2 years ago Samsung launched Galaxy Note and started a whole new category of devices. Media named this category as “Phablet”. The word Phablet is combination of words “phone” and “tablet”. As the name suggest, Phablets are more than conventional phone but less than tablet computers. Main drawback of conventional phone is that they are small for watching videos, playing games, browsing web and main drawback of tablet computer is that they are not portable like phone. Samsung solved this problem with the launch of Galaxy Note. They also added S-Pen which is nothing but a stylus that pushed productivity on the whole new level. After few days of its launch, Galaxy Note became hugely popular among geeks, artists and business men and every other company started introducing phablets.
Nokia joined this phablet race with its Lumia 1520 and few months back Samsung launched 3rd version of its highly popular Note phablet, Galaxy Note 3 which is slimmer, faster, lighter and longer than previous generation Note phablets. Many started to ask us which one better phablet among these two. To help them we are going to compare both on the basis of size, display, performance, value for money etc. Samsung Galaxy Note 3 has two variants depending upon the processor used in it, one variant uses Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor and another uses Samsung made octa-core Exynos processor. For comparison we are using Exynos based Note 3. So Here’s Nokia Lumia 1520 vs. Samsung Galaxy Note 3. Let the war begin!
Design
Nokia Lumia 1520 and Samsung Galaxy Note 3 both belong to the category phablet. As compared to Galaxy Note 3, Lumia 1520 is longer, wider, thicker and heavy. Dimensions of Nokia Lumia 1520 are 162.8 * 85.4 * 8.7 mm whereas Galaxy Note 3 measures 151.2 * 79.2 * 8.3 mm. This difference is because Lumia 1520 has larger 6 inch screen and Galaxy Note 3 has 5.7 inch screen. Nokia Lumia weighs 209 grams and Galaxy Note 3 weighs 168 grams. Both the phablets are pocket friendly but handling Galaxy Note 3 is easy and comfortable. Build quality of both devices is quite good but back of Nokia Lumia 1520 is fingerprint magnet. The back of Galaxy Note 3 is made from plastic but give rich leather like feel.
Winner is Galaxy Note 3.
Display
Nokia Lumia 1520 has 6 inch Full HD (1080*1920 resolution) IPS LCD ClearBlack display with pixel density of 367 ppi. Galaxy Note 3 also has Full HD display but size of display is 5.7 inch and it is Super AMOLED type and gives pixel density of 386 ppi. Both the displays has there pros and cons, both are Full HD displays. Both gives superb sunlight visibility, viewing angles.
Hence it’s a draw.
Memory
Phablet is great device to watch HD videos. Hence they should have enough memory to store full HD movies in it. And for multitasking they should have enough RAM also. Lumia 1520 has 32 GB internal memory and microSD card support up to 64 GB. Galaxy Note 3 comes in either 16 GB or 32 GB or 64 GB internal memory versions and has microSD card support up to 64 GB. Lumia 1520 has 2 GB RAM whereas Galaxy Note 3 has 3 GB RAM. Memory wise both the phablets are identical. Now you may think that Note 3 has 3 GB RAM and Lumia 1520 has 2 GB but as performance wise there is no difference because Android needs that much RAM.
Hence it is also a draw.
Connectivity
Both the phablets have wide variety of connectivity options. Both have GPRS, EDGE, HSDPA, HSUPA, LTE, Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi Hotspot, Bluetooth v4.0 with A2DP, A-GPS and NFC. Lumia 1520 has microUSB v2.0 whereas Note 3 has microUSB v3.0 with USB Host functionality. Also what keeps Galaxy Note ahead of Lumia 1520 is its Infrared Port. You can use Galaxy Note 3 as remote control. Hence in connectivity comparison Galaxy Note is slightly ahead of Lumia 1520.
Winner is Samsung Galaxy Note 3.
Camera
Camera is one of the important part of smartphone/tablets. And Nokia is always one step ahead when it comes to camera department since Symbian era. They gave best cameraphone to us including legendary Nokia N95, Nokia N8, Nokia 808 PureView, Lumia 920 and Lumia 1020 and this time also they are giving amazing 20 MP Carl Zeiss camera with Optical Image Stabilization and PureView technology in Lumia 1520. Rear 20 MP camera of Lumia 1520 is capable of shooting videos in 1080p@30 fps. On the front it has 1.2 MP camera which is capable of shooting 720p videos @30 fps.
On the other hand side, Galaxy Note 3 has 13 MP rear camera with single LED flash which is also capable of shooting videos in 1080p@30 fps. On the front, Note 3 has 2 MP camera which is also capable of shooting 1080p videos @30 fps.
Both phablets have dual shoot mode, recording and capturing photo facility, face detection etc. but to be frank Lumia 1520 has amazing camera.
Hence winner is Nokia Lumia 1520.
S-Pen
S-Pen is the feature that keeps Note 3 ahead when it comes to productivity. You get many cool features in Note 3 like Action Memo, Scrapbook, Screen Write, S Finder, Pen Windows, S Note, Multi Windows. All these features are very handy for productivity.
On the other hand except camera, nothing really impressed us.
Samsung Galaxy Note 3 is the winner.
Operating System
Nokia Lumia 1520 runs on Microsoft Windows Phone 8 Black OS whereas Samsung Galaxy Note 3 runs on Android 4.3 Jelly Bean OS. This is the main difference between these two phablets. Both the platform are great but what keep Android ahead of Windows Phone is availability of apps. Google Play Store has many apps as compared to Windows Phone Store. Also with Android you get lot of customization options. You can root your Android device and can install different ROMs and all. Open source nature of Android is very beneficial for users.
Winner is Samsung Galaxy Note 3.
Performance
Lumia 1520 is powered by most powerful quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor clocked at 2.2 GHz and Adreno 330 GPU. Galaxy Note 3 is powered by Samsung’s Exynos 5 Octa 5420 CPU with Adreno 330 GPU. Performance of Lumia 1520 is slightly better because of this. But here 3 GB RAM helps Note 3 to draw this fight.
Battery
Both the phablets got massive battery to keep working throughout the day. Li-ion 3400 mAh battery powers Lumia 1520 and Li-ion 3200 mAh battery powers Note 3. But battery of Note 3 is user replaceable and smaller screen of Note 3 not consume as much juice as Lumia 1520.
Winner is Samsung Galaxy Note 3.
Price
Both the devices are available in India. Price of Nokia Lumia 1520 is Rs. 46,999 and Samsung Galaxy Note 3 will cost you Rs. 46,000 about.
Conclusion
To be frank this is one of the hardest comparisons for us, as both the devices are fantastic. But still Note 3 proved to be better. Hence we give Samsung Galaxy Note 3 PICK and Nokia Lumia 1520 KICK.
