Samsung Galaxy Alpha vs Apple iPhone 6

Introduction

Today’s
flagships are easily flaunting 5-inch and up sized screens, but not
everyone believes that this is the perfect size. Lucky for them, we have
two new entrants in the space, the Samsung Galaxy Alpha and Apple iPhone 6,
which both feature 4.7-inch displays. What’s especially important here,
is that they’re treated to top-notch specs and offer excellent
all-around performances – so it makes perfect sense for us to pit them
against one another to see which one comes out on top.

Design

Visually stunning from every design facet, it’s refreshing to know that they’re extremely compact as well.

Honestly,
it’s a tough call on which design we like better – partly because
they’re both compact in size, comfortable to hold, lightweight, and
impressively premium in nature. Technically, it’s the iPhone 6 is a
smidgen taller, wider, thicker, and heavier, but it’s almost hardy
noticeable. Even though the Alpha is arguably the best designed phone
we’ve seen from Samsung, thanks in part to its solid construction and
metal trim bezel, its body is still comprised from mostly plastic. In
comparison, it’s a unibody aluminum casing with the iPhone 6.

Indeed,
we prefer the iPhone 6’s Touch ID finger print sensor over the one used
by the Alpha, but Sammy’s offering is packed with a couple of notable
amenities. Specifically, they include a sensor to measure our pulse
rate, and a removable battery.

View As One Page »

5.21 x 2.58 x 0.26 inches

132.4 x 65.5 x 6.7 mm

4.06 oz (115 g)

Samsung Galaxy Alpha

5.44 x 2.64 x 0.27 inches

138.1 x 67 x 6.9 mm

4.55 oz (129 g)

Apple iPhone 6

To see the phones in real size or compare them with other models, visit our Visual Phone Size Comparison page.

Display

There are more pleasing qualities with the
iPhone 6’s display, especially knowing that the Alpha’s screen uses a
PenTile Matrix pixel arrangement.

Like we said, they both offer
4.7-inch sized screens, but they employ different resolutions and
display technologies. Although they’re not necessarily ground breaking
in comparison to what’s out there, the iPhone 6’s 4.7-inch 750 x 1334
Retina display bears a few more pleasing qualities that catch our
attention more – like it being slightly more detailed and brighter.
Well, the Alpha’s 4.7-inch 720 x 1280 Super AMOLED display is still
nice, especially when its color accuracy is improved over past AMOLED
screens, but it resorts to using a PenTile matrix pixel arrangement,
which doesn’t make it look as sharp as the iPhone 6’s display.

Display measurements and quality

Maximum brightness (nits)Higher is better	Minimum brightness (nits)Lower is better	Contrast Higher is better	Color temperature (Kelvins)	Gamma	Delta E rgbcmy Lower is better	Delta E grayscale Lower is better
Apple iPhone 6	606 (Excellent)	7 (Good)	1:1563 (Excellent)	7162 (Good)	2.23	3.51 (Good)	3 (Good)
Samsung Galaxy Alpha	422 (Good)	1.7 (Excellent)	unmeasurable (Excellent)	6840 (Excellent)	1.96	2.19 (Good)	2.38 (Good)

View allSamsung Galaxy Alpha vs Apple iPhone 6

Despite Sales Gains, Apple Continues To Lose Tablet Market Share

via appadvice.com

Apple once again didn’t make the majority of tablets purchased during the previous quarter. From October through December, Cupertino’s share of the global tablet market stood at 43.6 percent. This was down from 46.4 percent in the preceding quarter, according to a new IDC survey.

Meanwhile, Samsung and ASUS saw noticeable gains. Samsung’s share increased from 7.3 percent to 15.1 percent. ASUS saw a gain from 2 percent to 5.8 percent.

One year ago, Apple’s share of the global tablet market stood at 51.7 percent.

This doesn’t mean that Apple didn’t see growth. Compared to the same quarter in 2011, Apple’s saw tablet sales increase 48.1 percent, from 15.1 million to 22.9 million units shipped.

