This is the year of 5 inch 1080p phones. Samsung has one, Sony has two, and now Pantech has formally announced the Iron. I covered the rumors about this device about a week ago, and they said the phone would be “bezel-less”. According to Pantech’s official press release, the front of the phone is 75.5% screen. That’s fantastic, and I’m not denying the remarkable engineering that went into making the Iron, but the front of Sony’s Xperia ZL is 75.8% screen.
And unlike the Iron, which will probably never leave South Korea, the Xperia ZL is relatively easy to find. Today. Where the Iron bites Sony is in terms of processing power. Whereas the ZL uses a Snapdragon S4 Pro, the Iron has the brand spanking new Snapdragon 600. That’s the same chip that’s inside HTC’s One and Samsung’s Galaxy S4. The Iron also has a metal body, which I can only assume feels an order of magnitude than the ZL’s plastic exterior.
As for the rest of the specs, it has a 13 megapixel camera, it runs Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, with no word on when 4.2 will come out, and it has a rather anemic 2,150 mAh battery.
If you’re now considering buying the ZL, I’m going to have to suggest you wait, because there are rumors floating around that it’s going to get refreshed this summer and that it’ll have that ultra quick Snapdragon 600 chip inside. Whether or not it’ll retain that 75.8% screen to device ratio is something I don’t know, but I hope it does.
Update: Stop the presses! According to Engadget, the phone has a 720p display. Ugh!
Update: The Korean site Bodnara has some amazing coverage of the Iron launch, including a video that I’ve embedded below. This phone is so incredibly good looking.
