Droid Razr MotoCast vs Galaxy S2 AllShare and iPhone 4S AirPlay: Features Comparison

Three of the most feature-rich smartphones of 2011 face off again in a battle of file streaming apps. Droid Razr's MotoCast, Samsung Galaxy S2's AllShare and iPhone 4S' AirPlay all stream content back and forth from your smartphone to your HDTV or laptop in one form or another. But only one of them is easy to use, simple to set up and does what is says it's supposed to.

Droid Razr comes pre-installed with the MotoCast App, and you can use it to stream your iTunes and Windows Media Player playlists right to your device. First, you have to download MotoCast to your laptop, then you can choose which files to allow MotoCast to steam to your Razr.

AllShare from Samsung will stream content to an HDTV, but only if it's enabled with DLNA based product. The problem is, that is not something that is easy to figure out. Getting it to work with a laptop is one thing, but getting to work with a television is completely different. With a laptop, it's easy to sync the AllShare app to Windows Media Player, but the guidelines for which televisions it works with are not altogether clear. To be fair, this is a very new function, and in the next six months, several new televisions will likely be available that are DLNA based. Whether you want to go buy them or not is another matter.

AirPlay for iPhone 4S requires the use of Apple TV to play on your HDTV, and that's $100. It costs extra, but it does make it easier to do whatever you are doing on your phone on your television.

All three of these features are a bit ahead of their time. MotoCast has its feet on the ground without trying to sound too futuristic. AllShare has promise, but getting it to work with your television will be a challenge. It's not a major feature Samsung is pushing though, and that's exactly why. AirPlay does have the element of sex appeal, but you have to buy Apple TV for it to work. At this point television technology is behind the smartphone technology. Tell us in the comments which feature sounds like the most fun to you.