Smartphones: putting the best to the test

Apps are everything on smartphones. They are what most people use between phone calls and are integral to the smartphone experience.

Apple's iOS App Store boasts more than 700,000 apps. Google has been closing the gap on its rival, and now has 675,000 apps in its Google Play store.

When it comes to getting the latest smartphone that connects to the new, faster LTE 4G networks, there are several options to choose from.

There are HTC's Velocity, One XL and Titan, as well as Motorola's Razr HD and Samsung's Galaxy S II.

But there are two others that stand out from the pack: Apple's iPhone 5, which runs on Apple's own iOS 6 mobile operating system, and Samsung's Galaxy S III 4G, which runs on Google's Android Jelly Bean platform.

When comparing technical specifications, the Galaxy is much faster than the iPhone. With a 1.4GHz quad-core processor, the Galaxy beats the iPhone's dual-core processor, which is rated at almost 1.3GHz, meaning the Galaxy can process information a lot faster.

The Galaxy also has 2GB of RAM, 1GB more than the iPhone 5. RAM helps a phone process information, and the more RAM it has, the faster it can operate.
When timing how long it took to open a number of apps on each phone, I found some surprising results. This is something that's likely to depend more on how an app is made by an app developer, but the smartphone itself does play some part in having the necessary computing power to open an app quickly.

Read more: Apple iPhone 5 v Samsung Galaxy S III 4G | Video, Photos