Smartphone OS Comparison

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Smartphone OS Comparison

Chandrakant 'ck' Isi, Nov 15, 2011 2053 hrs IST

A scorecard of the popular smartphone platforms in the market.

Every OS in the market has its own share of strengths and weaknesses. I believe in the "whatever floats your boat" school of thought when it comes to choosing a smartphone. Still, evaluating the popular platforms looked like a good idea to me. I have given points to each platform based on the following factors:

Features - The rating in this section is based on the support offered to technologies such as NFC, USB-OTG (On The Go), FM transmitter, and stereoscopic display.

User Interface - Here, the contenders get points for user friendliness. Lesser the magajmaari, better the score.

Aesthetics - It's all about eye-candy these days. An uncluttered and seamless look helps in getting a better score. Originality wins brownie points as well.

Optimisation - If the OS is optimised, it runs smoothly even on a CPU under 800 MHz and with 256 MB of RAM. If not, it requires dual cores and a gigabyte of RAM.

Battery Life - Do I really have to explain this one?

Apps - This is about the number of apps available for each platform.

Freedom - Includes aspects such as file sharing, customisation, file management, and the availability of mass storage mode.

Here's the scorecard. Note that all scores are on a scale of 1 to 5. The top scorer in each category has been circled in red.

Smartphone OS Comparison

From left: Android, iOS, WP, Symbian, and BlackBerry OS.

As you can see, there's no clear winner. However, BlackBerry has lost the contest by a big margin because of its average performance across the board. Android is good, but suffers badly from dismal battery performance and due to its resource-hungry nature. Surprisingly, the black sheep of the OS family, Symbian, turns out to be the most mature OS by virtue of getting the basics right - all thanks to the Belle update. Its fans need not celebrate though, as it has no future.

Do you agree with this article?

Yes

14

Down

6

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Discussion Board

(37) Comments

Karan

,Pune, on Nov 30, 2011 03:27 PM

alls fine... except the part where uve said that apple battery life.... the battery life is shit compared to WP or Symbian... ull realise once u start using the iPhone 4S... terrible battery life even after the beta update....

Abhirup

,Piscataway,NJ,USA, on Nov 29, 2011 12:40 AM

Hahahah techtree wake up man.. Symbian wins? Get a lemon juice .. Symbian is a lemon.. if you know what i mean.

Ram

,salem, on Nov 28, 2011 11:13 AM

so finally what frnds she we move for android,symbian,bada or who else

sameer

,delhi, on Nov 26, 2011 01:31 AM

lol symbian too have cooked roms and yup i like the article symbian still great you just dont know how customable symbian is all major mobile technology breakthrough were by symbian,first smartphone,first hardisk,fir audio chip for music, first dual core processor, first 3d graphic chip,first gps i think, first 720 video recording,first vga recording and wats not more, its nokia fault not symbian after n95 they downgrade symbian .weak processor in n96 and n97 no gpu in them and thats all. Nokia made hell off to write a good application by developers, so many restrictions, and they killed s80 and s90 series which had touch support. They miss the opportunity to have a healthy enviroment for developers. They could had symbian pmp,s or tablets but they just missed that. They throw away uiq which had touchscreen interface lony back in times

rahul

,mumbai, on Nov 24, 2011 07:11 PM

install 4-5 apps on s^3 n ur fon wil b slowest fon on d earth...

MSMirza

,Hyderabad, on Nov 21, 2011 01:12 PM

@Techtree: Howcome you left out the AWESOME BADA OS?? Its not such widely accepted, but c'mon we're talking about the best Opertaing Systems. It is far better than many of the above listed. Seriously, didn't expect this from techtree as a hardcore techtree fan. :(

Pramod

,hyderabad, on Nov 21, 2011 07:54 PM

I didnt expect too... Techtree...wake up.. :)

Chandrakant Isi

,TechTree, on Nov 24, 2011 01:15 AM

Thank you for your comment Mirza, but the article clearly says that it's the comparison of popular mobile platforms.

