We interrupt your regularly scheduled Hassle-Free PC post to bring you the Hassle-Free Phone edition.
Trying to decide between, say, an HTC One and a Samsung Galaxy S4. Sure, you can read PC World’s awesome reviews, maybe talk to friends and hit some stores for hands-on demos. But ultimately your best bet is to compare them directly, to see their specs, strengths, and weaknesses side by side.
That’s what you get at PhoneRocket, a nifty site that compares any two smartphones in exhaustive detail.
Let’s use the two aforementioned models as an example. All you do is type the names of the two phones you want to compare. PhoneRocket then gives you a quick summary of each one followed by a “winner” based on various ratings and criteria.
When you scroll down you’ll see review data for things like performance, graphics, battery life, and a review average culled from various sites.
Below that you’ll find detailed benchmarks, followed by bullet-point advantages of each model over the other, links to reviews, and a full roster of specs.
The site also has a Sort option that lets you browse smartphones based on things like talk time, operating system, and screen type, and a Search tool if you simply want to look up details on an individual model.
PhoneRocket’s database seems pretty comprehensive; I used it to look up an old LG Optimus S and found oodles of data.
Bottom line: If you’re trying to decide between two smartphone models, there are few better decision-making resources than PhoneRocket.
Contributing Editor Rick Broida writes about business and consumer technology. Ask for help with your PC hassles at hasslefree@pcworld.com, or try the treasure trove of helpful folks in the PCWorld Forums. Sign up to have the Hassle-Free PC newsletter e-mailed to you each week.