Oct 29, 2012 2:38 PM

Side by Side: The Flagship Handsets for Android, iOS, and Windows Phone

Google, Microsoft, and Apple have now officially announced their flagship handsets for the year for their respective mobile operating systems. On Android, we’ve got the Nexus 4; for iOS, the iPhone 5; and for Windows Phone 8, the Nokia Lumia 920 and HTC 8X. How do they stack up?

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Google, Apple, and Microsoft have all now officially announced their flagship handsets and mobile-OS updates for the year. It’s the new Nexus 4 phone and 4.2 Jelly Bean for Android; the iPhone 5 and iOS 6 for Apple; and the Nokia Lumia 920 and HTC 8X both running Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8.

Now that we’ve got all the facts, how do these premier handsets measure up against one another?

From a specs standpoint, it’s a close race. Although Apple upped the screen size of its iPhone to 4 inches, Android and Windows Phone tend towards larger 4.5-inch displays. However, they’re all pixel-packed, high-resolution displays.

If phone weight is a concern, the iPhone 5 is the lightest of the bunch by half an ounce. It’s also the thinnest.

All four of these phones feature 8-plus-megapixel rear-facing cameras, the standard among top handsets these days. Their front-facing video-chat cameras range from 1 to 2 megapixels.

The LG Nexus 4 and Nokia Lumia 920 lead the pack when it comes to adopting new technologies. Both feature NFC and wireless charging. As for connectivity, all except the Nexus 4 include 4G LTE, but we wouldn’t be surprised to see a Nexus 4 model with LTE in the near future.

Check out the chart below for a full spec-by-spec comparison of these four handsets.