Sid

,Chennai, on Nov 23, 2011 12:59 AM

This is the worst review/article by techtree. WTF symbian is the best OS. just look @ the market trend guys. its android and apple OS all over. BB loosing its position whereas WP try to get atleast 5-10% market share. Even Nokia itself stopped promoting symbian, u ppl awarded it as best OS. When u r talking abt Optimisation android score the max. It runs well on 600 MHZ to 1 gh dual core processor. don't consider S40 as a smartphone OS and say its running well on a 200MHZ processor. Wake up..else ppl will not visit ur website

Aditya Rikame

,New Panvel, on Nov 22, 2011 03:38 PM

Very bad review.............................................android cannot be such downgraded with low no of point....wake up techtree

Prithvi

,Pune, on Nov 21, 2011 05:16 PM

It seems Ice Cream Sandwich has been revamped by almost 95% over previous OS version - Gingerbread (& to bring in Honeycomb features, ofcourse) .. this is a major overhaul and one can understand why Google did this. Almost every aspect of the OS has been tweaked. It was high time for Android to rectify its numerous shortcomings.

sonu

,kalyan, on Nov 16, 2011 09:55 PM

dont come to the conclusion to early my dear friends. Symbian will not die until 2016, If Nokia get profit selling it they might change their mind. BTW ,in 2012 new update of symbian carla and donna is coming. I will only switch to WP when it will have all the feature of symbian. In my life I will never ever switch to android or iphone.

Yamdoot

,Yamlok, on Nov 17, 2011 12:41 AM

How will Symbian not die until 2016 when you all will die in 2012? :P

naveenchaudhary

,meerut, on Nov 18, 2011 11:11 AM

nothing is gonna end in 2012, LOL.. death comes without warning and expectation..

Yamdoot

,Yamlok, on Nov 20, 2011 12:21 PM

It seems you have recently watched Final Destination :D I am on my way :)

Karthik Kumar

,New Delhi, on Nov 18, 2011 09:20 PM

Android optimization 2??????????? Pretty sure Cyanogenmod team is gonna hunt him down and beat him up.

Brajesh Sharma

,Kolkata, on Nov 20, 2011 03:34 AM

He would not have ever used CM7 or MIUI. Android handset gives u the option to change the ROM and u r free to do anything. bdw, i was never against nokia and used quiet a few handsets for a larger period of time. (6600>N70>N91>N73>5800>C6>iPhone>Galaxy 3>Motorola defy) To be honest, there's no comparision of android with any other OS. If anything closer to this, then it has to be WP 7.5 and if symbian ^3 was so good, nokia would not have tied up with microsoft. If android was that bad, nokia would not have copied it in symbian belley.

CK_Fanboy

,Mumbai, on Nov 20, 2011 12:19 PM

The author is right. This is not about what users do after they buy the phone, it is what they get out of the box. A very small minority of smartphone users are geeks who would even update legally available ROM, forget about installing Cyanogenmod or any other modded ROM. Hail CK!

JYOTHISH

,AMBALAPUZHA, on Nov 18, 2011 09:07 PM

3 for Android UI and Aesthetics??? are you joking?? AND same score for android and Symbian for Apps??? Pathetic...

Prithvi

,Pune, on Nov 19, 2011 10:53 AM

Its correct - Android isn't as user friendly as iOS and Symbian.

Pramod

,hyderabad, on Nov 18, 2011 02:48 AM

Bada is far better than the ones mentioned above

naveenchaudhary

,meerut, on Nov 18, 2011 11:08 AM

u r right, bada is the best on usability, stability and operating. The only drawback is that its not widely adapted by other makers. I own a wave s8500, and i love it, the only device i kept for more than a year, and still dont want to sell it. now waiting for bada 2 update. 15 months of ownership, and no hang/reboot till date, great battery life, rather browser needs some work, but good.. i was hoping that some other manufacturers will adapt the bada os, but okay, samsung itself is doing good..

