iPhone 4 vs Nokia N8 – And the winner is ..

This has been a long awaited post and a few of my readers have been requesting for it repeatedly. I’ve finally decided to write on this topic. Some of my readers will call it a redundant post as so many has been said about these two phones and then some of them will call it biased due to Nokia being my all time favorite but I will still not be reluctant writing the post as it is totally based on facts and figures and I have not been unjust.

iPhone 4 by Apple and Nokia N8 have been put into a side by side table below. Thanks to GSM Arena, I did not have to type in all this data. What I’ve done is, I’ve colored this table green wherever I found a superior feature in one of the two phones. Quite interestingly iPhone is a winner in launching the phone first, it is smaller in volume, it’s got a gyro sensor, higher resolution screen, greater internal memory, better CPU clock and a larger battery capacity.

That makes around 8 features better than Nokia’s N8. Am I praising Apple’s marvel too much? Well, let’s look at Nokia’s features where Nokia is a winner against iPhone. The list is endlessly long and Nokia has around 19 features that are significantly better than that of iPhone including a 12 megapixel stunning still camera with a Carl Zeiss lens, Micro SD Slot which will let you plug in upto 32 GB of a memory card, USB on the go that will allow you to plug in your USB flash drives and hard disks as an additional storage space toΒ  your phone, 720p HDMI TV out, Flash support in browser, faster class 33 edge and much more. See the table below yourself, I’m not biased πŸ˜‰

Hence the winner is … Nokia N8 without any doubt.

While my favorite of all the features will be the Nokia logo on the device that looks much better to me as compared to that of a metallic apple πŸ™‚ . Where Nokia has lost it is; the delayed release that is causing additional curiosity and unrest among the fans who cannot take it anymore. Just release it Nokia!

Apple iPhone 4

Nokia N8

General

2G Network

GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900

GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900

3G Network

HSDPA 850 / 900 / 1900 / 2100

HSDPA 850 / 900 / 1700 / 2100 /1900

Announced

2010, June

2010, April

Status

Available. Released 2010, June

Coming soon. Exp. release 2010, October

Size

Dimensions

115.2 x 58.6 x 9.3 mm

113.5 x 59.1 x 12.9 mm, 86 cc

Weight

137 g

135 g

Display

Type

TFT capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors

AMOLED capacitive touchscreen, 16M
colors

Size

640 x 960 pixels, 3.5 inches

360 x 640 pixels, 3.5 inches

– Scratch-resistant surface

– Scratch-resistant surface

– Multi-touch input method

– Multi-touch input method

– Accelerometer sensor for auto-rotate

– Accelerometer sensor for UI auto-rotate

– Three-axis gyro sensor

– Proximity sensor for auto turn-off

– Proximity sensor for auto turn-off

Sound

Alert types

Vibration, MP3 ringtones

Vibration; MP3, WAV ringtones

Speakerphone

Yes

Yes

– 3.5 mm headset jack

– 3.5 mm audio jack

Memory

Phonebook

Practically unlimited entries and fields, Photocall

Practically unlimited entries and fields, Photocall

Call records

100 received, dialed and missed calls

Detailed, max 30 days

Internal

16/32 GB storage, 512 MB RAM

16 GB storage, 256MB RAM, 512 MB ROM

Card slot

No

microSD, up to 32GB

Data

GPRS

Class 10 (4+1/3+2 slots), 32 – 48 kbps

Class 33

EDGE

Class 10, 236.8 kbps

Class 33

3G

HSDPA, 7.2 Mbps; HSUPA, 5.76 Mbps

HSDPA, 10.2 Mbps; HSUPA, 2.0 Mbps

WLAN

Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n

Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, UPnP technology

Bluetooth

Yes, v2.1 with A2DP

Yes, v3.0 with A2DP

Infrared port

No

No

USB

Yes, v2.0

Yes, microUSB v2.0, USB On-the-go
support

Camera

Primary

5 MP, 2592 x 1944 pixels, autofocus, LED flash

12 MP, 4000×3000 pixels, Carl Zeiss
optics, autofocus, Xenon flash

Features

Touch focus, geo-tagging

1/1.83” sensor size, ND filter, geo-tagging, face and smile
detection

Video

Yes, 720p@30fps, LED video light, geo-tagging

Yes, 720p@25fps

Secondary

Yes, videocalling over Wi-Fi only

VGA videocall camera

Features

OS

iOS 4

Symbian ^3 OS

CPU

1 GHz Apple A4 processor

ARM 11 680 MHz processor, 3D Graphics HW accelerator

Messaging

SMS (threaded view), MMS, Email, Push Email

SMS (threaded view), MMS, Email, Push Email, IM

Browser

HTML (Safari)

