The fallacy of why phone comparisons are ultimately flawed can be seen from the example below.
Over and over again in articles and comment threads and podcasts, the AAS team make the point that there's no one perfect phone (or smartphone) for everybody. People all want something different. Yes, there's quite a bit of common ground, but there are also wide divergences too. For example, gaming. Or photography. Or navigation. For some, each is a must-have. For others, they're simply not bothered.
Asking a group of friends what top 10 factors and functions (apart from size, price and form factor) were most important to them, I came up with the list in the chart below, shown in no particular order. Using my own hands-on experience of each, I then graded each of three popular review devices accordingly. The important thing to note is the wide variation in grades and overall 'shape' of the grade lines.
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Notes: 'Survivability' - by which I mean ability to survive everyday knocks drops and storage. What's the point in having a 18 month contract on a phone which will be falling to pieces after 12? [not that any of these three will do so, but it's a point to bear in mind!] 'Navigation' - I've cheated ever so slightly, by including Nokia Maps' voice navigation features as standard. In fact, most phones do get a period of free voice navigation, but the usual caveats over costing a bit extra over time apply... 'Mobile Web' - I've taken this to mean both trying to bring up and display sensibly genuine mobile web pages (low bandwdth, instant rendering etc) and also accessing the 'full' web on the move. The grade here is an average of both abilities. 'Extra apps' - I've graded the devices on both number AND quality of available third party applications. |
Looking at the grades for the N82 and iPhone, in particular, it's blatantly obvious that the two devices are each strongest where the other is weakest one line essentially goes up across the top 10 feature list, while the other goes down - the two smartphones are clearly suited to totally different target markets. You might even argue that they're so complementary that you could own both....(!)
(The 5800's grades are somewhere in between the two, not surprisingly - a device with some typical Nokia strengths and some iPhone aspirations [grin]... )
A total mismatch? In both directions!
Above, I've looked at three smartphones (an area of obvious interest for this site, obviously), but there will of course be similar matches and mismatches between devices at all price/performance levels.
So... on one hand, there really is little point in doing some direct phone-to-phone review comparisons, for the reasons depicted so graphically above. A Nokia N82 would be a relative disaster for someone attracted to smartphones for their gaming ability. While an iPhone 3G would be utterly inappropriate for someone who's heading off for a photo trek of the local foothills.
On the other hand, without such comparisons by reviewers, how would you know that two phones were so different in the first place? I'm certainly not going to stop drawing comparisons, but both you, the reader/viewer, and I, should keep the overall strengths, weaknesses and target market for each device firmly in mind. Your comments and suggestions for future comparisons(!) welcomed...
Steve Litchfield, All About Symbian, 4 Jan 2009