Sony Xperia S vs Samsung Galaxy Note: Big Boys do Battle

The Sony Xperia S was unveiled at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), held at Las Vegas in the United States. The Xperia S is special because it is the first Sony-branded smartphone following the company's acquiring Ericsson's stake in the smartphone brand Son-Ericsson. Moreover, the Xperia S is also a next-generation PlayStation-certified smartphone.

On the other hand, the Galaxy Note has become a hit, not the least because of the impressive screen and the S Pen. It allows users to jot down notes, draw sketches and browse the Internet.

Check out how the smartphones stack up:

Display

The Sony Xperia S flaunts a 4.3in scratch resistant TFT touchscreen with a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels. It supports multi-touch (up to ten fingers) functionality. It incorporates a Reality Display with Sony mobile Bravia engine as well as Timescape User Interface (UI). The Bravia engine enhances sharpness, increases contrast, saturation and noise reduction of the photos and videos.

In comparison, the Galaxy Note touts a gorgeous-looking 5.3in Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen with a resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels. It includes an advanced Corning Gorilla glass feature which defends the screen from scratches and dust. Additionally, it comes with TouchWiz 4.0 UI which features visual improvements.

Processor

The Xperia S is powered by a 1.5GHz dual-core CPU and Qualcomm MSM8260 Snapdragon chipset. The Snapdragon chipset has technology designed to allow better graphics and faster connectivity. It includes the Adreno 220 GPU which features an advanced level of 3D graphics performance.

In contrast, the Galaxy Note is powered by a 1.4GHz ARM Cortex-A9 dual-core processor and Exynos 4210 chipset. It includes the Mali 400 MP GPU which provides a complete graphics acceleration platform, handles graphics system and minimises battery life as well.

Both smartphones have 1GB of RAM.

Camera

The Sony smartphone boasts of a 12.1 megapixel rear-facing camera with LED flash and auto-focus. It features 3D sweep panorama, face recognition and smile shutter. It enables full HD video recording at 1080p and offers a front-facing camera of 1.3 megapixels for video chats.

The Galaxy Note comes with an 8 megapixel rear-facing camera. The features are auto-focus, LED flash as well as several shooting modes like Single Shot, Smile Shot and Panorama. It offers video recording of 1080p and a 2 megapixel secondary camera for video calling.

Operating System

Both smartphones run on the Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) operating system. However, the smartphones could be upgraded to Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich), which features multi-tasking, rich notifications, resizable widgets and new lock screen actions.

Storage

The Xperia S offers onboard storage of 32GB and the device lacks a microSD card slot. In comparison, the Samsung smartphone has two models - with 16GB and 32GB respectively. It, additionally, has a microSD card slot.

Battery

The Sony Xperia S has a Li-Ion 1750mAh standard battery which allows for stand-by time of up to 450 hours on 2G and 420 hours on 3G networks. It offers talk-time of up to seven hours 30 minutes on 2G and eight hours 30 minutes on 3G networks.

On the other hand, the Galaxy Note includes a Li-Ion 2500mAh standard battery which provides for stand-by time of up to 960 hours on 2G and 820 hours on 3G networks. It allows talk-time of up to 26 hours 10 minutes on 2G and 13 hours 30 minutes on 3G networks.