Nokia Lumia 928 vs Apple iPhone 5

Introduction:

Now that Nokia has introduced its true high-end Windows Phone offering for Verizon Wireless, it’s sure to try its mightiest to chip away at the iPhone 5’s always stringent grasp. Considering that it’s sporting a competitive price point of $99.99 with a 2-year agreement, there’s no arguing whatsoever that the aggressive approach might actually make customers think twice about settling down on a device – even more when it’s packing goodies that the iPhone lacks, such as wireless charging, NFC, and a super sensitive display. Already proving itself as THE Windows Phone to own if you’re on Big Red’s network, it’ll be intriguing to see how it stacks against Apple’s pride and joy in every category.

Design:

By now means are the two flaunting original designs, as they take the distinct styles of previous generation models and improve in the aspects that consumers take notice the most – such as being thinner and lighter. Thanks primarily to its brushed aluminum casing, there’s a premium element attached to the iPhones 5’s design. At the same time, too, the in-the-hand feel of the iPhone 5 is minutely better, since it’s smaller in footprint and lighter in weight. Despite that, we’ll admit that the two are soundly sturdy with their constructions.


Feeling out the physical buttons around each smartphone, we’ll give it to the iPhone 5 for having the more prominent and responsive buttons. However, most people will find the microUSB port of the Lumia 928 as being the more favorable of the two, because it’s a universal standard – whereas with the iPhone 5, it sticks firmly to Apple’s proprietary Lightning port.

Vying for supremacy in the photo snapping category, it shouldn’t surprise many to know that these are highly regard for their qualities. On one hand, we have an 8-megapixel iSight camera on the iPhone 5, which features an f2.4 lens and LED flash. Meanwhile, its new rival is packing along something more delicious in its 8.7-megapixel PureView camera, which features Carl Zeiss optics, an f2.0 lens, optical image stabilization, and a Xenon flash. However, both still produce 1080p video recording with their rear cameras – while their 1.2-megapixel front-facing cameras eek out 720p ones.


Display:

Frankly, it’s rather difficult to make a definitive decision on which one has the more attractive display because they boast their own unique qualities that make them stand out. Specifically, it’s a 4.5-inch PureMotion HD+ 768 x 1280 AMOLED display on Nokia’s new gadget, which can still recognize touch if you happen to have gloves on, since its sensitivity is heightened. Conversely, iPhone 5 has a smaller 4-inch 640 x 1136 Retina Display, which has the more realistic colors thanks to its IPS-LCD panel and better outdoor visibility. Then again, our eyes are drawn to the oversaturated tones put out by the Lumia 928’s AMOLED panel – plus, it maintains its vibrancy at extreme angles better than the iPhone 5. Sure, the Lumia 928 might have the higher pixel density count on paper, but it doesn’t necessarily prove to be advantageous, as it’s nearly indistinguishable which of the two is more detailed from a normal viewing distance.

Interface and Functionality:

We won’t get into great detail regarding their software, since we’ve covered them plenty of times in our many past comparisons. Rather, we’ll say that it’ll ultimately come down to personal preference. If you prefer something more simple and straightforward, you’ll surely find it in the iOS experience of the iPhone 5 – plus, the platform benefits from an astounding apps ecosystem and its personal digital assistant service in Siri. Not to be outdone, Windows Phone 8 is simply a visual feast with its snazzy looking start screen, which consists of those cool dynamic live tiles – and it also has a more personalization too! From the looks of it, iOS clearly has the advantage with its deeper selection of quality apps, while Windows Phone 8 continues to have the more modern look to it.



With the aid of Siri, there’s no question that we’re given a higher level of interaction with the iPhone 5 when it boils down to various organizer functions, which is a category where Microsoft’s platform is lagging in.


Having spent a great deal of time composing various texts and emails on the two, we’ll vouch for their fantastic on-screen keyboards, since they’re super responsive and offer some of the best auto-correct features. However, seeing that there’s more real-estate on the Lumia 928, some will appreciate its more spacious layout.




Processor and Memory:

Compared to many of their peers, these respected members in the smartphone kingdom actually don’t carry intimidating hardware under their hoods. Rather than finding beefy quad-core processors, they boast dual-core ones. To be more specific, it’s a dual-core 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Plus processor with 1GB of RAM on the Lumia 928, and a dual-core 1.3GHz Apple A6 CPU with 1GB of RAM inside of the iPhone 5. Obviously, it goes to show that super spec’d devices aren’t needed to produce performances that are responsive and instantaneous – and these two prove that point! From basic tasks like opening apps to more processor intensive things such as playing games, they’re able to maintain their peppy performance evenly against one another.

