Nokia Lumia iPhone 5 Series Windows 8 vs. iOS

Following the recent the release of the latest and greatest Windows phone, Verizon's Nokia Lumia Icon, news continues to surface: Facebook Messenger for Windows phone arrived March 5 as covered on Tech Crunch. Now it's time to compare the Nokia Lumia Icon to Apple's iPhone 5 series. Here are the major differences we noticed.

Differentiator: Display: Nokia Lumia Icon has a 5-inch screen while the iPhone 5 series offers 4-inch screens. At first glance, it's obvious the Nokia Lumia Icon is larger with a significantly bigger screen than the iPhones 5, 5s and 5c. Icon is also a little heavier than the iPhone. The heaviness is caused by Icon's larger screen. iPhone 5s has 1136 by 640 pixels, or 326 pixels per inch, compared to Icon's 1080 by 1920 pixels.

Apps. As is usually the case, the apps you need dictate which phone you should buy. If you really want to use your phone to manipulate Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, then you will want to try the Nokia Lumia Icon. This is a good phone. It works. It's fast. It's a nice, handy size. Most of the other phone functions you need are probably here. And it definitely handles spreadsheets more like Excel on a PC, than Apple's Numbers app does. When it comes to apps, however, the iPhone has access to far apps than the Windows phone has. Developers naturally get their apps in place for iPhone and Android, with the vast majority of phone users, before they get them in place for the relatively small number of Windows phone users.

Battery life: In our unscientific testing the Nokia Lumia Icon went longer without a charge than the iPhone 5. Nokia Lumia Icon comes with a battery saver app and also gives you an estimate in days and hours of the amount of time before it will need charging, which was nice to see. Icon easily handled an average day of work after being charged up at night. The iPhone 5 requires charging during the day if it's used heavily.

New Apple smartphones of 2014

We can confidently predict the arrival iPhone 6, although there is some debate as to when it will likely arrive. November is the safe bet, in keeping with other iPhone launches, but there is strong support for the suggestion of a May iPhone launch. This may be because Apple is also rum out red to be getting in to the table game, with a 6in 'iPhone Air' rum out red to be arriving early in the year.

Most predict that the iPhone 6 will have a bigger display and be constructed from even thinner and lighter material. Indeed it is expected to be the thinnest ever smartphone, with an unscratched Sapphire glass display. And even if Apple does launch an iPhone Air table, expect the iPhone 6 itself to be bigger - possibly with a 5in display. For more, see: iPhone 6 release date: When will the iPhone 6 be launched.