Can HTC Vivid Stand against LG Nitro HD?

The battle between smartphones with near identical specifications is getting more intense day-by-day. Among those phones with similar features are the HTC Vivid and the LG Nitro HD. However, the Nitro HD outshines the Vivid, with a dual-core 1.5 GHz processor and its True HD AH-IPS display.

The Nitro HD, made available on AT&T networks on Sunday, is the first smartphone in the AT&T portfolio with a true high definition screen. LG's device, which takes advantage of its new proprietary True HD technology, has a 4.5-inch AH-IPS (Advanced High-Performance In-Plane Switching) display that supports resolutions up to 1280 x 720 pixels.The device's display offers unrivaled color accuracy, brightness, battery efficiency and performance.

According to LG, the Nitro HD's 500 nit display luminance allows clear viewing in direct sunlight and RGB stripe pixels deliver incredibly accurate true-to-life color rendering. The smartphone is considered to be the third 4G LTE smartphone for AT&T customers.

The LG smartphone, which runs on Google Inc.'s Android 2.3 Gingerbread OS, has dual-core 1.5 GHz Scorpion processor, 4.5-inch True HD AH-IPS display, 1 GB of RAM, 4 GB of internal memory with additional 16 GB microSD card included, an 8 megapixel rear-facing LED flash camera with 1080p video capture and a secondary front-facing camera for video calls.

The LG Nitro HD, along with HTC Vivid and Samsung Galaxy S2 Skyrocket, will be able to utilize both LTE and HSPA+ 4G speeds of AT&T, for consistently fast connections in and out of LTE areas.

On the other hand, the HTC Vivid, running on the Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread Operating System, features a dual-core 1.2 GHz processor and 4.5-inch qHD S-LCD display with 960 by 540 pixels of resolution and about 245 ppi pixel density. The phone has 1 GB of RAM, 16/32 GB of internal memory that can be expandable up to 32GB with a microSD card, an 8 megapixel dual-LED flash camera with 1080p video capture and a 1.3 megapixel front-facing secondary camera for video chat.

Let us look at the features of HTC Vivid and LG Nitro HD:

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 ppi pixel density. On the other hand, the Nitro HD touts a 4.5-inch True HD AH-IPS (Advanced High-Performance In-Plane Switching) capacitive touch-screen with 1280 x 720 pixels resolution at about 326 ppi pixel density.

Size: The Nitro HD comes with 5.27 x 2.67 x 0.41 inches dimension and weighs 4.5 ounces. On the other hand, the Vivid will come in 5.07 x 2.64 x 0.44 inches dimension and weighs 6.24 ounces.

Processor: The Nitro HD features 1.5GHz Scorpion dual-core processor, Adreno 220 GPU, Qualcomm APQ8060 processor with 1GB RAM. On the other hand, the Vivid features 1.2 GHz Scorpion dual-core processor, Adreno 220 GPU, Qualcomm APQ8060 Snapdragon chipset with 1GB RAM.

Camera: Both smartphones sport rear-facing 8 megapixel cameras with 1080p HD video capture capability. The Vivid has dual-LED flash camera while Nitro HD has LED flash. The former has an additional 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera for video calling while Nitro HD has a 1-megapixel camera for video chat.

3G/4G: Both smartphones come with HSDPA, HSUPA and supports 4G LTE.

Operating System: Both smartphones have Android 2.3 Gingerbread operating system with both promised Google Inc.'s latest smartphone OS, Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.Ice Cream Sandwich is a combination of Gingerbread and Honeycomb in one unit. Android Head of Engineering Mike Claren announced that the new OS is Google's most ambitious release to date. The newest features arriving with Android 4.0 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, better voice integration, improved copy and paste and a new tabbed Web browser that allows up to 16 tabs.

User Interface: Nitro HD comes with LG's custom user interface, while Vivid comes with HTC Sense UI.

WLAN/Bluetooth/USB: Both smartphones have Bluetooth 3.0 version with A2DP, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, DLNA, Wi-Fi hotspot, and microUSB 2.0 version. Additionally, Nitro HD has Bluetooth HS, and Wi-Fi Direct.

Storage: The Nitro HD has fixed 4 GB internal storage with a 16 GB microSD card included in the package that can be expanded up to 32 GB. However, the Vivid has a fixed 16 / 32 GB internal storage and via a microSD card slot it can expand up to 32 GB.

Battery: Nitro HD comes with a standard Li-ion 1830 mAh battery. On the other hand, the 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.

Pricing: With a two-year AT&T contract, Nitro HD is priced at $149.99 in selected areas while Vivid is priced at $99.99.

Editors' Rating: Nitro HD scores over Vivid in technology editors' ratings. CNET has a score of 4 out 5 stars for Nitro HD, while Vivid scored only 3.5. PCMag rates Nitro HD 4.5 and HTC Vivid managed to score 4 stars.