Speed Tests - Survival of the Quickest

Growing up as a child I still remember always trying to download some game, app, or movie onto my phone via the wifi before leaving to go on a long trip, usually to somewhere down south of where i'm from (Buffalo). But not all the time would whatever I was downloading finish before my parents started to yell at me to get in the car so that we could leave. In the cases when the downloads did not finish, lets just say it was not an enjoyable car ride, for anyone.

Today most cell-phone users have a data plan where if they left a wifi hotspot it would not interrupt their download. But not every cell user wants to be downloading things on their data plan, since it uses a lot of it and costs them money. This is why I will be testing the different download speeds of games and other applications across all three devices. 

Since all the phones don't have any way for myself to access the download time information I will just be using a stopwatch (for all intensive purposes this should still show an accurate representation of its speed) to record the download speeds. After I have gotten the time it took to download the apps of all the things I downloaded, I will move into accessing the speed of the apps once inside them, such as time it takes to load pages and information (since this will be too close to call with a stopwatch, I will just be playing around with each app myself and relaying what one I visually saw work the quickest).

I will be downloading the applications Facebook, since its a very popular social media site, and The Weather Channel. Each phone is also connected to the same wifi service, and that is John Carroll University's closed network, jcuwpa2. According to speedtest.net, as I conduct these test the wifi download speeds reached close to 135mbps and upload speeds close to 140mbps.

Here are the results of the tests:

Facebook: 
Windows phone:   

                               Download time - 20.3 seconds from time of click

Android phone:  

                               Download time - 15.7 seconds from time of click

iOS phone:

                               Download time - 12.3 seconds from time of click

The Weather Channel: 
Windows phone:    

                               Download time - 17.3 seconds from time of click

Android phone: 

                               Download time - 15.4 seconds from time of click

iOS phone:          

                               Download time - 11.1 seconds from time of click

Based on the data above, we can clearly see that the iOS device is the fastest to download applications, followed by Android then Windows. Now that all the applications have been installed on the three devices, it is time for myself to ravage through them and see the speed of the apps once in them, again, since there is no way for me to get actual times I will just be analyzing the speed myself (and don't worry, you can trust me).

What I found out after going through all the apps is that they are all visually different. With Facebook, all the apps had a different feel to them, and I could easily tell they were on different devices. Browsing from page to page on all the devices within Facebook I was able to conclude that the iOS device had the smoothest and quickest transitions when it would load new information. The runner-up however was to close to call. The Android device and Windows device both were extremely similar with its speed in the app. Although the Android device did download faster than the Windows phone, it did not manage to beat it once inside the app. With that being said, I am going to have to call this once a tie.

With The Weather Channel application however, there was a noticeable difference in speed across all the phones. Once again the iOS device finished at the top of the list, having had the quickest load times compared to the other two. This time however, the runner-up corresponds to the order of what apps downloaded the quickest, so in second place is the Android device. For some reason the Windows device was significantly slower than the other two, sometimes as much as five seconds slower to load a simple page within it. I found this interesting to happen within this application and not Facebook, since Facebook needs to load in a lot more information for the user to see.

Overall we can see clearly that the iOS device remains superior to the other two. Although the numbers were close and speeds were similar only one can still take home the gold. 

First Look

When I go shopping for a new phone every two years after my contract with Verizon expires I love being able to walk into the store and see all the new devices they have. Although people say all the time not to judge a book by its cover I tend to still do that when selecting my next phone. Structural design and its visual appeal to me take a large role in the decision making process. If I don't find a phone aesthetically pleasing then odds are right off the bat I will not look any further into finding more out about that device.

iPhone:

 

HTC:

 

Samsung:

 

With regards to the three devices I will be examining, I find all of them to be aesthetically pleasing to me. The iPhone is by far the largest of the three devices, offering a 4.7" screen with a slim design. The Samsung devices follows in a close second to the iPhone with a 4.3" display and a slightly thicker design. And lastly the HTC phone is the largest structurally compared to the other two, but the smallest when looking at only screen size, coming in at only 3.6".

Another feature to be quickly noticed when viewing all the phones side by side is that the Apple phone and the Samsung phone both only offer one method of character input into the phone, and that is by a single touchscreen interface on the one side of the device. The HTC phone however offers two methods of input, a touchscreen much like the ones on the Apple and Samsung phones, and a full-sized slide-out keyboard that is displayed if you slide the devices screen to the side. Personally I do not prefer one method of input over the other, but if you are one who needs a physical keyboard, then the HTC might be more in your favor.

The last noticeable feature of the phones are the buttons that lay on the bottom of the front screens. With the iPhone we only see one button at the bottom, which is commonly referred to has the Home button. It got its name from literally what it does, bringing you to the home screen of the device. This can be a good thing if you like simplicity, but some can say it doesn't properly utilize space having only one button on the front. Unlike the iPhone however, the HTC and Samsung both contain four buttons on the front. The HTC's outermost buttons are multipurpose and can be used to do many different tasks depending on what screen you are on or app you are in. The button on the middle left location bring you to the Start Page of the phone, which contains apps and other setting features. The button on the middle right is a back button, which just brings you to the previous page you were on in your phone. Lastly, the Samsung's left most button brings up a quick menu of shortcuts for things like settings and editing the current page. The middle left button is the home button, which again just bring you to the home page. The middle right button is the back button and the last button is a search button, which allows you to instantly search the web or the app you are in.

Overall the first impressions of all the phones are were good in my opinion. If I had to pick a phone as the overall aesthetic winner I would pick the Samsung device. It contains a modest sized screen, which is good for me because i'm not concerned with having the largest screen, as well as many buttons to allow you to easily access different features of the phone.

Welcome!

Over the next several weeks I will be posting weekly comparing and contrasting the Apple iPhone 6 (iOS), Samsung Charge (Android), and HTC Touch Pro2 (Windows). All three devices offer many of the same capabilities but also have their own distinguishing features that set them apart from the rest.

Some of the features I will be looking at while comparing them include security, software, interface, speed, application stores, as well as much more as I discover it along the way. These features are the key to understanding which operating system is the best overall and/or what one suits yourself the best. Since everyone has different things they are looking for in a phone, being able to see all three side by side can help in the decision process when deciding what phone you like the most. I will attempt to avoid comparing and contrasting the physical differences about the phones and instead focus mainly on the technical aspects of each phone, such as the operating system and what it has to offer.

Personally I have been an iPhone owner for many years already, and don't see myself switching to any other device any time soon. However, I have owned an android device in the past, the Samsung Droid Charge, which I had an overall great experience with. The only device I am still unfamiliar with is the Windows phone. I have heard mixed reviews of what the Windows system has to offer, and I am hoping this blog will help myself, as well as all those reading this right now, learn more about this operating system, as well as the iOS system and Android system, and then be able to make a decision of their own as to what one is the best, as that is what I will be doing too.

People all the time claim that their phone is superior to rest of what's offered, but what phone and its corresponding operating system will prevail? This is the question I hope to answer as I put each one to the test.