Omnia vs Bold vs N96 vs iPhone

The past few months have seen the launch of a surfeit of high-end smart phones beginning with Apple's iPhone, followed by Nokia's N96, HTC Touch Diamond, Blackberry Bold and Samsung Omnia.

All of these handsets cost closer or above Rs 30,000 and claim to provide a big bang for your buck. Welcome to the iPhone generation phones! It is therefore time we considered how they stand against each other on some of the most touted features. Here are some of these key features compared with the rest of the pack.

Storage
Nokia 96: The phone's 24GB of memory consists of 16GB internal memory and an optional 8GB microSD card which can be purchased with the phone. According to Nokia, the phone can store up to 60 hours of video or 20 full-length movies. The 24GB memory of N96 can store up to 18000 songs, up to 20000 images.

Samsung Omnia: The mobile comes in two versions -- with 24 GB memory (internal memory of 8 GB and an extendible memory of 16 GB) and with 32 GB memory (internal memory of 16 GB and an external memory of 16 GB).

iPhone: The Apple iconic device comes in two model memory variants, 8GB and 16GB.

HTC Touch Diamond: HTC Diamond comes with 4 GB of internal storage with 256 MB flash.

BlackBerry Bold: The phone packs 128MB flash memory, 1GB on-board storage memory and has support for microSD/SDHC memory card slot for memory expansion of up to 16GB.

Camera
Nokia N96: N96 boasts of a 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics, flash and video light. The video camera captures at 30 frames per second. Images can be stored in both JPEG and EXIF format. With the integrated A-GPS, users can geotag their pictures with location data. The dual-slider Nokia N96 supports standard video formats including MPEG-4, Windows Media Video and Flash Video.

iPhone: 3G iPhone comes with a 2 megapixel camera and no video recording option and no flash. The optical zoom is missing too.

Samsung Omnia: The smartphone features a 5 megapixel camera. It support auto focus, image stabliser, geo tagging, auto-panorama shot, wide dynamic range and face detection options. Also, it has option of video recording, video editing, audio dubbing and live dubbing.

HTC Diamond: The smartphone has a 3.2 megapixel camera with an optical auto-focus lens, video calling capability and auto sensor screen pivoting.

BlackBerry Bold: It has a 2 megapixel camera and supports video recording.

Features
Nokia N96: It has media keys, 3.5 mm headphone connector and built-in 3D stereo speakers. Users can access digital video broadcasting, wireless Internet and Bluetooth. The phone offers music playback time of 14 hours and video playback time of 5 hours. The N96 is loaded with the N-Games application, Asphalt 3: Street Rules. N96 offers Nokia Maps 2.0 with voice directions for India as well.

Samsung Omnia: The Samsung phone features a TV-Out feature to playback content from the phone directly on the television screen. DivX technology enables video content transfer from the PC to the mobile.

Apple iPhone: iPhone lacks regular FM and offers users streaming Internet radio. iPhone offers Google maps, however, it does not offer any voice directions in India.

HTC Diamond: The TouchFLO 3D interface provides animated access to messaging, email, photos, music, weather and other features. Other features include Bluetooth with EDR, minUSB, integrated GPS and Wi-Fi.

BlackBerry Bold: It comes with Roxio Media Manager application that allows users to search media files on their computer, view, organise, create MP3 music files from CDs, add audio tags and album art, create playlists and copy or convert pictures, music and videos for playback. The phone comes with a 3.5 mm jack, dedicated volume controls and dual speakers. It also supports video streaming.

Looks
Nokia N96: No touchscreen. It has a 2.8-inch TFT screen.

iPhone: Offers a large 3.5-inch screen display. The phone's black plastic skin back has been replaced by silver-aluminum back. While the 8GB model comes in black only, the 16GB version is available in both black and white. iPhone boasts of a single Home button placed below the screen.

Samsung Omina: Sporting a platinum look, the phone takes advantage of Samsung's TouchWiz user interface.It has a 3.2-inch LCD touchscreen display.

BlackBerry Bold: It features a black exterior with satin chrome finished frame and leatherette backplate. Bold sports BlackBerry's sharpest display ever -- HVGA (480x320 resolution at 217 ppi) colour LCD display.

HTC Touch Diamond: The smartphone features a new 3D touch interface called TouchFLO 3D. Measuring 102 x 51 x 11.33mm, Touch Diamond comes with a 2.8 inch VGA touchscreen display.

Cost
Nokia N96: Nokia N96 retails at Rs 35,000 for 16GB.

Samsung Omnia: It is priced at Rs 39,999 for 32 GB and Rs 37,999 for 24 GB phone.

iPhone: Apple sells 3G iPhone in India at Rs 31,000 for 8GB model and Rs 36,100 for 16GB model with Airtel or Vodafone.

BlackBerry Bold: Priced at Rs 34,990, BlackBerry Bold will be available by September end on Airtel and Vodafone network.

HTC Touch Diamond: HTC Touch Diamond is available for Rs 27,500 at all authorised HTC resellers.

Operator lock
Nokia N96: No operator lock, you can use it on any service provider's network.

iPhone: Available only on Airtel and Vodafone network.

Samsung Omina: Omia too is service provider-agnostic. Users can run it on any service provider's network.

BlackBerry Bold: Blackberry Bold would be sold at an identical price by Airtel, Vodafone and Reliance. While Airtel and Vodafone will be launching Bold towards September end, Reliance Communications will launch it a month later in October.

HTC Touch Diamond: Available only on Airtel network.

Miscellaneous
Nokia N96: N96 comes preloaded with Wave Secure, a S60 security application that allows consumers to track their handset in the event it is lost or stolen. It also allows them to backup their phone data over the Internet. N96 comes bundled with a full-length Hindi feature film -- Om Shanti Om, 50 music videos, and a mix of 100 Hindi and 100 English songs.

iPhone: iPhone 3G gives users faster access to the Internet and email over their cellular network with quad-band GSM and tri-band HSDPA for voice and data connectivity around the world. iPhone 3G supports Wi-Fi, 3G and EDGE networks and automatically switches between them to ensure the fastest possible download speeds. iPhone 3G includes the new App Store, providing iPhone users with native applications in a variety of categories including games, business, news, sports, health, reference and travel.

Samsung Omnia: Powered by Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional, the phone comes with MS Office. An optical mouse has also been included for easy navigation.

HTC Touch Diamond: The Touch Diamond offers a customised, HTC-developed YouTube application for viewing a variety of user-generated videos as also Google Maps for mapping data.

BlackBerry Bold: BlackBerry too has joined the 3G bandwagon. Wi-Fi support, missing in the earlier Blackberry models, has been added. Bold supports WiFi (802.11 a/b/g) network with enterprise-grade security. The phone comes with a new "Push Button Setup" for faster connection to protected wireless network that requires a sign on process.

Source: India Times Network