Can Apple iPhone 4S Dwarf Motorola Droid Bionic?

Apple Inc.'s iPhone 4S, which was unveiled on Oct. 4, will be hitting the stores on Oct. 14. The smartphone from Apple is going to face a tight competition with Motorola Droid Bionic.

As it turned out, iPhone 4S featured some important upgrades that were rumored to be a part of the imaginary iPhone 5, like the 1GHz dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor, PowerVR SGX543MP2 GPU, an Apple A5 chipset and a 8-megapixel camera. It also has a 3.5-inch TFT Retina multi-touch display and is loaded with the latest Apple operating system iOS 5.

iPhone 4S also comes with alternating antennae for better call reception, CDMA and GSM support, a personal assistant called Siri, iCloud and Bluetooth 4.0 wireless technology. However, missing were prominent specs like edge-to-edge design, a larger display, 4G LTE and Near Field Communication (NFC) technology.

On the other hand, Droid Bionic hit the shelves in September, more than eight months after the device was unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nev. in January.

The 4G LTE, dual-chip Droid Bionic had been delayed for months as Motorola gave it numerous changes, allowing it to compete with the high-end phones of the industry.

Specs on the Droid Bionic are impressive. The phone comes with a 4.3-inch HD screen featuring the Corning Gorilla scratch-free screen, two cameras: front-facing for video chat and 8-mega-pixel back camera, Adobe Flash preloaded, 32 GB of memory and a slim frame. It has a dual-core 1 GHz processor and 1 GB of RAM and runs on the Android 2.3.4 Gingerbread operating system.

The Motorola smartphone comes with a cloud-friendly app Zumocast, which lets users bring videos, music, pictures and documents stored on their computers to their handset via remote access.

Both the devices from Motorola and Apple offer quite a blazing performance thanks to dual-core processing power. Let's look at the comparison between Apple iPhone 4S and Motorola Droid Bionic:

Operating System: Droid Bionic runs on the latest version of Google's smartphone operating system, Android 2.3.4 Gingerbread OS. On the other hand, Apple's iPhone 4S runs on iOS 5, which is the newest of the OS versions. The new iOS 5 comes with 200 new features that will include Improved Notifications System, News Stand and iMessage.

Gingerbread has true multitasking support, though it isn't quite refined as iOS yet. It is Google's best bet yet against iOS -- at least until it releases Ice Cream Sandwich. It is yet to be seen which platform will outsmart the other in the long run.

Size: Droid Bionic has a dimension of 127.5 x 66.9 x 10.99 mm and weighs up to 158g (5.6 oz). On the other hand, Apple iPhone 4S comes with 115.2 x 58.6 x 9.3 mm and weighs 140 grams.

Display: Droid Bionic has a 4.3-inch qHD screen that may give a resolution of 960 x 540-pixel at about 256 ppi density. iPhone 4S, when compared, has the same 3.5-inch TFT Retina multi-touch display that may give a resolution of 960 x 640 pixels at 326 ppi density.

Processor: Droid Bionic features dual-core 1GHz ARM Cortex-A9 processor, ULP GeForce GPU, Tegra 2 AP20H chipset with 1GB RAM and 2GB ROM. iPhone 4S, which comes in an A5 chipset, is powered by 1GHz dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 CPU, PowerVR SGX543MP2 GPU.

Camera: Both the smartphones sport a rear-facing 8-megapixel camera with 1080p HD video capture capability and secondary VGA camera for video chat. Droid Bionic has an advantage of dual-LED flash camera, over iPhone 4S's LED flash.

Storage: Droid Bionic has 16 GB internal storage and 16 GB external microSD card included, which can expand up to 32 GB, while iPhone 4S has fixed 16/32/64 GB internal storage.

3G/4G: Droid Bionic has Rev. A up to 3.1 Mbps. Apple iPhone 4S, on the other hand, has HSDPA 14.4 Mbps, and HSUPA 5.8 Mbps support. iPhone 4S also has CDMA EV-DO Rev. A (800, 1900 MHz) technology.

WLAN/Bluetooth/USB: Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, DLNA, Wi-Fi hotspot (connects up to 8 devices and when on 3G connects up to 5 devices), Bluetooth version 2.1 with A2DP and EDR technology and microUSB version 2.0. On the other hand, iPhone 4S has Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Wi-Fi hotspot, advanced Bluetooth version 4.0 with A2DP along with USB version 2.0.

Battery: Motorola Droid Bionic has standard 1735 mAh battery offering talk time of 650 minutes and standby time of 200 hours. The Apple smartphone has a Li-Po 1420 mAh battery, with 8 hours of talk time on 3G networks and up to 14 hours on 2G networks (GSM).

Pricing: Droid Bionic is priced at $299.99 with 2-year contract at Verizon. With a two-year contract, iPhone 4S costs $199 for the 16GB model, $299 for the 32GB model and $399 for the 64GB model. Apple-listed prices for a contract-free phone in the United States are $649 for the 16GB model, $749 for 32GB and $849 for the 64GB.