announcements are just last minute adjustments to negative feedback. You notice that Apple hasn't said that battery performance has actually been improved or that the battery now has more capacity. They've just upped the ratings and probably done some last-minute power management work under the covers. That increases my concerns, not the other way around.
craig, could your post be any more nonsensical? The glass isn't some magical cure that can fix where " touchscreen sensors were interfering too much" whatever the hell that means. i mean seriously, what the hell are you talking about? "oh see, how i can see anything through that touchscreen? Put some glass on top of it so it all goes away."
They added glass so the screen would be more scratch resistant. A very good idea. BTW, first hand i've seen that treated glass can be almost indestructible, as a few years ago i bounced several bricks off some corporate plate glass windows. They just bounced off. I don't know what glass Apple is using, but I can say with certainty that using glass doesn't necessarily make it any more likely to break than what is in other smartphones. My friend dropped his 8525 a few days ago from about 24" off the ground and the screen was shattered and destroyed.
and then you say that fact that Apple has likely "probably done some last-minute power management work under the covers" increases your concern about the phone? what is your defect? Apple improves power managment and it makes you more concerned? yeah.
The Palm V actually used a glass screen opposed to a plastic one. I've never owned a Palm V but in my experience they're just fine. I actually prefer the glass screen to the plastic one, it's just been a long time (that I know of) that a device has used one.
craig's comment that the the glass might have had something to do with the touch sensor isn't nonsensical at all--if you've ever done any EE work with touch sensors, you know touch sensors usually end up being a compromise between optical quality, cost, and reliability. It's a bit outdated, i have to say--generally, newer technologies have made it possible to make it both cheap and high quality.
Personally, I think the glass touchscreen and battery life "announcements" were merely PR tricks that apple had planned. If you know anything about the product design cycle, there's no way apple could have possibly changed all the screens now or probably even 2-3 months ago.
@paul: when that nokia 84whatever broke, the LCD inside in broke if it didn't work--and any other device, iphone or not, would have done the same thing, even if the surface didn't crack. Also, there are many different kinds of "treated" glass. Obviously building glass windows are designed to be resistant to just about any physical impact for safety reasons. However, they're far too thick and heavy to be used on an iPhone. If you know anything about professional photography, you know that optical glass does indeed break (and that optical glass is definitely thicker than iPhone glass). I'm still worried that the broken glass from an iPhone might have some safety risks, especially since apple hasn't done anything to address the safety (I really expected something about it being "safety glass" or something in the advertising)
Mathieu's correct. The N95 does have wifi (and GPS, and HSDPA, and a 5MP camera... but those don't matter, riiight?).
lol @ the lowly competitors falling behind in every category
Maybe the fact that the chart is made by Apple has something to do with the iPhone seeming to be dominant in every category.
amen to that, yeer31
hello i am writing this comment from outside my cingulr store.there are 5 of us in line right now.
2/10
in line for what?
3G:
N95 Yes, UMTS+HSDPA
iPhone No
Built-in GPS:
N95 Yes
iPhone No
Camera:
N95 5MP
iPhone 2MP
Third party applications:
N95 Yes
iPhone Web applets only
Interesting comparison. :)
The N95 is great and all, but it's for geeks, and I mean real geeks, just look at the thing, the iPhone is cool. The N95 is quite a bit more expensive, it doesn't have all the sensors the iPhone has, and it doesn't have an iPod or even a good music player, it doesn't hook up with iTunes, which is VERY IMPORTANT. The iPod was a success because of iTunes, the iPhone will also be a success because of iTunes. In the US public WiFi is coming to all the major cities and at your home a lot of folks have a wireless network.
PROBLEM SOLVED: If you want to get the N95, then get it.. if you want to get the iPhone, then get that.
The N95 syncs with itunes just fine. In fact the N series phones even work with a mac just about as good as any device I can think of. The only thing the N95 cannot due is download the songs bought from the itunes music store (ie the ones ridden with DRM). One more fact for you itunes lovers out there. There is a program out there for the N95 called NuTsie that let's you stream every song in your itunes library, DRMed or not, to your phone for free. Just gotta be in a wifi area or have the unlimited data plan. So if you have 100GB of songs in itunes you can access them all on you N95. Finally, someone poster earlier about battery being closer around 2 hours which is untrue. Mine easily bests the 4 hour talk time. I have read reviews of it lasting anywhere from 6 to 8 hours in real world use if 3G is turned off and in dual band mode(which is what you want for the US and pretty much any other country for that matter) and that seems to be what I'm getting. I talked on the phone for about 3-4 hours the other day and only used about half the battery maybe a little more.
