Can HTC Vivid Outrun Samsung Galaxy Nexus?

The battle to win the smartphone war becomes more intense with the passing of every day, given the number of Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) jumping into the fray and delivering devices with mind-boggling specifications.

With the release of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, the first phone running Google's Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0) operating system, the competition becomes even more interesting.

One of the Galaxy Nexus' prime contenders, from the HTC camp, is the Vivid (codenamed Holiday) which runs on AT&T's network.

The Vivid is $100 cheaper than the Galaxy Nexus but does not compromise on the specifications front.

Let's take a look at how HTC Vivid fares against Galaxy Nexus:

Display: The Vivid touts a 4.5-inch qHD S-LCD display that will give a resolution of 960 x 540 pixels with about 245 pixels per inch (ppi) pixel density. Galaxy Nexus sports a 4.65-inch high-definition Super AMOLED display that may give a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels with about 316 ppi pixel density.

Size: HTC Vivid weighs 176.9 grams and has a dimension of 128.8 x 67.1 x 11.2 mm while Galaxy Nexus comes in 135.5 x 67.94 x 8.9 mm and weighs 135 grams.

Processor: Vivid is powered by a 1.2 GHz Scorpion dual-core processor, Adreno 220 GPU, Qualcomm APQ8060 Snapdragon chipset with 1GB RAM. Galaxy Nexus is powered by a 1.2GHz dual-core Cortex-A9 CPU, TI OMAP 4460 chipset with 1GB RAM.

Operating System: Vivid runs on Android 2.3 Gingerbread operating system, but upgradable to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. Galaxy Nexus runs on Ice Cream Sandwich, which is a combination of Gingerbread and Honeycomb in one unit.

The key features of Ice cream Sandwich include widgets in a new tab, a customizable launcher, Gmail with offline search with a two-line preview and new action bar at the bottom. Ice Cream Sandwich also has better voice integration, improved copy and paste and a new tabbed Web browser that allows up to 16 tabs

Camera: Vivid scores over Galaxy Nexus in the camera department as the former sport rear-facing 8 megapixel camera with 1080p HD video capture capability with dual-LED flash. Vivid also has an additional 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera for video calling. Galaxy Nexus has only a 5-megapixel camera and a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera.

3G/4G: Vivid has HSDPA, HSUPA and supports LTE. Galaxy Nexus has HSDPA 21 Mbps, HSUPA 5.76 Mbps and 4G LTE support.

WLAN/Bluetooth/USB: Both smartphones support Bluetooth 3.0 version with A2DP, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, DLNA, Wi-Fi hotspot, and microUSB 2.0 version. But Galaxy Nexus supports Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, compared to Vivid's support for Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n.

Storage: Vivid has a 16 GB internal storage and via a microSD card slot it can expand up to 32 GB, while Galaxy Nexus comes only with a 16/32 GB internal storage.

Battery: Vivid comes with a standard Li-ion 1650 mAh battery that gives up to 7 hours 40 minutes talk time and up to 288 hours of standby. Galaxy Nexus comes with a standard 1750 mAh battery offering talk time of more than 8 hours and standby time of 270 hours in 3G.

Pricing: With a two-year AT&T contract, Vivid is priced at $199.99 and in selected areas there is $100 discount on the device. Galaxy Nexus is available at Verizon Wireless for $299.99 under 2-year contract.