How does the HTC One compare to Apple's new iPhone 5S? Read on for all the pros and cons.
Design and build
Despite being from opposite sides of the smartphone fence the HTC One and iPhone 5S actually have rather a lot in common design wise. Both devices feature a glass front panel and an aluminium unibody on the rear, slightly curved corners and similarly styled panels above and below the display.
There are some notable differences, however, with the main one being size: the HTC One is considerably larger, accommodating a 4.7-inch display, compared to the iPhone 5S’s 4-inch setup. HTC also uses aluminium for the two front panels which cap either end of the display and house punched stereo speaker grilles, while the back panel is curved. HTC’s design looks very tidy and high-end.
The iPhone 5S is a flatter slab and smaller, with what appears to be glass or high-end polycarbonate trim for the top-and-tail panels embedded into the aluminium frame. Overall the design is very similar to the previous iPhone 5 and it’s certainly an aesthetic that works. Apple has tweaked the formula ever-so-slightly with a metallic bezel around the Home button and a new set of colour schemes: space grey with black trim, silver with white trim and champagne gold with white trim.
Both devices have that premium feel in the hand and are very solidly made, however, in both cases aluminium does have a tendency to scratch and scuff with use or dent in the event of a drop. The iPhone 5S is more compact and extremely lightweight, it’s very easy to use with one hand.
Display
The HTC One’s 4.7-inch display uses Super LCD3 technology and a 1920x1080 pixel full HD resolution at 469 pixels-per-inch, making it one of the sharpest displays on the market as well as being nicely sized for multimedia consumption. Colour is incredibly rich, contrast robust and brightness is healthily...bright. It is, undoubtedly, one of the best smartphone displays of 2013, at least so far.
Apple has firmly stuck to its old company statements about how the human eye can’t perceive much more than 330ppi and how a 3.5 to 4-inch display is just the right balance between ease-of-use and suitability for browsing, gaming and all the rest.
While I find the iPhone 5S’s sharpness, colour and brightness agreeable enough I’m not sure I can side with Apple on the display size. For me, 4-inch touch displays just feel too pokey for extensive multimedia viewing.
Hardware
Apple’s latest A7 chipset introduces 64-bit processing architecture to the mobile space for the first time. Apple says the chip will offer twice the speed and twice the graphics rendering capability of its predecessor, and benchmark tests appear to indicate this is indeed true. However, much of the full potential of 64-bit depends on what developers do with apps in the future. At any rate, it should still be faster than the iPhone 5 – according to reports it has a higher clockspeed of 1.7GHz while still maintaining 1GB of RAM.
The HTC One is something of a powerhouse with its quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 chip, also clocked at 1.7GHz and carrying 2GB of RAM. Handsets are coming out now which are more powerful on the Qualcomm 800 chip but the Snapdragon 600 setup is still a force to be reckoned with and you’ll find slick, responsive performance on the HTC One. It’s easily capable of tackling any app or gaming content on Google Play as well as stacks of demanding multitasking or multimedia.
Speaking of multimedia, how does the storage space stack up? Well the iPhone 5S, predictably, has Apple’s set of 16GB, 32GB and 64GB onboard options with no microSD expansion capability whatsoever. Meanwhile, the HTC One has only 32GB internal space and, once again, no card support. Apple’s sitting pretty here.
One area the Cupertino-based company is a bit pleased with is the inclusion of that Touch ID fingerprint scanner in the Home button. This means you can unlock the phone simply by pressing the Home key and can make iTunes purchases by fingerprint verification. Other than these two uses, which are not exactly earth-shattering, there’s little in the way of scope. Apple has locked the fingerprint tech away from developers, so you won’t get any wider-reaching eWallet or shopping functions anytime soon, not unless Apple does so officially, at least.
Battery
Battery life on the HTC One’s 2,300mAh pack is fairly average, needing a daily charge and only lasting about half a day under heavier use.
Meanwhile the iPhone 5S carries a larger cell than its predecessor at 1,570mAh and Apple promises improved performance with around 40 hours of music playback and 10 hours of video or web browsing – around two hours more than the iPhone 5’s quoted lifespan. It remains to be seen how this stands up in testing, but historically Apple has had mixed results in this regard.
Camera
Apple’s taken the approach that a gentle tweaking of its iSight 8-megapixel camera setup will get better results than piling on the megapixels. As a result, you’ve got an f/2.2 aperture, a larger pixel size, a Hybrid IR filter, and improved back-illuminated sensor (BSI) and a dual-LED flash with amber and white LEDs.
With the iPhone 5S there’s also some clever stuff going on so that it’s already adjusting for a better picture before you’ve even taken the shot, dynamically altering for the lighting conditions and leveraging that two-tone flash to try to get the most natural colour possible.
HTC took a similar but slightly different route with the HTC One, opting for a 4.3-megapixel camera. But, it’s not what you think, as it uses larger Ultrapixels to allow in more light, along with optical image stabilisation, a large BSI sensor and f/2.0 aperture, plus an LED flash.
The results are similar to a good 8-megapixel setup and with each phone the results will be excellent for the majority of users, certainly good enough for social media sharing.
by pbriden via Featured Articles
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