Okay, let's complete the chart and see what we end up with:
GPS
iPhone: No; N95: Yes
Winner: N95
3G (in the US)
iPhone: No: N95: No
Winner Tie (unless you are in another country)
On Board Storage:
iPhone; 4GB / 8GB; N95: 160 MB
Winner: N95
Visual Voicemail (this is a phone remember: phone features are crucial!)
iPhone; Yes; N95: No
Winner: iPhone
Memory card slot:
iPhone: none; N95: MicroSD
Winner: N95
Total Memory availabe at once
iPhone: 8GB; N95: 4 GB
Winner: iPhone
Video conferencing
iPhone: no; N95: yes
Winner: N95
Screen Resolution
iPhone: 320 x 480; N95:240 x 320
Winner: iPhone
Radio
iPhone: None: N95: yes
Winner: N95
3rd party apps
iPhone: limited (apple approved + web); N95: yes
Winner: N95
Price (lowest)
iPhone: $500; N95: $650 + $$$ for MicroSD card to make it usable
Winner: iPhone
Build Quality:
iPhone: reportedly great; N95: reportedly junky (Gizmodo/CNET reviews)
Winner: TBD (likely iPhone)
OS
iPhone: looks sleek and cool and simple; N95: okay, but laggy (Gizmodo review)
Winner: TBD (likely iPhone)
Conclusion: Combining this list with Apple's, I wouldn't say that neither phone is ''better'' than the other. iPhone is cheaper, sexier, has better battery life, and more overall storage in everyday use. N95 has a better camera, GPS, and 3G, but it costs you more, you lose iTunes store integration, and (likely) end up with a more clunky OS and piece of hardware.
In my opinion, the N95 and iPhone are both nice choices for the person willing to spend a fair chunk of change on a phone. The iPhone is sexier, cheaper, and has the golden iPod connection. Most random phone fashionistas won't be too swayed by GPS, especially given the fairly sweet Google Maps App on the iPhone (it does enough for most practical uses), so I don't have a hard time seeing the iPhone being more buzzworthy in the mainstream press. In terms of features. they both look like solid phones with different strengths to me. In terms of mainstream appeal, iPhone wins hands down: hence: buzz, hence: stop being so defensive N95 owners.
iPhone should have won the onboard storage comparison. Woops.
The only way to explain is...
The talk time of N95 is 4 hours WITHOUT Wifi turned on, but 8 hours for the iPhone WITH Wifi turned on.
I could see your point, cheunghy, but they put a slighty thicker line to separate the specs from the talk time, and the screen types (Plastic, Glass) can't be, as you suggested for Wi-Fi, characteristics to obtain the talk time written below it.
Therefore, they messed up big time. In a press release with quotes from Steve Jobs, that's gotta hurt. A poor intern is going to be fired, I think.
From apple website:
--
Standby: Testing conducted by Apple in May and June 2007 using preproduction iPhones and software. All settings were default except: Call Forwarding was turned on; the WiFi feature Ask to Join Networks was turned off. Battery life depends on the cellular network, location, signal strength, feature configuration, usage, and many other factors. Battery tests are conducted using specific iPhone units; actual results may vary.
--
Wrong.
As to the glass screen, Apple has a patent on using cubic zirconia (fake diamond) for the iPod and handheld devices. Most people speculate that this is the material they are using for the iPhone, which would make it extremely resistant to scratching of any sort, much less shattering.
Excuse me? You must not own an iPod... I have their latest iPod, the 80 GB, and if the iPhone uses the same material it is anything but scratch resistant. Talk about a scam, in order to keep your iPod looking decent you're practically obligated to purchase a third-party case as well.
Sorry MDB, the iPods screen is PLASTIC. That's why it scratches so easily. I think you must've missed the part where they mentioned the glass...