Why am I comparing a phone that is nearly 5 years old to a phone that hasn’t even been released yet?
For a couple reasons. Because over the last month, I’ve been putzing around with an iPhone 4 after leaving my LG G3 in a taxi in Mexico. Since then, I’ve had to put up with a small screen, weak memory and really, really, really slow loading times.
For me, comparing the two is fun and allows me to see just how much things have changed in just under five years.
I plugged the two phones into Phone Arena’s comparison tool just to see how far we’ve come in technology and preferences:
DESIGN: One thing sticks out to me the most is the phone’s overall weight. In the comparison between the S6 (4.87) and iPhone 4 (4.83) they weigh approximately the same but the S6 has an extra .04 grams. Obviously phone screens have become larger in the last five years, but also thinner and pack more into the phone.
Suprisingly, the materials used in both phones mirror each other. Though the specific types of that material may have changed (e.g. Gorilla Glass), glass and aluminum as the core materials haven’t changed in five years, at least not in this comparison.
DISPLAY: As mentioned, with a bigger phone comes more weight. Yet as phones increased their screen size, they also became thinner. Even though the S6 has a screen that is almost 50% larger (46%), the S6 weighs about the same as the iPhone 4. The iPhone 4’s display is 3.5 while the S6 boasts a 5.1 display.
And there is a similar disparity when comparing the pixel density of the two phones. The iPhone 4 offered 326ppi while the Galaxy S6 by 77% with a 577ppi.
HARDWARE: Ok, larger displays matter and so does weight, but when it comes down to it, what is the hardware? Hardware is where we see the most significant advances*. We can talk color and thin bezels all day long, but we want a fast phone the same way we wanted a faster desktop ten years ago.
I was somewhat familiar with the Galaxy S6’s specs since I have been following the limited information that was leaked over the last couple weeks but I had completely forgotten what the iPhone 4’s specs were. I only had anecdotal estimates based on my monthly re-acquaintance with the iPhone.
This is where we gauge how far we’ve come. Take a look at the differences:
I mean, where do I start? There’s no comparison between the Galaxy S6 and iPhone 4’s hardware ; An 8-core processor vs. a single-core? 3GB of RAM vs. 512MB? And potentially 128GB of storage vs. 32GB?
Clearly, the most movement has been in the technology inside the phones. And we’ve seen all this before. Desktops and laptops had similar timelines evolving from bulky to light and from slow to fast. It’s crazy to think that our phones are now more powerful than the most powerful personal computers from ten years ago.
And computers have become more and more portable. We’ve moved from computers tethered to our desks, to computers on our laps, to computers in our hands and pockets.
Needless to say I am quite excited that the Samsung Galaxy S6 is being released (April 10) around the same time I qualify for my next device upgrade (April 4). Let me know if your mom or grandma needs an iPhone 4….
* Since the S6 hasn’t been released, test results on battery were not available as of this post.
