-What's up Prize Fight fans!
I'm Brian Tong and this is an epic battle between 2 editors' choice smartphones in the creme de la creme.
It's the Prize Fight punch out between the Apple iPhone 4S and the Motorola Droid Bionic on Verizon.
Our judges for this fight are senior associate editor Nicole "Killing Me Soft" Lee, senior editor Jessica "Duke It Out" Dolcourt, and myself Ring a Ling a Ding Tong.
Now, we'll take all 3 judges scores and average them out the nearest tenth each round.
The final Prize Fight score will be an average of all rounds using the same decimal system.
It's a 5 rounds slobber knocker.
Round 1 is design.
The iPhone 4S stays true to its iconic design and keep it sleek and sexy line.
There is no doubt it's a luxurious phone with its 3.5-inch screen with a metal and glass body, but one drop of this thing is an instant shatter and it's anything but durable.
The Droid Bionic has a ginormous and all of its 4.3-inch glory and makes the iPhone look like little person, but it's also one of the chunkiest and blocky phones you will find.
It's over gig target market probably doesn't even care plus it's the type of phone that will survive many more drops.
These form factors are so different that will be up to you, but our judges give the iPhone a 4.7 and the Droid Bionic gets a 4. Next round is user interface and controls.
If you're looking for a pickup and play easy to use interface,
Apple has nailed it with iOS 5 and there's no reason to change that.
They've added a notification's drop down that can actually be customized.
There's easy quick access to the camera and Siri, the voice assistant is just one button press away.
Now, there's also the user that wants something with more control, and the Droid Bionic brings the Motoblur user interface that has claned itself up.
You will still get android level of customization for your home screens and widgets.
There's the Swype keyboard built in and the easy access notification that started with android.
This is another round that comes down to your personal preference, but our editors give the iPhone 4S another 4.7 and the Droid Bionic gets a 4. So, after 2 rounds, the iPhone leads comfortably 4.7 of 4. Round 3 is feature.
The iPhone 4S makes plenty of under the hood improvements with the dual core processor and improved camera, Bluetooth 4.0, and it's bag of goodies from iOS 5. Apple's internal iMessage system is their answer BBM, and Siri is a whole new level voice control, but it's still not fully big.
Now the 4S's biggest drawback is that it's still a 3G phone and data speed just can't compete.
Now, if there was a round the Droid bionic should dominate it's this one with its 4G LTE and fast don't lie.
There's HDMI out, the ability to dock this phone for web top capabilities, and DLNA support plus its voice to text [unk] GPS still a rock solid.
The Droid Bionic takes this round with a perfect 5 and the iPhone 4S gets a 4. Next round is web browsing and multimedia.
The 4S still brings one of the bests mobile browsers even without flash support and it's crisp and tight with pinching and zooming.
The retina display still looks great even if watching media on it, feels a lot smaller next to the bionic and the iTunes ecosystem delivers the largest library of content you can find.
Its stand out feature though is its 8-megapixel camera that puts the competition to shame with more natural colors and sharper images both still pictures and 1080p video.
This thing is not even close.
The Droid Bionic large screen makes for a spacious browsing experience.
You have flash support that's still has its occasional heck up and it's scrolling and pinching and zooming is just a hair behind, but it doesn't hurt it.
Movies look great on the screen, but what really hurt is its 8-megapixel camera with a longer shutter lag in some cases and pictures and videos that's side by side just can't compare.
The iPhone 4S gets a perfect round of the round with a 5 and the Droid Bionic gets a 4. So after averaging 4 rounds, the iPhone's lead has been cut down to 3/10 of a point
with just 1 round left to go.
The final round that decides it all is call quality and performance.
The iPhone 4S will have varying results with call quality since it's on multiple carriers, but it had great overall call quality and clarity in our test.
It's 3G data speeds lag behind when you match up with Verizon's 4G network and it's battery life has been a little shorter with normal usage.
Now, the Droid Bionic shines here with call quality that was on the same level with the iPhone and a more consistent signal here in San Francisco.
It's 4G LTE speed can be seen and felt with any function that uses data and some web pages loaded almost twice as fast on the bionic.
The Droid Bionic scores another perfect 5 and the iPhone 4S gets a 4. So, let's average out all 5 rounds and in a prize fight where the iPhone 4S took the early lead, the Droid bionic came back with 2 perfect rounds, but it just wasn't enough and the iPhone 4S take this battle 4.5 to 4.4 and is your prize fight winner.
Now, you guys can let the flame wars begin, wrestle your friend over it, but how can you go wrong with 2 editor's choice phones.
They're really built for different types of users.
So, don't get your panties in a bunch.
Everyone is a winner here.
I'm Brian Tong.
Thanks for watching.
We'll catch you guys next time for another prize fight.