By now, we’re all aware that the iPhone 5 is available in 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB capacities, but the Lumia 928 is only made available in 32GB. Needless to say, you’ll need to monitor your capacity, seeing that they don’t offer an expandable storage.

Internet and Connectivity:

Surfing the web is such as joy with these two, especially when pages load swiftly thanks to 4G LTE connectivity. Beyond that, the experience in both Internet Explorer and mobile Safari are made more gratifying thanks to their tight navigational controls and instantaneous page rendering. Therefore, whichever one you settle on, you’ll be greeted to an incredible web browsing experience!



International jet setters will be especially glad to know that the Lumia 928 and iPhone 5 are global ready, which means they’ll work domestically within Verizon’s coverage – and abroad on most GSM based networks. Even though the two feature aGPS, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi, it’s the Lumia 928 that’ll turn heads more with its included NFC and wireless charging.

Camera:

Looking meticulously at the photos produced by their respective cameras, it’s really tough to concretely determine which one really takes the more stunning shots. Quite frankly, the two excel handsomely with outdoor scenery, macro, and portrait shots, as details and color reproduction appear almost identical. Strangely though, we find the Lumia 928 being a little inconsistent with color reproduction, as it’s sometimes off – thus, producing a purplish tinge to its shots. Despite that, it’s obvious that the f2.0 lens and optical image stabilization feature of the Lumia 928 help to strengthen its low lighting shots over the iPhone, since they are brighter and draw out more details that are otherwise lost. Moreover, the Xenon flash of the Lumia 928 casts a potent punch of lighting to give colors more vibrancy than the flat colors delivered by the iPhone 5’s LED flash.



Indeed, the Lumia 928 has the edge in still shots under low lighting conditions, but it’s the iPhone 5 that wins in the 1080p video recording quality department. By just looking at the results, its details are significantly sharper – whereas it’s softer and more indistinct with the Lumia 928’s quality. Furthermore, the other distractions we have with the Lumia 928 include its super sensitive exposure adjustment and the artifacting elements that pop up when panning. Then again, its optical image stabilization is a nice touch that stems those unwanted instances of jitteriness.

Nokia Lumia 928 Sample Video:



Apple iPhone 5 Sample Video:



Multimedia:

There’s not really one music player that we prefer over the other, especially when they boast their own unique presentation elements to make them stand out – like cover flow on the iPhone 5, and the modern UI seen in the Lumia 928’s player. In terms of audio quality with their respective speakers, our ears instantly recognize the stronger volume output of the Lumia 928.


Due to its larger and more vibrant looking display, the Lumia 928 is the better candidate when it comes to watching videos. In addition, it supports a wide array of video codecs out of the box – with no conversion necessary to get them onto the Lumia 928, which is something that’s required with the iPhone 5.

Call quality:

Both the Lumia 928 and iPhone 5 are good devices to make phone calls with, though we slightly prefer the iPhone 5's clean and natural sounding earpiece to the Lumia 928's slightly muffled audio. As we said, both are good overall, but the iPhone 5 manages to gain the upper hand. We're also happy to report that noise-cancellation works flawlessly on both smartphones.

Battery:

Honestly, we don’t find one handset better at delivering longevity with their battery life, as we’re able to easily get through a solid day of normal usage on both smartphones. However, expect usage to be considerably less on both if you’re constantly connected via 4G LTE.

Conclusion:

If we were to go back and look at how the two performed against one another in all of the categories, you’ll probably be taken by surprise to know that they performed similarly to each other. To tell you the truth, it merely boils down to personal preference, as the platform experience is by far the biggest differentiator. Despite that, we can’t help but think about price, since you know, it’s a huge driving force for some. On one side of the ring, Verizon customers will have to fork over at least $200 to pick up the base model of the iPhone 5 – while the Nokia Lumia 928 jumps out from the get-go with its aggressive $100 on-contract price. Knowing that, if you’re tight on a budget and want to experiment, but don’t want to see any sacrifices in raw performance, we absolutely recommend scoping out Nokia’s latest entrant to the space. Oppositely, if money isn’t a concern, you still can’t go wrong with the iPhone 5 with its premium build and expansive ecosystem.

Nokia Lumia 928 vs Apple iPhone 5 Video Comparison: