HTC HD7 vs Samsung Omnia 7
Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 is finally here, complete with a selection of handsets to choose from. HTC’s flagship phone is the HD7 which is similar to the Android-based HTC Desire and is being widely tipped as the one to watch. However, Samsung’s Omnia 7 is sure be a serious contender as well with a similarly featured spec list. One, thing is certain – the two flagship handsets from the big players will have to battle it out to see who comes out as top dog. But which one wins the spec-off? There’s only one way to find out. Fight! Or you could just read our head-to-head…
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Internet Explorer falls below 50 percent global marketshare, Chrome usage triples
According to Stat Counter, Microsoft’s browser has officially fallen below the 50 percent market share mark to 49.87 percent. Firefox holds relatively strong at 31.5 percent and Chrome is soaring with 11.54 percent having only launched just over 2 years ago.
In Europe, IE market share has fallen to 40.26% in September this year from 46.44% in September last year. While in North America IE is still above 50% at 52.3% followed by Firefox at 27.21% and Chrome at 9.87%. The rise of Google Chrome in North America has also been impressive and in June it overtook Safari for the first time.
Expectedly it’s the geeks and early adopters that appear to be driving Chrome’s growth. One reader highlights that fact by revealing that out of 55,000 visitors to his site from Hacker News (an entrepreneurial/early adopter community), only 1.13 percent were using Internet Explorer.
Android is number one OS among US phone buyers over the last six months
Android’s exponential growth has today been illustrated by Nielsen’s statisticians who present us with the above chart of recent US smartphone purchases. It shows that over the six months leading up to August 2010, 32 percent of American new phone buyers had grabbed themselves a device with Google’s OS on board, which is comfortably ahead of RIM at 26 percent and Apple at 25 percent. These results corroborate NPD’s figures on the matter — which peg Android at 33 percent of new US purchases — and reiterate the idea that Android is headed to a place whose name starts with D and ends with omination. One more chart showing total market share can be found after the break (hint: BlackBerry still reigns supreme overall).
HTC Desire HD vs Samsung Galaxy S
HTC has been leading the way for a couple of years now when it comes to Android smartphones, and it’s just upped the ante once more by unveiling the long-rumoured Desire HD, along with a 4.3-inch touchsreen and HD video recording. Meanwhile, Samsung has been gunning for a slice of the Android phone market with its usual tenacity, but can the Samsung Galaxy S compete with HTC’s new weapon of choice?
Form Factor
- Galaxy s 122 x 64 x 9.9mm; 118g
- HTC Desire HD : 123 x 68 x 11.8 mm, 164g
The Galaxy S is not only shorter and slimmer than the Desire HD, it’s also a great deal lighter. Although its lightweight design won’t put too much pressure on your pockets, is does mean that it doesn’t really have the feel of a premium phone. However, thanks to it’s sheer portability it beats the HTC in this round. Read more
Android web browsers speed test
Of course, look-and-feel and features aren’t everything–good old speed counts as well. To find out which browsers walk the walk on speed, we compared page-load speeds of Opera Mini, Skyfire, Dolphin HD, and Fennec, and contrasted those speeds with those of the stock Android 2.1 and 2.2 browsers. We tested all browsers on a Droid X phone, except for Fennec; the browser worked only on the HTC EVO 4G.
We chose our test Web pages for their diversity of content. ThrasherMagazine.com is extremely media-heavy, with a mix of video formats. Wikipedia is mostly text-based. PCWorld.com and NYTimes.com contain a mix of text, images, and ads. Amazon.com contains text, small images, and e-commerce elements. In all cases we tested the desktop versions of the sites, eschewing the stripped-down mobile versions.
For each browser we loaded up all five pages, measured the load times of each, and then averaged the five load times. We did this first for live pages (pulling them down from the Web, not from a cache in the browser), then for the cached (or saved) versions of the pages. Our results are contained in the chart below.
PlayBook vs iPad vs Galaxy Tab
| BlackBerry PlayBook |
Apple iPad |
Samsung Galaxy Tab |
|
| Screen size | 7 inches | 9.7 inches | 7 inches |
| Resolution | 1024 x 600 | 1024 x 768 | 1024 x 600 |
| Pixel density (approx.) | 170 | 133 | 170 |
| Platform | BB Tablet OS | iOS 3.2.2 (4.2 in November) |
Android 2.2 |
| Adobe Flash support | 10.1 | Not Supported | 10.1 |
| Processor | 1GHz dual-core Cortex A9 | 1GHz Apple A4 (ARMv7) | 1GHz Cortex A8 |
| Graphics | Unknown | PowerVR SGX 535 | PowerVR SGX 540 |
| RAM | 1GB | 256MB | 512MB |
| Internal Storage | 16GB / 32GB (unconfirmed) | 16GB / 32GB / 64GB | 16GB / 32GB |
| Expansion | Unknown | None | microSD |
| Connectivity | 802.11 a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR | 802.11 a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR | 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 3.0 |
| Cellular data | 3G and 4G promised for future | 3G optional (AT&T) | 3G (all carriers) |
| GPS | None | 3G models only | Yes |
| Camera | 3MP front,
5MP rear |
None | 1.3MP front,
3MP rear |
| Weight | 0.9 lbs | 1.5 – 1.6 lbs | 0.84 lbs |
