Apple iPhone 4 vs. The Rest of the Smartphone Pack

How does Apple’s iPhone 4 stacks up against the competition? Take a look at these charts and see for yourself and read on.

The iPhone 4, announced Monday and available on June 24, enters an increasingly crowded and confusing smartphone market. Several Google Android competitors launched every month, and Microsoft and BlackBerry playing catch-up with their own offerings. To help you keep track with how Apple fits into the smartphone landscape take a look at the charts below.

The iPhone 4 may look similar to the prototype Gizmodo got its hands on last month. But the devil is in the details, as they say. The iPhone 4 now unveiled we can put it head-to-head with the hottest phones right now, including a couple of unreleased devices from Dell and Research In Motion.

The phones we are looking at are the HTC Incredible, HTC Evo 4G, Samsung Galaxy S and Motorola Milestone XT720 from the Android side, the HTC HD2 and Dell Lightning from the Windows Mobile camp, the Nokia N8 representing the Symbian platform and the recently leaked BlackBerry Bold 9800, a crossover touchscreen phone with a famous physical BlackBerry keyboard.

To match smartphones side-by-side take a look at this chart (click chart on left to zoom or click here). If you want a platform-by-platform comparison chart, scroll further down. Please note that the specifications in the chart are for information purposes only, and specs for unreleased products may differ to when they actually launch.

iPhone 4 vs The Android Army

Steve Jobs stressed in his keynote on Monday that Android is only fourth in the smartphone race, pointing out Research In Motion is leading the pack, followed by the iPhone, Windows Mobile and only then Google Android. Yet Android phones are selling in large numbers and are quickly catching up, mainly due to sheer volume of models from various manufacturers running the OS.

The hottest Android phones right now are the HTC Incredible on Verizon, the record-selling HTC Evo 4G on Sprint, and the newly announced Samsung Galaxy S and the Motorola Milestone XT720, freshly introduced on Monday. But does Android have the edge over the new iPhone 4G? (Click image below to enlarge or click here)

Speed-wise, all the above-mentioned Android phones run on speedy 1GHz processors, except the Milestone XT720, which runs on a 550MHz chip. Apple on the other hand, took its speedy A4 chip found on the iPad and put it in the iPhone 4 (no surprise here). With this, the iPhone 4 comes in line with the top-notch Android phone, but given the OS and app differences, a proper speed comparison would be quite subjective.

The iPhone 4 packs the most GB for your buck in terms of storage, with the base $199 model coming with 16GB of built-in storage, while the Incredible and Evo 4G coming with only 8GB bundled for the same price. On the good side though, all the Android phones in this comparison come with microSD expansion slots, and you can get a 32GB memory card online for around $100 (the same price difference between the iPhone 4 16GB and 32GB models).

The iPhone 4 also has the smallest display in comparison to the Android phones in this chart, but the Retina Display technology in the iPhone 4 rivals even the huge 4.3-inch screen on the Evo 4G, packing in more pixels per inch. The camera on the iPhone 4 is now on the par with the Samsung Galaxy S, and still below the Incredible, Evo 4G or Milestone in terms of megapixels. All five phones can record 720p HD video though – yet only the iPhone will have the Apple-designed iMovies app, and nothing out today is remotely comparable to this in terms of mobile video editing.

If you are into video calling, you will have limited options between the iPhone 4, HTC Evo 4G and Samsung Galaxy S. Note though that Apple’s FaceTime video calling service works only via WiFi, and only between Apple iPhone 4 compatible devices.

The Samsung Galaxy S is the only one left out of the camera flash party, but the phone is second only to the iPhone when it comes to thinness. Weight-wise, the iPhone 4 is heavier than the HTC Incredible and the Galaxy S, but lighter than the Evo 4G and the Milestone XT720.

As for battery life, the iPhone 4 claims the longest battery life, with up to seven hours of talk time, closely followed by the Galaxy S, with 6.5 hours. Of course, these are manufacturer specifications, and real-life results can be very different. Stay tuned for PCWorld testing.

The Android Market may not be as big as Apple’s App Store (with over 225,000 apps), but it is getting new apps every day — now clocking over 38,000 apps. But for Flash games fans, Android is the most viable solution, as the iOS will clearly not support Adobe’s technology any time soon. To top it off, multitasking and tethering also come with the iOS 4 in the iPhone 4, catching up with the Android phones.

iPhone 4 vs WinMo, Symbian and BlackBerry

Microsoft will put up a good fight to the new iPhone 4, with the upcoming Dell Lightning, which also features a bigger display and adds the bonus of a sliding full QWERTY keyboard, for fans of the genre (sacrificing thinness). (Click on image below to enlarge or click here)

The HTC HD2 and the Lightning also have an FM tuner, a feature not found on the iPhone 4. Microsoft still lacks in the app store department, and the Lightning, running Windows Mobile 7 will go a step back in terms of multitasking and Flash support.

Nokia however, will also challenge the iPhone 4 with its flagship N8 device. The N8 has a 12-megapixel camera (the biggest in the whole lot), an FM tuner and transmitter (think wireless music in your car via radio), and runs Flash (albeit Lite).

As for the dark horse in this comparison, the not so mysterious anymore BlackBerry Bold 9800 (leaked last week) looks like a serious business alternative to the iPhone 4, with its sliding QWERTY keyboard, 5MP camera and the recently previewed BlackBerry OS 6.

Will you go for an iPhone 4 or for an alternative? Sound off in the comments.