CES so far seems very much to be a smartphone-centric affair. All the excitement of the new Android versus iPhone landscape that emerged in 2010 appears to have stepped up a notch. The recently announced ‘superphones’ of CES are dual-core beasts capable of trouncing the once supremely powerful iPhone 4.
Long had Apple reigned in power and design terms with the iPhone. But last year saw companies like HTC spearheading the 1Ghz Android movement. Following the CES announcement of handsets like the dual-core Motorola Atrix however it appears that Android finally has the jump on Apple.
In fact every single CES announcement so far appears to be about trouncing Apple in one way or another. Take the LG Optimus Black for example, a phone magically 0.1mm thinner than the iPhone 4.
Similarly the Tegra 2-powered LG Optimus 2X, which packs another mighty processor punch, is aimed at one-upping the A4 chip. All the newly announced Android handsets focus on making the OS run as quickly and smoothly as possible. Something which Apple has always been far better at with iOS.
But none are yet to match the beauty of the iPhone 4’s Retina display, nor are they able to draw on the infinite ‘apptopia’ that is the iPhone’s app store.
The gradual mass-smartphone-market adoption of Android does mean that Apple’s app advantage is slowly dwindling. And the speed at which Google refines and updates Android is almost unmatched. The latest iteration, Gingerbread, runs almost as smooth as that of iOS. But many of the handsets recently announced at CES are yet to run it.
2011 definitely looks set to be the year of Android. The slew of impressive phones already announced at CES are only the beginning. With Android now having dual-core power behind it Apple will have to do something pretty impressive this year if they hope to set the tech standard.
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