Samsung Galaxy S4 vs HTC One

Samsung Galaxy S4 vs HTC One

CPU
Faster CPU clock speed	8x 1.6 GHz	vs	4x 1.7 GHz	1.88x faster CPU clock speed.
CAMERA
Distinctly more megapixel (photo)	13 MP	vs	4 MP	3.25x more megapixel (photo).
Has continuous autofocus when recording movies	Yes	vs	No	When recording movies they stay focussed and sharp.
Has a CMOS sensor	Yes	vs	No	The CMOS sensor captures the image. Most devices have CCD sensors but some have CMOS sensors which is produced by a CMOS process and has emerged as an alternative to charge-coupled device (CCD) image sensors leading to better image quality.
PHYSICAL
Lighter	130 g	vs	143 g	13 g lighter.
Less body volume	75.32 cm³	vs	87.15 cm³	13.57% less body volume.
Shorter	136.6 mm	vs	137.4 mm	0.8 mm shorter.
Thinner	7.9 mm	vs	9.3 mm	1.4 mm thinner.
Explicitly lower SAR for head (USA)	0.85 W/kg	vs	1.26 W/kg	0.41 W/kg lower SAR for head (USA). SAR (Specific Absorption Rate) describes how much radio frequency energy emitted by the device will be absorbed by your body. The rate is measured at head level. The legal limit is 1.6 W/kg in the USA.
POWER
More battery power	2,600 mAh	vs	2,300 mAh	13.04% more battery power.
Has a removable battery	Yes	vs	No	The battery is removable and can be replaced by the user if broken
Wireless charging	Yes	vs	No	It can be charged w/o any plugs and wires similar to electric shavers or toothbrushes (as extra).
DISPLAY
A shade bigger screen size	5"	vs	4.7"	6.38% bigger screen size. The bigger the screen size is, the better the user experience.
CONNECTIVITY
Has an external memory slot	Yes	vs	No	The device has a standard memory slot (such as an SD or micro SD card slot) so that you can either extend the internal storage with affordable memory modules or you can retrieve data, such as photographs, easily from a memory card.
Design Samsung Galaxy S4 – Plastic body, 7.9mm thick, 130g HTC One – Aluminium and plastic body, 9.3mm thick, 143g If you were to play a game of mobile phone top trumps, you could easily conclude that the Samsung Galaxy S4 wins in a battle of bods. It’s slimmer and lighter than the HTC One.  However, in-hand the reality is quite different. The HTC One doesn’t feel particularly heavily – mostly because it isn’t – and the curvy ergonomics of the phone’s rear stop it from feeling remotely chunky. We’re starting to think that Samsung cares a lot more about hardware specs than actual people do. What sets the HTC One apart from the Samsung Galaxy S4 is its use of aluminium. The whole of the rear is aluminium, giving the cool-to-the-touch feel that’s really the main reason for using metal rather than plastic.   The Samsung Galaxy S4 feels a lot like its predecessor. It’s impressively slim and light, but the use of a plastic battery cover stops from feeling as flashy, or as hard as an iPhone 5 or HTC One. Ultimately it’s a shallow victory for the HTC as the aluminium used in the phone is just as prone to scratches as the plastic of the Samsung. But it doesn’t half feel great in the hand. Teardowns of the two phones reveal that, predictably, the Samsung Galaxy S4 is a lot easier to repair than the HTC One. The metal unibody design makes the phone almost impossible to take apart without damage. DIY fixes are not going to be easy with HTC's latest.  Internal Speaker Samsung Galaxy S4 – Mono rear-mounted speaker HTC One – Dual front-mounted speakers Like most phone speakers, the Samsung Galaxy S4’s is a simple mono speaker mounted to the rear of the phone. You’ll find its grille on the bottom left, cut into the plastic battery cover.  Tonally, the Samsung Galaxy S4 speaker isn’t hugely impressive, lacking some of the finesse of a rival mono speaker like the iPhone 5’s. However, it can produce decent volume without sounding too strained.  HTC put a lot more attention into the One’s internal speakers, making it one of the phone’s key features. There are two drivers, one to each side of the screen.  When holding the HTC One in landscape orientation, it’ll supply a decent stereo image, as each speaker is roughly pointed at each of your ears. Few phones pay as much attention to speakers.  The tone of the HTC One speakers isn’t miraculous, but they are a cut above, and provide good volume without distorting. This is a clear with for HTC.  Screen Samsung Galaxy S4 – 5-inch, 1080p resolution, Super AMOLED HTC One – 4.7-inch, 1080p resolution, IPS Is bigger always better? The HTC One has a slightly smaller display than the Samsung Galaxy S4, with 4.7 inches instead of five.  