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| System Name | Rainbow Sparkles (Power efficient, <350W gaming load) |
|---|---|
| Processor | Ryzen R7 5800x3D (Undervolted, 4.45GHz all core) |
| Motherboard | Asus x570-F (BIOS Modded) |
| Cooling | Alphacool Apex UV - Alphacool Eisblock XPX Aurora + EK Quantum ARGB 3090 w/ active backplate |
| Memory | 2x32GB DDR4 3600 Corsair Vengeance RGB @3866 C18-22-22-22-42 TRFC704 (1.4V Hynix MJR - SoC 1.15V) |
| Video Card(s) | Galax RTX 3090 SG 24GB: Underclocked to 1700Mhz 0.750v (375W down to 250W)) |
| Storage | 2TB WD SN850 NVME + 1TB Sasmsung 970 Pro NVME + 1TB Intel 6000P NVME USB 3.2 |
| Display(s) | Phillips 32 32M1N5800A (4k144), LG 32" (4K60) | Gigabyte G32QC (2k165) | Phillips 328m6fjrmb (2K144) |
| Case | Fractal Design R6 |
| Audio Device(s) | Logitech G560 | Corsair Void pro RGB |Blue Yeti mic |
| Power Supply | Fractal Ion+ 2 860W (Platinum) (This thing is God-tier. Silent and TINY) |
| Mouse | Logitech G Pro wireless + Steelseries Prisma XL |
| Keyboard | Razer Huntsman TE ( Sexy white keycaps) |
| VR HMD | Oculus Rift S + Quest 2 |
| Software | Windows 11 pro x64 (Yes, it's genuinely a good OS) OpenRGB - ditch the branded bloatware! |
| Benchmark Scores | Nyooom. |
To summarise this as briefly as i can, i have owned many phones. i currently own or have access to: Galaxy S1, S2 and S3 and the iphone 3GS, 4, and 5.
I have used and enjoyed all of them, and found flaws with all of them. and yet despite owning both sides of the smartphone fence, i ALWAYS deal with ignorant people giving me hatred for owning the 'wrong' phone so i figured what the hell - lets do a review, TPU style.
I will be going through things in the order an owner of either phone would - stuff like calls and text, making contacts, copying music to the phone.
Part 1. The phones. Samsung Galaxy S3 vs Iphone 5.
Part 2. hardware features and accessories:
Part 3: Usage!
Part 4: apps!
part 5: file transfer
part 6: media playback
part 7: multi tasking!
part 8:
Internet speed:
I have used and enjoyed all of them, and found flaws with all of them. and yet despite owning both sides of the smartphone fence, i ALWAYS deal with ignorant people giving me hatred for owning the 'wrong' phone so i figured what the hell - lets do a review, TPU style.
I will be going through things in the order an owner of either phone would - stuff like calls and text, making contacts, copying music to the phone.
Part 1. The phones. Samsung Galaxy S3 vs Iphone 5.
These two are more or less from the last generation of smartphones, as direct rivals and competitors.
http://www.gsmarena.com/apple_iphone_5-4910.php
http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_i9300_galaxy_s_iii-4238.php
GSM arena has all the detailed specs, so i'll reference those two links a bunch. look there, the site is quite educational.
(GSM arenas photos)
At the time of writing, the galaxy S3 sells in the $300-$500 price range depending on whether its the 3G or 4G model. i have the 4G (LTE) model).
The iphone 5 sells for upto $900 in aus for the 32GB model.i will not deal with 'contract locked' phones because those are for crazy people who don't know how to find a good phone plan.
http://www.gsmarena.com/apple_iphone_5-4910.php
http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_i9300_galaxy_s_iii-4238.php
GSM arena has all the detailed specs, so i'll reference those two links a bunch. look there, the site is quite educational.
(GSM arenas photos)
At the time of writing, the galaxy S3 sells in the $300-$500 price range depending on whether its the 3G or 4G model. i have the 4G (LTE) model).
The iphone 5 sells for upto $900 in aus for the 32GB model.i will not deal with 'contract locked' phones because those are for crazy people who don't know how to find a good phone plan.
Part 2. hardware features and accessories:
Saying it outright: apple has more variety in cases, bumpers, stickers, and speaker docks than should rightly exist. you can find a case with any Pokemon you want that glows in the dark and shoots fireballs at people who get the passcode wrong (well, you get the point)
Well known android devices like the galaxy S series get almost as much, but the lesser known phones (galaxy mini, ace, etc) suffer a lack of options as a comparison.
'specialty' accesories tend to swing androids way, especially in the case of the S3 and other high end devices.
Heres a list of things the most android devices (and the S3) has that the iphone 5 doesnt (and neither does any new iDevices)
*HDMI. Yes, you can get a lightning to HDMI adaptor - but its terrible. it uses airplay and streams a compressed, low quality HDMI image that cannot do 1080p - the cable itself has a CPU in it to do what the iphone 5 (and all lightning cable devices) cannot.
1. $7 cable from ebay that does 1080p perfectly while charging the phone, or a $50 cable with quality issues.... hmm, someones trying to make you buy an apple TV.
2. Memory cards/storage expansion. i added 32GB of storage to my S3 for $25.
At the time of writing this, i see a $180 price difference between the 16GB and 32GB black iphone 5 at kogan.com.au - and thats money you have to cough up when you buy the phone.
android can be fussy installing apps to SD cards, so its normally used for photos, music, and video files. still - doubling or tripling the amount of those you can store so easily is fantastic.
3. Chargers and cables: Most android devices use standard micro USB cables to charge which is a plus in their favour (cheaper and more common) while apple requires a special apple only cable, and charges far too much for a glossy white charger. (Hint: the android chargers work just fine for apple products)
Since someone asked, both the iphone 5 and galaxy S3 charge at 500ma on USB ports, or an old 'dumb' charger. Modern wall chargers add some resistance to their data lines to indicate they're capable of higher current (1A or 2A usually)
Iphone 5 and S3 are capped at 1A by default - third party tweaks allow the S3 to charge upto 1400ma (1.4A) but its not really recommended. i run at 1200.
Well known android devices like the galaxy S series get almost as much, but the lesser known phones (galaxy mini, ace, etc) suffer a lack of options as a comparison.
'specialty' accesories tend to swing androids way, especially in the case of the S3 and other high end devices.
Heres a list of things the most android devices (and the S3) has that the iphone 5 doesnt (and neither does any new iDevices)
*HDMI. Yes, you can get a lightning to HDMI adaptor - but its terrible. it uses airplay and streams a compressed, low quality HDMI image that cannot do 1080p - the cable itself has a CPU in it to do what the iphone 5 (and all lightning cable devices) cannot.
1. $7 cable from ebay that does 1080p perfectly while charging the phone, or a $50 cable with quality issues.... hmm, someones trying to make you buy an apple TV.
2. Memory cards/storage expansion. i added 32GB of storage to my S3 for $25.
At the time of writing this, i see a $180 price difference between the 16GB and 32GB black iphone 5 at kogan.com.au - and thats money you have to cough up when you buy the phone.
android can be fussy installing apps to SD cards, so its normally used for photos, music, and video files. still - doubling or tripling the amount of those you can store so easily is fantastic.
3. Chargers and cables: Most android devices use standard micro USB cables to charge which is a plus in their favour (cheaper and more common) while apple requires a special apple only cable, and charges far too much for a glossy white charger. (Hint: the android chargers work just fine for apple products)
Since someone asked, both the iphone 5 and galaxy S3 charge at 500ma on USB ports, or an old 'dumb' charger. Modern wall chargers add some resistance to their data lines to indicate they're capable of higher current (1A or 2A usually)
Iphone 5 and S3 are capped at 1A by default - third party tweaks allow the S3 to charge upto 1400ma (1.4A) but its not really recommended. i run at 1200.
Part 3: Usage!
The UI. look at iOS7 and look at the latest android. they look the same - and they work very similar.
Key differences:
Apple do not let you:
*Scroll to the left of your main screen (its nice to say, put system stuff on the left, and games on the right. why should i have a search menu there instead?)
*Put blank spaces for icons (hard to arrange/organise icons)
*Change any themes, colors, or parts of the OS. just the wallpaper. For comparison, android lets you change how everything looks - you can entirely replace the keyboard and its autocorrect.
Apple have done this to make every apple device look the same, and to be instantly able to jump from one apple product to the next - or even a friends or family member, without any learning to do (except where the hell they hid angry birds)
Android lets you change it to however you want - at the cost that if you change it too much, it'll be really weird when you upgrade to another phone without those changes.
One difference that really doesnt matter much, is that apple put EVERY setting - even for apps - inside their own settings app. in android, its usually inside the app itself. want to change a setting about your contacts? its in the contacts app - not four menus deep in the settings app.
Android also has widgets - these CAN be power consuming, but really handy. think the weather icon for the weather app, but its background changes to clouds when its cloudy, and it updates the icon every hour to show the actual temperatures.
Key differences:
Apple do not let you:
*Scroll to the left of your main screen (its nice to say, put system stuff on the left, and games on the right. why should i have a search menu there instead?)
*Put blank spaces for icons (hard to arrange/organise icons)
*Change any themes, colors, or parts of the OS. just the wallpaper. For comparison, android lets you change how everything looks - you can entirely replace the keyboard and its autocorrect.
Apple have done this to make every apple device look the same, and to be instantly able to jump from one apple product to the next - or even a friends or family member, without any learning to do (except where the hell they hid angry birds)
Android lets you change it to however you want - at the cost that if you change it too much, it'll be really weird when you upgrade to another phone without those changes.
One difference that really doesnt matter much, is that apple put EVERY setting - even for apps - inside their own settings app. in android, its usually inside the app itself. want to change a setting about your contacts? its in the contacts app - not four menus deep in the settings app.
Android also has widgets - these CAN be power consuming, but really handy. think the weather icon for the weather app, but its background changes to clouds when its cloudy, and it updates the icon every hour to show the actual temperatures.
Part 4: apps!
normally this is where you'd see pages of content, but i'm going to keep it very simple.
android has way, way more apps than apple - and many of them are shit.
iTunes has apps that tint your photos green for $1 and call it 'night vision', so hey - both have shit on them.
The one key difference here - where android wins another point - apple controls everything on their phones. if its not from iTunes or the apple app store, you cant install it, end of story.
Android? there are many stores (googles play store is merely the biggest, most official one) and you can just install apps directly. Google removed adblock from the play store, but thanks to android have the ability to 'sideload' apps, you can literally download it in the web browser from your phone and install it.
Its a security risk - you COULD install a cracked app with a virus in it, just like you COULD drop your iphone in a toilet.
android has way, way more apps than apple - and many of them are shit.
iTunes has apps that tint your photos green for $1 and call it 'night vision', so hey - both have shit on them.
The one key difference here - where android wins another point - apple controls everything on their phones. if its not from iTunes or the apple app store, you cant install it, end of story.
Android? there are many stores (googles play store is merely the biggest, most official one) and you can just install apps directly. Google removed adblock from the play store, but thanks to android have the ability to 'sideload' apps, you can literally download it in the web browser from your phone and install it.
Its a security risk - you COULD install a cracked app with a virus in it, just like you COULD drop your iphone in a toilet.
part 5: file transfer
Older android devices use USB mass storage, which works just like a flash drive for file transfer to a PC.
The S3 uses 'MTP' and 'PTP' modes which function similar to use, but add extra features no one will ever use.
Iphones just say 'screw you' and only allow you to read (not write!) photos without itunes. nothing but reading photos can be done, without third party tricks and hacks (mostly jailbroken stuff)
Both required some driver or software to transfer music across via USB - in the case of itunes, it took more steps and more time to achieve, which i take as pressure to buy the songs from itunes itself.
Apple devices dont let you transfer files between each other - a song on one, is stuck there. two iphones can sit right next to each other, and you cant even bluetooth a photo - its all about uploading it to the internet (costs you data, makes your phone company happy).
A conversation i had with my mother-in-law-to-be was her asking why no one can bluetooth photos to her, and brought up that the iphone is missing features antique nokias older than facebook have - the ability to bluetooth photos, music, ringtones, anything is very noticeably absent on iphones.
The S3 uses 'MTP' and 'PTP' modes which function similar to use, but add extra features no one will ever use.
Iphones just say 'screw you' and only allow you to read (not write!) photos without itunes. nothing but reading photos can be done, without third party tricks and hacks (mostly jailbroken stuff)
Both required some driver or software to transfer music across via USB - in the case of itunes, it took more steps and more time to achieve, which i take as pressure to buy the songs from itunes itself.
Apple devices dont let you transfer files between each other - a song on one, is stuck there. two iphones can sit right next to each other, and you cant even bluetooth a photo - its all about uploading it to the internet (costs you data, makes your phone company happy).
A conversation i had with my mother-in-law-to-be was her asking why no one can bluetooth photos to her, and brought up that the iphone is missing features antique nokias older than facebook have - the ability to bluetooth photos, music, ringtones, anything is very noticeably absent on iphones.
part 6: media playback
Music is awesome on both. i used my bob marley Zion headphones and music sounds awesome on both with default settings. you likely couldnt tell them apart unless your headphones are worth more than the phones.
Worth noting that apple give you just their itunes media player with a few equaliser presets, android you can install dozens of players with different setup, features, and sound tweaks.
A cheap android device will likely sound like crap, but if you get something at the same price as an apple product, it will sound equally as good.
Iphones tend to have a bit more power behind their headphone ports, allowing high end headphones to work better. they also allow in-line volume controls on their headsets, which is convenient for many.
I call it even for audio. iphones on average have better audio hardware (S3 is pretty much even), but have more restricted software (no .FLAC audio for the audiophiles).
