Our battle is between Asus’ Zenfone 5, LG’s G2 and Samsung’s Galaxy S4, three of the most popular smartphones from the market. Our favorite is the S4, although it’s a little bit pricey, but it’s worth the money. The screen resolution is excellent, the camera takes incredibly accurate photos and the battery has a decent lifetime.
Displays and sizes
It’s not easy to choose the right phone when you have so many options. There are mid-tier phones, phablets and those situated in the middle. Our comparison targets the third category, and we’ll start with the Zenfone 5, which has a 5inches IPS screen with 720x1280pixels and 294ppi. There’s a layer of Corning Gorilla Glass 3 on top of it for protection against scratches and yes, it’s really efficient. The phone is heavier than the other two, weighting 145grams, and its dimensions are 148.2×72.8×10.3mm.
The Galaxy S4 has a Super AMOLED display of the same size, but it supports a higher resolution of 1080x1920pixels with 441ppi. Likewise the Zenfone 5, has Corning Gorilla Glass 3 for protection, and the polycarbonate rear panel with textured finish looks pretty nice. This phone is the lightest among the three, weighting 130grams, and its dimensions are 136.6×69.8×7.9mm, being the slimmest one.
Finally, the LG G2 has the same textured rear panel, but it comes with a bigger display of 5.2inches. It’s a True HD-IPS + LCD screen which is capable of supporting 1080x1920pixels and 424ppi, and it’s protected with Corning Gorilla Glass 2. The dimensions of this nice phone are 138.5×70.9×8.9mm and it’s slightly lighter than the Zenfone 5, weighting 143grams.
Hardware and OS
Let’s analyze the inside of these smartphones. The Zenfone 5 has two variants of dual-core processors: one that it’s clocked at 2GHz and which is based on an Intel Atom Z2580 chipset, and another one with a lower clock speed of 1.6GHz, backed by an Intel Atom Z2560 chipset, but both of the versions are using the same PowerVR SGX544MP2 GPU. This phone comes loaded with Android v4.3 (Jelly Bean), and in the meantime it received the 4.4.2 (KitKat) update. It hosts 2GB of RAM and two variants of internal memories of 8 and 16GB which can be expanded up to 64GB.
The G2 runs on the same Android 4.4.2 (KitKat) version, but it came with v4.2.2 (Jelly Bean). The processor has four cores, it’s a Krait 400 with the clock speed at 2.26GHz, based on a Qualcomm MSM8974 Snapdragon 800 chipset and has graphics from Adreno 330. The RAM capacity is the same, but the built in memory, which comes in two variants of 16 and 32GB, doesn’t support expansion with a microSD card.
As for the Galaxy S4, the phone comes with a combination of two quad core processors consisting of a 1.6GHz CortexA15 and a 1.2GHz Cortex-A7, supported by an Exynos 5 Octa 5410 chipset and coupled with a PowerVR SGX544MP3 GPU. Likewise the G2, it comes with Android v4.2.2 (Jelly Bean), but first it was upgraded to v4.3 and now it operates on v4.4.2 (KitKat). You can choose one of the two variants of expandable memories of 16 and 32GB (you can get 64GB with a microSD card) or you can pick directly the 64GB variant.
Cameras
Zenfone 5’s rear camera is weaker at 8MP, but it has plenty features to compensate. The G2 and the Galaxy S4 have 13MP back cameras with autofocus, LED flash, HDR, face detection, simultaneous video and image recording and geo tagging. The G2 has also optical image stabilization and the S4 supports dual shots. The front cameras are 2MP on the Zenfone 5 and S4, and 2.1MP on the G2.
Batteries
The Zenfone and the G2 have non-removable batteries of 2110 mAh and 3000 mAh respectively, but they seems to support almost the same duration of talktime on 3G: 17-18 hours. The Galaxy S4 has a 2600mAh battery which lasts 17hours when talking on 3G.
Prices
Asus Zenfone 5 – 165 dollars
LG G2 16GB – 355 dollars, 32GB – 365 dollars
Samsung Galaxy S4 16GB – 393 dollars, 32GB – 470 dollars.
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