As a result, the Samsung Galaxy S4 is a teeny bit wider – around 1.5mm - than the HTC One. The difference is so small because Samsung aggressively slimmed-down the phone’s screen bezel. There remain some minor handling benefits to the HTC One, thanks to the smaller screen. Both phones use a 1080p-resolution screen panel, offering supremely sharp text and images. The HTC One’s pixel density is slightly higher, but with both phones offering 400-plus pixels per inch, looking too deep into pixel density is pointless. A keen eye might just be able to see the HTC One is a bit sharper, but it’s not just down to the resolution. It’s also the type of panel used.  The HTC One uses an IPS screen, much like that of the iPhone 5. The Samsung Galaxy S4, like its predecessors, has an AMOLED-type screen.  Most AMOLED screens, including the Galaxy S4’s, use a pixel sub-arran called PenTile. This is not as regular as the RBG arrangement found in most LCD screens, reducing sharpness slightly. There are so many pixels to go around here that it’s a trifling problem - when reviewing the phon we didn't notice any lack of sharpness whatsoever. However, we do still prefer the look of IPS displays. AMOLED screens have a tendency to oversaturate colours, giving an unnatural look to images.  Samsung offers colour temperature modes that cool down the colours a little, but we still prefer the natural colours and super-bright maximum setting of the HTC's IPS screen.  Storage Samsung Galaxy S4 – 16-64GB of storage, microSD slot HTC One – 32/64GB internal memory, no memory card slot  So far the HTC One has won a few points, but Samsung strikes back with storage. One of the reasons why the Galaxy series has won so many geek points over the years is it continued inclusion of a microSD memory card slot. This makes it tremendously easy and cheap to upgrade storage.  The HTC One sacrifices the memory card slot for a unibody design. You have no access to the phone’s internals with this mobile. It’s available with 32GB of internal memory in the UK.  Expandable memory is something to consider pretty seriously if you want to use your phone as your main music player, or as a portable video buddy. 32GB will soon run out when put to these uses – especially as Android chomps-up some of the 32GB CPU and Power Samsung Galaxy S4 – 1.9GHz Exynos octa-Core / quad-core Snapdragon 600, 2GB RAM HTC One – 1.7GHz quad-core Snapdragon 600, 2GB RAM However, it is one of the most powerful – if not the most powerful – phone around. The UK edition of the Samsung Galaxy S4 has a 1.9GHz quad-core Qualcomm APQ8064T Snapdragon 600 CPU, based on the Krait architecture. This is paired with 2GB of RAM. The HTC uses a processor from the same family, but it is clocked slightly slower – at 1.7GHz instead of 1.9GHz. It too has 2GB of RAM. And both phones use the Adreno 320 graphics chip. You might assume that the difference between the two would be slight, but benchmarks do show a pretty big gap. In the Sunspider java test – which shows how fast a phone can render web pages  - the Galaxy S4 trounces the poor old HTC One. In the AnTuTu test, a benchmark that’s a pretty good indicator of general performance across all sorts of tasks, it scores a solid 3,000 points more – 10 per cent more.  (lower scores are better in Sunspider) (higher scores are better in AnTuTu) At this point, there’s not a great deal to challenge either phone – both the Galaxy S4 and HTC One are at the top of their game. However, the extra injection of grunt in the Samsung phone will be handy a year down the line.  Software Samsung Galaxy S4 – Android 4.2 with TouchWiz HTC One – Android 4.1 with HTC Sense 5 Although the Samsung Galaxy S4 will ship with a slightly newer version of Android – 4.2 instead of the HTC One’s 4.1.2 – what’s much more important is the difference between the Samsung custom UI and Sense 5, HTC’s Android interface.   They demonstrate two different approaches. The Samsung Galaxy S4 wants to pack in as many cool-sounding gadgety features as possible while the HTC One is happy to keep things simple. The HTC One offers BlinkFeed as its main interface tweak. This is a home screen that shows recent updates including articles, tweets and Facebook updates as tiles, arranged to look slick as they careen down the screen with a flick of your finger.  HTC has also reworked the look of the interface too, making Sense appear a lot more stark and bold. However, if you like the old Sense look you can revert to that style easily enough.  