Samsung’s gain was 263 percent, while ASUS’ was 402.5 percent.

In total, 52.5 million tablets were shipped during the final quarter of 2012. This was an increase of 75.3 percent year over year.

The report suggests that Microsoft has largely failed with the company’s new Surface tablet. During the quarter, just 900,000 units were shipped worldwide.

According to Ryan Reith, program manager, Mobile Device Trackers at IDC:

We believe that Microsoft and its partners need to quickly adjust to the market realities of smaller screens and lower prices. In the long run, consumers may grow to believe that high-end computing tablets with desktop operating systems are worth a higher premium than other tablets, but until then ASPs on Windows 8 and Windows RT devices need to come down to drive higher volumes.

Earlier this month, Apple reported record sales revenues of $54.5 billion along with a net quarterly profit of $13.1 billion, or $13.81 per diluted share. Apple missed estimates on revenue numbers, but did beat profit estimates.

Now we know why Apple was leaking stupid iWatch rumors: Samsung’s releasing one

via socialreader.com

Ready for some hard-core speculation built solidly on rumor founded squarely on innuendo?

According to screenshots unearthed by SlashGear from a Korean messageboard, Samsung looks like it is building a smartwatch, probably but not certainly on an Android foundation:

Meanwhile Apple — the company that supposedly HATES leaks — has been “leaking” like a sieve about a rumored iWatch for weeks. Do you think the timing is a coincidence?

Bloomberg published what is almost certainly nonsense like 100 product designers working on a wristwatch-like device (does Apple do anything in teams of a hundred?), the venerable New York Times said that Apple is making a Dick Tracy-like watch, and the Wall Street Journal said that Apple has already talked to manufacturing partners.

Anyone who has covered Apple for any length of time knows that rumors don’t just pop up in those sources naturally. Apple rumors start in odd, out-of-the-way Asian tech blogs, or dedicated Apple rumors sites.

So rumors appearing in the august tomes of the WSJ, NYT, and Bloomberg means Apple wants us to think an iWatch is coming and is quietly feeding rumors to plant stories it wants to see in the press. Which either provides great pre-buzz for that product when Apple releases it, or  – and probably more likely — pre-seeds excitement and interest around a product that is something like an iWatch but not quite … something that clearly, with a quick dose of gen-u-wine Apple Mixture No. 1 Reality Distortion Field, is instantly and obviously better.

On the the Samsung side, a smartwatch, if real, is potentially a massive seller and another brick in Samsung’s growing wall of innovation. There’s also obvious profit appeal — Pebble sold out and raised over $10 million, and other crowdfunded watches have also done spectacularly well – and it’s relatively fresh territory to claim and commercialize. Plus, it would be a major feather in the company’s cap to beat Apple.

So Apple has a reason to counter that move by pre-releasing we-were-first hype.

Realistically, many things could be happening here. Apple and Samsung could both be working on smart watches, and neither could be, and all combinations in between. Samsung could have seen the speculation about iWatch and decided to head it off at the pass by pre-releasing a product in true Asian-style super-speed to market. Apple could have found out about Samsung’s project and decided to do exactly the same, except via the press. Any which way, I hope that we get out of this is more than just a watch, and not a Dick Tracy toy.

My personal guess?

Whatever iWatch actually is, it’s the Apple answer to the incessant calls from Wall Street for a cheaper iPhone. Because when Apple gets calls for cheaper, it starts to think different instead.

iPod becomes screenless iPod Shuffle. MacBook becomes iPad, as Tim Cook said this week to the bowtied stock-breaking classes. iPhone becomes … iWatch?

One thing is clear, however:

Even if both Samsung and Apple are working on an iWatch-like product, they are not the innovators in this space. That title, and that honor, belongs to the tiny groups of dedicated people like Pebble who have been building the future of wrist technology on a crowdfunded shoestring.