Nokia is entering phablet territory for the first time with the Nokia Lumia 1520. On top of that it's also the company's first quad-core handset, so there's a lot to get excited about.
But it's not entering the market uncontested. The Samsung Galaxy Note 3 is a towering giant, the third in a line of enormously successful phablets, while Sony and HTC are both dipping their toes in the big screen waters with the Sony Xperia Z Ultra and the HTC One Max.
Wondering how they all stack up? Well wonder no more because we've got you covered.
Screen
The key feature for all these handsets are their displays - their huge, massive, palm busting displays. All four fall into the horribly named "phablets" niche, so they all sport big screens - deal with it.
The Nokia Lumia 1520 has a 6-inch 1080p full HD display with a pixel density of 367ppi. It's an AMOLED ClearBlack screen, which ensures it has good contrast and is readable in bright sunlight.
The Sony Xperia Z1 Ultra has a mammoth 1080 x 1920 6.4-inch display with a pixel density of 344 pixels per inch and it uses Triluminos technology to improve colour saturation levels.
The HTC One Max has a 1080 x 1920 5.9-inch display with a pixel density of 373 pixels per inch and the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 has a comparatively small 1080 x 1920 5.7-inch Super AMOLED display, but this means it can boast the best pixel density of 386 pixels per inch.
In other words all four handsets have decent, high definition screens, but the Sony Xperia Z Ultra is the biggest while the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 is the smallest and most defined.
Specs
All four handsets are top end devices and they have specs to match. Every single one of them has a quad-core processor on board but they're not all equal.
Both the Nokia Lumia 1520 and the Sony Xperia Z Ultra have 2.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processors, but the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 has a marginally more powerful 2.3 GHz Snapdragon 800 processor and the HTC One Max has a far less powerful 1.7 GHz Snapdragon 600 processor.
Each of the handsets has 2GB of RAM, except for the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 which once again leads the pack with 3GB of RAM.
The gist of that being that the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 is the most powerful of them on paper while the HTC One Max is the least powerful as it uses a slower processor than the others. The Nokia Lumia 1520 and Sony Xperia Z Ultra have exactly the same RAM, processor and speed.
Operating system
Both the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 and the HTC One Max are running the latest version of Android (Jelly Bean 4.3), while the Sony Xperia Z Ultra is stuck with Android 4.2. The Nokia Lumia 1520 is of course the odd one out here, being a Windows Phone 8 device.
We'd expect the Z Ultra to get an update to Android 4.3 in the near future, while it's worth noting that the Lumia 1520 has the latest version of Windows Phone 8 on board, with numerous upgrades, bug fixes and improvements.
This brings Windows Phone 8 closer to Android, but both platforms offer very different user experiences, with Android offering a wealth of apps and options and WP providing a more straight forward, easier interface.
Design and dimensions
The Nokia Lumia 1520 looks much the same as earlier Lumia handsets, with a colourful polycarbonate design. It's available in black, white, yellow and red and has dimensions of 152 x 81 x 8.7mm, so it's as large as you'd expect a phablet to be.
At 168g it's not super heavy though, coming in lighter than the 185g Nokia Lumia 920.
The Sony Xperia Z Ultra has a slightly more high end design than the Lumia 1520, opting for a shiny glass back. It's also water and dust proof. At 179.4 x 92.2 x 6.5mm it's long and wide but impressively slim, though at 212g you're likely to feel it in your pocket, if it even fits. It comes in black, white and purple.
The HTC One Max has an even more premium design. In fact it's identical to the design of the HTC One.
We're talking silver aluminium front and back with an attractively curved shape. Its dimensions of 164.5 x 82.5 x 10.3mm lie somewhere between the Xperia Z Ultra and the Lumia 1520, except for the thickness, as the HTC One Max is pretty chunky in that regard.
Its weight of 217g is marginally higher than the Sony Xperia Z Ultra, but given the metal construction that's not a surprise - it does make it really heavy though.
That brings us to the Samsung Galaxy Note 3, which at 151.2 x 79.2mm makes it shorter and thinner than any of its competitors, though at 8.3mm thick it's not as slim as the Sony Xperia Z Ultra and at 168g it's tied with the Nokia Lumia 1520 for lowest weight.
Its plastic construction isn't much to write home about, but its faux leather back at least gives it a hint of class and it comes in black, white and pink.