WAP 2.0/xHTML, HTML, RSS feeds

Radio

No

Stereo FM radio with RDS; FM transmitter

Games

Downloadable, incl. motion-based

Yes + downloadable

Colors

Black, White

Dark Grey, Silver White, Green, Blue, Orange

GPS

Yes, with A-GPS support

Yes, with A-GPS support; Ovi Maps 3.0

Java

No

Yes, MIDP 2.1

MicroSIM card support only

– Document viewer (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF)

– Scratch-resistant glass back panel

– Dolby Digital Plus via HDMI

– Active noise cancellation with dedicated mic.

– Anodized aluminum casing

– Digital compass

– Digital compass

– Google Maps

– Video/photo editor

iBooks application

DivX/XviD/MP4/H.264/H.263/WMV
player

– Audio/video player and editor

– MP3/WMA/WAV/eAAC+ player

– Voice command/dial

– Voice command/dial

– TV-out

– TV-out (720p video) via HDMI and composite

– Flash Lite v4.0

Battery

Standard battery, Li-Po 1420mAh

Standard battery, Li-Ion 1200 mAh
(BL-4D)

Stand-by

Up to 300 h (2G) / Up to 300 h (3G)

Up to 390 h (2G) / Up to 400 h (3G)

Talk time

Up to 14 h (2G) / Up to 7 h (3G)

Up to 12 h 30 min (2G) / Up to 5 h 30 min (3G)

Music play

Up to 40 h

Up to 50 h

*** Update

While iPhone 4 is not available unlocked without a voice/data contract in US, we can compare UK prices of iPhone 4 and Nokia N8.Right now, the approximate price of unlocked 16GB iPhone 4 in UK is GBP 499 that is around USD 760. Same 16 GB iPhone 4 is available for Eur 629 in France for example.

On the other hand, Nokia N8 is expected to be available for around Eur 450 on launch. Even if it sells for Eur 500, its pretty economical, isn’t it? πŸ™‚

26 thoughts on “iPhone 4 vs Nokia N8 – And the winner is ..

  1. Pingback: Tweets that mention iPhone 4 vs Nokia N8 – And the winner is .. | Basit Ali's Blog -- Topsy.com

  2. Saira

    I’m sooO sorry I’m late to read this post and post comment. I had no access to internet for last few days…
    Thanks a lot for the wonderful write up! You’re such a skilled blogger. Masha Allah. Love reading your posts πŸ™‚
    Hey Basit Bhai! You said no biases but here is some. See! You’ve given more width to Nokia as compared to Apple. I’m talking about the width of the column πŸ™‚
    But being an all time Nokia fan I’m happy for the Win! Go Nokia!!! And Go BA for writing such marvelous posts!
    Thanks a lot!

  3. David

    I agree, the Nokia N8 is the better overall phone. I’ve never been traditionally a fan of Nokia, unlike yourself, but I think that the N8 was a long time coming.

    Nokia are the biggest manufacturer in the world, but they’ve let other brands take over the smart phone market! I think the Nokia N8 will mark Nokia’s arrival into the league alongiside Apple, HTC, and Sony Ericsson and Samsung. With it’s brilliant camera the Nokia N8 really stands out against the iPhone 4, and I also like the different colours it’s available in.

    Great comparison though πŸ™‚

  4. Nasse

    I just hope that Nokia will learn about the usability from Apple. Technically Nokia is better, since they have more experience about mobile phones. The phone is not hard to use as “Stephen Elop” posted a while ago, it just takes time if you havent used Nokia before. Same goes for each and every operation system one uses for the first time.

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