HTC has finally announced the All New HTC One M8 smartphone with a premium finish and twin cameras at the back. The All New HTC One will compete with the Samsung’s latest flagship – Galaxy S5 in several areas. While Samsung is ready to launch the Galaxy S5 in India on March 27, the arrival of All New HTC One will take few more weeks.
Samsung Galaxy S5 and the new HTC One will lock horns to fight for the top Google Android 4.4 KitKat based flagship smartphone in the market. Both companies have paid attention to the current industry trends and have tried to add as many features as they can in the devices. Let us take a closer look at both the smartphones.
Design
Samsung Galaxy S5 continues to follow the same design pattern of the flagship Galaxy smartphones. The improvement in the design comes with a perforated back panel while rest remains more or less the same. Meanwhile, HTC has added brushed aluminum unibody like feel to the new HTC One smartphone. The smartphone looks bit longer and slimmer than the predecessor. If there is a comparison of design, yet again HTC can easily walk away with the cake for great looking HTC One.
Hardware
The Galaxy S5 continues the legacy of offering great displays in flagship devices with 5.1-inch Full HD Super AMOLED Display supporting 1920×1080 pixel resolution. This display has been constructed using the Corning Gorilla Glass 3 technology for protection. Galaxy S5 continues to offer the capacitive menu buttons along with Home button in the center. HTC on the other hand continues to use the 5-inch HD Super LCD 3 touchscreen display with 1920×1080 pixel resolution. This display too has been constructed using the Corning Gorilla Glass 3 technology. This year, HTC has dropped the capacitive menu buttons. Instead the menu buttons are now part of the software interface.
Samsung and HTC have used the same hardware inside their flagship devices. The Galaxy S5 packs a quad-core 2.5 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 mobile Chipset paired with Adreno 330 GPU and 2 GB RAM. HTC has packed the same quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 chipset but clocked at 2. GHz and coupled it with Adreno 330 GPU graphics along with 2 GB RAM.
We estimate that there might be a marginal difference between the benchmark results of both devices – purely based on how the third party skin on Android 4.4 KitKat has been optimized.
Samsung has packed a download booster to offer theoretical download speeds of up to 400Mbps on Wi-Fi network. When it comes to WLAN, the Galaxy S5 supports 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac standards and the 4G LTE network technology for up to eight bands. Apart from that, the Galaxy S5 features Bluetooth 4.0, Infrared, Near Field Communication chip and micro USB 3.0 port. HTC One M8 packs exactly same set of features except the micro USB 3.0 and Download booster for the Wi-Fi network. Both smartphones will support GPS with A-GPS and GLONASS support for better location locks.
Samsung and HTC have formally moved to nano SIM card modules support in their flagship devices. Galaxy S5 packs Sensors for Accelerometer, Gyroscope, Proximity, Compass, Barometer, Humidity, Temperature, Gesture and Heart rate. HTC offers all the aforementioned sensors except the ones for Humidity, Temperature, Gesture and Heart rate. Interesting bit is that both smartphones seems to have dropped the FM Radio support.
HTC One will flaunt the BoomSound technology featuring the twin stereo speakers in the front for better audio output. The smartphone drops the Beats Audio technology in this device.
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Storage
Samsung plans to offer the Galaxy S5 smartphone with 16 GB or 32 GB on-board storage options. The smartphone also features a memory slot to support up to 128 GB micro SD card. However, HTC plans to offer the HTC One in 32 GB as well as 64 GB on-board storage option. The HTC One will also feature Memory card slot to accommodate up to 128 GB micro SD card.
Cameras
Samsung has packed a 16 megapixel rear camera with fast Autofocus in 0.3 seconds and LED flash. Packing the 16 megapixel camera, Samsung has enabled capturing high quality images with support for HDR and other fancy features using the Camera app. For Video recording, the camera can record a 4K video at 30 fps, 1080p HD video at 60 FPS and even allows HDR along with video stabilization. The smartphone offers dual shot for twin photos and dual video recording capabilities. In the front is a 2 megapixel camera which too can support full HD Video calling.
HTC on the other hand has packed two 5 megapixel cameras touting the UltraPixel camera technology and the latest HTC ImageSense Chip to power the imaging. The camera will offer same set of features as the HTC One yet faster capturing experience and some fancy image editing effects. There is a 3D effect mode which allows the user to tilt the captured to certain degrees. Of course, the high quality full HD video recording is included.
Both smartphones will pack a dedicated mic for active noise cancellation and additional one to support better audio while recording the video.
Battery
Samsung has packed a 2800 mAh Lithium Ion battery inside the Galaxy S5 and teases the “Ultra Power Saving†mode which basically limits the phone to enable using bare minimum for longer battery life. HTC has followed something similar in its Power menu of the settings for the 2600 mAh Lithium Polymer capacity battery packed inside. Both smartphones will boast of the power saving mode but actually is software level tweak to limit radios from being used unless required.
Wrapping Thoughts
Both smartphones run the Android 4.4 KitKat version at the heart with individual Skins on the top. The HTC One will feature the HTC Sense 6.0 that will bring the new user interface with several tweaks as well as under-the-hood enhancements. Similarly Samsung has packed new TouchWiz user interface and integrated the fingerprint scanner for security.
In terms of looks, HTC One M8 ranks higher than the Galaxy S5. However, the Galaxy S5 offers better package with a great display, good camera, connectivity and couple of key improvements. HTC One offers twin cameras for the adventurous. On benchmark front, both smartphones will beat each other at some level or the other. The real world performance and the price will decide the fate of these smartphones.