Camera
Like most Lumia phones the Nokia Lumia 1520 puts a lot of focus on the camera, though at 20MP it's a step down from the 41MP Nokia Lumia 1020.
That's still pretty impressive though and its Carl Zeiss lens should ensure that it takes sharp pictures with strong colour reproduction. Given Nokia's pedigree it's also likely to fare well in low light conditions.
It can also shoot 1080p video at 30fps and has a 1.2MP front facing camera.
The Sony Xperia Z Ultra has an 8MP camera, which is a megapixel count that's starting to feel a bit mid range, but it can still shoot 1080p video at 30fps and has a 2MP front facing camera.
The HTC One Max uses the same Ultrapixel camera technology as the HTC One for its 4MP camera, which means that while the megapixel count might be low it lets a lot of light in for more detailed images. It can also shoot 1080p video at 30fps and has a 2.1MP front facing camera.
The Samsung Galaxy Note 3 has a 13MP snapper which can take some pretty impressive photos but is unlikely to match up to the Nokia Lumia 1520. It can also shoot 1080p video at 60fps or 4K video at 30fps and has a 2MP front facing camera.
Ultimately the Nokia Lumia 1520 is likely to win out in the camera stakes, but the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 is hard to beat for video thanks to its 4K credentials and 60fps for 1080p footage.
Storage
The Nokia Lumia 1520 has 32GB of built in storage along with a microSD slot to further expand that, which is a nice addition as most high end Lumia handsets don't support microSD cards.
The Sony Xperia Z Ultra has just 16GB of built in storage, but also has a microSD card slot. The HTC One Max has a choice of 16 or 32GB of built in storage along with a micro SD card slot and the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 comes with 16, 32 or 64GB of built in storage plus a microSD card slot.
So the Galaxy Note 3 has the most potential storage, while the Sony Xperia Z Ultra has the least, but thanks to microSD card support none of them are likely to run low in a hurry.
Battery life
Battery life has always been the bane of smartphones and though manufacturers are ever increasing the size of their phones batteries, the increase in power and screen size that tends to go with it means that the life still isn't normally great.
The Nokia Lumia 1520 at least looks set to be one of the better phones for battery life, thanks to a rather large 3400mAh battery on board, which Nokia claims is capable of 25 hours talk time.
The Sony Xperia Z Ultra has a smaller 3050mAh battery capable of up to 16 hours talk time, the HTC One Max has a 3300mAh battery which should be able to manage a Lumia 1520 matching 25 hours of calls and the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 has a 3200mAh battery with a talk time of up to 21 hours.
So the Nokia Lumia 1520 has the biggest battery and in theory it and the HTC One Max are tied for best battery life. The only other thing to be aware of is that while the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 has a removable battery the other phones don't.
Features
Above and beyond specs each of these phones has a few unique selling points. The HTC One Max for example has dual front facing BoomSound stereo speakers, delivering great audio quality. It also has a fingerprint scanner and HTC's divisive BlinkFeed, which combines all of your favourite news feeds and social network activity into a screen filling feed.
The Nokia Lumia 1520 has an app called 'Storyteller', which uses your pictures to tell a chronological story, showing you where you were and when by integrating location data.
The Sony Xperia Z Ultra is water and dust proof (just as long as you've got the ports covered) and the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 has eye tracking features, which can cause the phone to pause videos when you look away and keep the screen on when you're reading it.
Not to mention the S Pen stylus, which can make it easier to operate its large display.
Price
The Nokia Lumia 1520 doesn't have a UK price yet, but its US price of $749 translates to around £460, which isn't unreasonable for a top end phone.
The HTC One Max is rather more expensive at around £600 SIM free, while the Sony Xperia Z Ultra goes for upwards of £500 and the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 will set you back at least £550 SIM free.
Conclusion
What can we conclude? Well the Nokia Lumia 1520 looks set to have the best camera and the lowest price tag of the four as well as sporting good battery life.
The HTC One Max is both the most expensive and least powerful, though it has a high quality metal build.
The Samsung Galaxy Note 3 looks to be the most powerful but it has the smallest screen and the Sony Xperia Z Ultra has the biggest screen of the four at 6.4 inches.
- Want more Nokia action? Check out our reaction to the Nokia Lumia 1520.
Source : techradar[dot]com
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