The year 2012 has been an extremely productive period for smartphone and tablet makers alike, as gadget freaks have been greeted with a plethora of highly sophisticated smartphones like iPhone 5, Nexus 4, Galaxy Note 2 and Galaxy S3. The spruced array of smartphones forced the gizmo lovers to reconsider their purchase decision time and again.
When the tech-giant Apple unveiled its flagship smartphone - iphone 5 - earlier this summer, the tech enthusisiasts were too eager to lay their hands on the elusive smartphone. Later on, Google spoiled Apple's party by unleashing its Nexus series with yet another smartphone, LG Nexus 4, which is capable of dethroning Apple's flagship phone. The festive season spurs a hot competition among leading smartphone makers, as the world's best smartphones lock horns in their battle for supremacy.
Here we compare the two leading smartphones to help you decide your best buy.
Display
The iPhone 5 features a 4-inch Retina screen with a display resolution of 1,136 x 640 pixels at a pixel density of 326 pixels per inch (ppi). It makes room for just five rows of apps on screen, while the Nexus 4 sports a bigger 4.7-inch display with a resolution of 1280 x 768 pixels.
Apple iPhone 5 is equipped with Corning Gorilla Glass and oleophobic coating for extra-protection against smudges, scratches and accidental display damage on daily use. Meanwhile, Google's Nexus 4 is made of scratch-resistant screen with Corning Gorilla Glass 2 reinforcement and a glass-covered back.
Processor
Apple iPhone 5 is powered by quad-core A6 chip, which is rated to deliver double the CPU and graphics performance with just 1 GB of RAM onboard. In contrast, Nexus 4 is powered by quad-core 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro processor with 2GB of RAM, which is more efficient with multi-tasking and memory intesive tasks than iPhone 5.
Software
Nexus 4 runs on Google's latest mobile operating system Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean), which brings new features like Photo Sphere and Swype-style gesture keyboard. iPhone 5 features iOS 6 with enhanced Siri, improved mail and camera app among 200 new features compared to its predecessor.
Camera
Apple iPhone 5 is equipped with 8-megapixel sensor and features simultaneous HD video and image recording, touch focus, geo-tagging, face detection, panorama and HDR, besides adding a 1.2 megapixel front camera. The Nexus 4 also features an 8-megapixel camera with continuous focus, real-time zoom, and time lapse mode to shoot videos.
Connectivity
The Nexus phone supports Bluetooth 3.0, Wi-Fi, microUSB, microHDMI, dual-side NFC (Android Beam) and GPS with Glonass. However, it lacks microSD card slot and 4G connectivity. iPhone 5 also supports similar connectivity options such as Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, Wi-Fi Direct, DLNA, Wi-Fi hotspot and Bluetooth v4.0 with A2DP.
Battery
iPhone 5 features an improved battery that Apple claims will yield 225 hours of standby time as opposed to just 200 hours on iPhone 4S. Nexus 4 packs a 2100mAh battery, which is expected to deliver a standby time up to 250 hours, and talk time up to 10 hours. In other words, Nexus 4 battery is rated to deliver music playback up to 40 hours, video playback up to 8 hours and web browsing up to 7 hours.