Video files! apple and android play back various 'standard' files just fine. throw in a high definition H264 video in .MP4 container and both work fine and look great
throw in a 10 bit video or something else less mainstream, and you're screwed on apple. MX player let me do software decoding and play files back my laptop struggles with. (10 bit anime files w/ subtitles)
playback quality: great on both - android as always, you can just change to another player for a different look, feel, or features. the default player on the phone cant handle the 10 bit files, but MX player can. hell dice player lets me play them with picture in picture over the top of facebook - wasting time on the toilet at work has never been so productive.
apple DO let you install alternative video players, some adding in extra container support (.MKV for example) - but they're still stuck with most of the same limitations as the apple player (apple wont let them add codecs that arent hardware accelerated by the phone). you also cant change the default player on the phone - say, if you click a video link in a web browser, you get no control over what actually plays it.
As an example - if you installed VLC player as an alternative player, it would need a second copy of every file you want it to access, copied across via iTunes on a computer. many extra steps, wasted storage space on the device.
winner of this one is clearly android. apple have this locked down tight to boost itunes sales, and dont want you using media not from them.
Worth noting that apple give you just their itunes media player with a few equaliser presets, android you can install dozens of players with different setup, features, and sound tweaks.
A cheap android device will likely sound like crap, but if you get something at the same price as an apple product, it will sound equally as good.
Iphones tend to have a bit more power behind their headphone ports, allowing high end headphones to work better. they also allow in-line volume controls on their headsets, which is convenient for many.
I call it even for audio. iphones on average have better audio hardware (S3 is pretty much even), but have more restricted software (no .FLAC audio for the audiophiles).
Video files! apple and android play back various 'standard' files just fine. throw in a high definition H264 video in .MP4 container and both work fine and look great
throw in a 10 bit video or something else less mainstream, and you're screwed on apple. MX player let me do software decoding and play files back my laptop struggles with. (10 bit anime files w/ subtitles)
playback quality: great on both - android as always, you can just change to another player for a different look, feel, or features. the default player on the phone cant handle the 10 bit files, but MX player can. hell dice player lets me play them with picture in picture over the top of facebook - wasting time on the toilet at work has never been so productive.
apple DO let you install alternative video players, some adding in extra container support (.MKV for example) - but they're still stuck with most of the same limitations as the apple player (apple wont let them add codecs that arent hardware accelerated by the phone). you also cant change the default player on the phone - say, if you click a video link in a web browser, you get no control over what actually plays it.
As an example - if you installed VLC player as an alternative player, it would need a second copy of every file you want it to access, copied across via iTunes on a computer. many extra steps, wasted storage space on the device.
winner of this one is clearly android. apple have this locked down tight to boost itunes sales, and dont want you using media not from them.
part 7: multi tasking!
some of you already know where this is going. apple dont actually do any multi tasking at all, except with their music player. The moment you change to another app the first one is 'frozen' and cant do anything.
perfect example: load up twitter and facebook at the same time. swap between them, and it has to reload everything like it was opened up just then. no background updates can happen. this is done to save battery life and stop someone accidentally leaving 20 apps open doing various things
perfect example: load up twitter and facebook at the same time. swap between them, and it has to reload everything like it was opened up just then. no background updates can happen. this is done to save battery life and stop someone accidentally leaving 20 apps open doing various things
part 8:
Internet speed:
just used the speedtest.net app, same sim card, same APN, same physical location (on the floor in my kitchen because i'm cool like that)
Yes, this is phone vs phone and not really about the operating system, except for one fact: i can change the APN settings on android, and my phone carrier has two options. guess which one the iphones are locked to? (hint: the slow, congested one)
Galaxy S3: wifi and then 3G
Cant argue with that - the 3G is as fast as my home internet.
iPhone 5:
Yes, my carrier icon is boobies. i'm very mature.
The iphone falls way behind on 3G speeds. i can only assume its optimised for 4G. retested and tried other servers, results varied a lot but this was the fastest - most got me 40KB/s :/
galaxy S4 bonus test:
Yes, this is phone vs phone and not really about the operating system, except for one fact: i can change the APN settings on android, and my phone carrier has two options. guess which one the iphones are locked to? (hint: the slow, congested one)
Galaxy S3: wifi and then 3G
Cant argue with that - the 3G is as fast as my home internet.
iPhone 5:
Yes, my carrier icon is boobies. i'm very mature.
The iphone falls way behind on 3G speeds. i can only assume its optimised for 4G. retested and tried other servers, results varied a lot but this was the fastest - most got me 40KB/s :/
galaxy S4 bonus test:
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, I can charge my phone in my computer as much as fast as my power adapter.. it's between 1 and 2 hours to full charge
The quality is higher than the line-level output, and it's one less wire to deal with. 