One of the most exciting mobile phone launches of 2011 will face new competition in the form of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. The iPhone 4S has been delighting consumers since its launch in October, but Samsung’s new phone is destined to become the most desirable phone available today. We look at web browser installations on both models.
The iPhone 4S uses the familiar Safari browser that we’ve seen included in previous versions of the phone. However, things are a bit different on this new model as the new iOS5 operating system has made some significant improvements to the browser. Tabbed browsing is a pretty common feature, so it’s no big surprise to find it included in the 4S. Your phone allows you to run up to 8 different web pages at the same time, allowing you to scroll back and forth between different websites. If you find a site that’s of particular interest, you now have the option to not only bookmark the page, but also add it to your Reading List so you can easily access it later. Many modern websites are full of ads and multimedia content, and the new Reader mode is perfect for such sites. When you click the icon at the top of the screen, the phone removes all unnecessary content from the page, leaving you with a simple text document that’s much easier to read than the original. The only downside to the Safari browser on the 4S is that it doesn’t support Adobe Flash files, which means some video content can’t be viewed when browsing the web.
The Samsung Galaxy Nexus uses the basic Android web browser and looks great on the phone’s large 4.65-inch screen. Apart from the obvious benefits gained from the large screen size, the browser is also very fast thanks to the dual core processor that the model uses. If you want to zoom in on a particular segment of a web page, the Nexus allows you to use a pinch-to-zoom method or simply double-tap the area you want to zoom in on. This zoom feature works very well, although the phone doesn’t let you get as close as the iPhone 4S does. When viewing multiple sites in this model, the pages are displayed in a vertical list on the screen. This doesn’t feel as natural as Apple’s phone, which lets you swipe horizontally to read other pages you have open. This system is more similar to what we’re used to from desktop systems like Internet Explorer and Google Chrome, and therefore instantly feels more familiar than the vertical layout. Adobe Flash is not supported in this version of the Android browser; however, a software update will be available soon that will change this.
There is very little to choose from in quality between the web browsers used in the Samsung Galaxy Nexus and the iPhone 4S. Both models offer a great online experience and are perfect devices for browsing the web on the go.