Yatin

,Delhi, on Nov 17, 2011 08:52 PM

Dude 'CK' Acc. to me, You couldn't be more right and wrong at the same time.:P Symbian is still the best... It isn't the OS, its Nokia;s CEO Stephen Elop which sucks. Also, Nokia has done a great job with Anna and Belle updates.. And they very clearly show that there is no need to ''kill'' good 'ol Symbian. Android, no matter how good it is, has PATHETIC battery life. I'm stating u wrong wrt. BB. i have 2 BBs at home, asthetically, It isn't so bad. It's the BIS/BES(What's a BB without them :/ ) which drag it down the battery life. having any of these plans means 24*7 data connection.

ubuntu lover

,banaglore , on Nov 16, 2011 01:39 PM

Os means performing different task with ease and not for beauty or eye candy look..half of your parameters are relative in nature so scoring does not make any sense..choose parameters which are same across OS..say playing 3D games.. battery life alone tells nothing .. battery life with 2 inch LCD screen and battery life with 3.5 inch screen on the same OS will be different so what point are u making here...

marex77

,Vadodara, on Nov 17, 2011 12:00 AM

Tried that 3d comparision on a s60v5 handset and a android device. Android is still a damned battery hogger. Also, to add, screen size was the same.

Ravi

,Deoband, on Nov 16, 2011 11:51 AM

Lol Ck, You are a pure Nokia boy.

Chandrakant Isi

,TechTree, on Nov 16, 2011 02:00 PM

Hi Ravi, thank you for the compliment :p

naveenchaudhary

,meerut, on Nov 16, 2011 11:58 PM

chandrakant, u r right.. and thats a great attitude..

Brajesh Sharma

,Kolkata, on Nov 15, 2011 10:52 PM

:O LOL This was done by someone who doesn't know anything about mobile OS. Android = 23 S^3 = 27 get a life dude.

Nair

,Chennai, on Nov 16, 2011 11:55 AM

I have been tried and tested all these OS and the review is almost correct with an exception to WP. I think after Symbian next is Android and then IOS. WP is just above BB. I don't believe Nokia will kill Symbian.

sunil

,Jammu, on Nov 16, 2011 02:14 PM

Whoa...@Brijesh.. You comments atleast prove you know nothing about OS in market today.. As of now Android and iOS appear to be best but have a look at Symbian: 1. They are the first who not jus introduced the full touch phones, but most user friendly phones as well. 2. The design of All nokia phones are innovative (As they said few years back, it's human technology) 3. latest features like NFC, Multitouch, Brilliant camera, etc were features already present in Nokia phones 5 years back. and not to forget the Game oriented phones ..The mighty Nokia nGage (current DLNA is just an enhancement on it and rest of the phones are still struggling) I'm not a big Fan of Nokia...but the Legend deserves some well deserved respect.

Prithvi

,Pune, on Nov 16, 2011 06:01 PM

Brajesh must be not knowing much about Symbian so why blame him. I often miss the ease of usability and features that even my S40 phone provided vis-a-vis the present Froyo phone I use and must admit after 4 months of using the Android device that Symbian was better. Also, the so called Smart Actions introduced for the new Motorola Razr Android 2.3 (soon ICS) have some features that are already enabled in a S40 device. I completely agree with the results.

naveenchaudhary

,meerut, on Nov 16, 2011 11:57 PM

In a rage to become the top seller, Google is doing all the compromises, which others cant, they are compromising on security, on usability, on power usage, on stability, instead of fixing the program, they are throwing higher clocked processors, what is this?? useless, its a mobile OS, not a Workstation OS..

gokishor

,Bangalore, on Nov 16, 2011 07:50 PM

Please add disclaimer saying that the review here shown was of my personal opinion as your comparison sucks really big time!

Sreekanth Yelic

,Mysore, on Nov 16, 2011 12:50 AM

The chart didn't surprise me much. Undoubtedly, Symbian is the best mobile OS. It is just that every OS does have their primary motives to meet with. Even Android doesn't have multi touch in the initial days. It also doesn't have native FM support even with the latest ICS. Poor optimization and already suffering with Android fragmentation. Coming to IOS, being propreotiry, we can't comment much as everything is business for them. Sad that Nokia is killing their own OS. "Somewhere everything has to be ended and so is Symbian".

Ajai

,Shimla, on Nov 15, 2011 11:33 PM

Ya this is why Android has a 52% world market share and Symbian is no where in site "BTW Nokia != Symbian" http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2396404,00.asp#fbid=Vd5fOCqfe0g

naveenchaudhary

,meerut, on Nov 15, 2011 10:53 PM

Symbian could have scored higher, if it were Anna in place of Symbian 3.

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