Samsung hasn’t really altered the look of the TouchWiz UI of the Galaxy S3 for the 2013 model. However, it has introduced a bunch of new features. These include S Health, Smart Scroll, S Translator and Air Gesture. S Health is fitness tracker app, Smart Scroll lets you tilt the phone to scroll text, S Translator is a clever translation app and Air Gesture lets you interact with the Galaxy S4 without even touching the screen. Clever, eh?  The question is – how many of these will you actually use? Whether the interface of the Galaxy S4 is actually better than Sense 5 is largely a case of personal preference. However, we prefer the pared-back style of Sense 5. What do you think? Camera Samsung Galaxy S4 – 13-megapixel BSI sensor with LED flash, 2MP user-facing sensor HTC One – 4-megapixel UltraPixel sensor with LED flash, 2.1MP user-facing sensor The argument with camera tech is curiously similar. The Samsung Galaxy S4 tries to impress with its abundance of features, while the HTC one uses a more stripped-back approach. First comes the differences in sensors. The Galaxy S4 has a 13-megapixel sensor, while the HTC one has a 4-mepapixel sensor. The sensors are roughly the same size, though, meaning that the HTC One’s sensor pixels can be a good deal larger. Larger sensor pixels means more light can be reaped per pixel within the same exposure time. You guessed it – better low-light performance is what results. However, in dazzling sunlight, the Samsung Galaxy S4 will be able to recreate finer details – particularly visible when you zoom in. Detail The zoomed-out views of the London skyline show that both cameras produce punchy, high contrast photos in good lighting. However, note the different colour reporoduction and exposure levels of the left side of the sky. There's a slightly odd green hue to the HTC One's photo, and some parts of some clouds are clearly overexposed.  There are no clearly overexposed areas in the Samsung Galaxy S4 photo.  At pixel level (these are exact pixel crops), the difference between the two sensors is dramatically clear. There's much less information in an HTC One photo, and while the HTC phone produces a decent amount of detail for its resolution, four megapixels just can't compete with 13.  Macro Both the focal length and the sensor resolution of these phones affected macro performance. Macro photography is all about reaping as much detail as possile from a close-up object. Today's test suject is a cuddly toy of the character Om Nom, from mobile game series Cut the Rope.  The photos below are of the cuddly's right leg. Samsung Galaxy S4 HTC One  The HTC struggled to focus as close-up as the Samsung, and even when in focus, the level of detail captured was significantly lower.  We should point out that this is a particularly tricky setup for these cameras as lighting was the limited indoors type rather than the dazzling sunshine of your typical flower/leaf macro test. HDR Mode HDR stands for high dynamic range and melds multiple exposures to get the most detail out of a scene as possible - both increasing image information in dark/shadow areas and getting rid of overexposed areas.  Both phones perform pretty well here. However, look to the left of the HTC One's sky and the clouds appear quite closed to becoming overexposed. The expsoure of the Samsung shot is more even. Low light So far the Samsung has triumphed over the HTC camera. However, it wins back many points in the low light test. The whole point of the "UltraPixel" sensor of the HTC One is to improve low light performance.  And it works. The HTC shot is much less noisy, much clearer and more detailed than the Samsung photo.  Where the edges of object are barely discernable in the Galaxy S4 photo, they're obvious in the HTC One shot.  Interface The Samsung Galaxy S4 offers a snazzy camera interface based on that of the Galaxy Camera, where modes are picked using an animated 3D "dial".  The HTC One’s interface is rather more standard, but it does offer an eye-catching feature in Zoe mode. This is a mode that captures a short video clip along with a still, which can then be weaved into a 30-second clip to share online.  Which is better? Each claims a win in a certain set of conditions. The Samsung Galaxy S4 can produce much better photos in the right conditions, but thanks to its low-light performance the HTC One is a little more versatile.    Verdict The battle between the Samsung Galaxy S4 and HTC One is a close and fierce fight. The same flexibility benefits that made the previous Galaxy S phones come out on top apply in this new phone, but the superbly well-made aluminium body of the HTC One and its better-looking software win it some serious points.  The strong “tilt factor” of the HTC One sees it take the lead, but it’s a marginal one.