Fight Between Flagship Devices: Samsung Galaxy S4 Vs. Sony Xperia Z Vs. HTC One

Samsung-Galxy-S4_HTC-One_Xperia-Z

The new trend to buy the latest flagship devices from renowned smartphone manufacturers is growing day by day in the Pakistani market.

Today I will be talking about three of the leading flagship devices from Samsung, HTC and Sony, which are currently the top dogs in the smartphone industry and are easily available in the Pakistani market too.

Samsung recently released its latest flagship device Galaxy S 4 while HTC and Sony stepped in with HTC One and Sony Xperia Z respectively. Now if you are willing to buy a flagship device and if you are still confused, I hope my article will help you choose the right choice for you.

Display:

Display has always been the main attraction for any flagship device. Many users want a large screen to enjoy multimedia, gaming and everything they do as the bigger the screen, the better is the user experience.

Samsung decided to go with a 5.0 inches Super AMOLED 1080p display with 441ppi while HTC One features a 4.7 inches Super LCD3 1080p display with whooping 469ppi and Sony Xperia Z shows off its 5.0 inches 1080p display with 441ppi.

Practically anything beyond 400ppi is same but yes the size does matter. While using three of these devices I found that I was able to use HTC One with one hand easily. This is a smart move by HTC to go with a 4.7 inches screen instead of 5 inches. I was able to write text messages easily and I am sure many people will be able to reach every part of the screen easily with one hand.

Coming to Xperia Z and Galaxy S 4, it does become difficult to type with one hand on these phones. Talking about the screen quality Samsung used Super AMOLED display in Galaxy S4 which is always criticized about its inaccurate colors. Again HTC with its Super LCD3 has better color accuracy so I think HTC One is the winner here.

Design and Built Quality:

If I am spending more than 50k on a device, I will surely need a device with exceptional built quality and killer looks. Samsung again used the plastic body for Galaxy S4 while Xperia Z used plastic and glass combo which looks great.

HTC has really raised the game with the Aluminum unibody design used in HTC One which makes it a premium device and built quality compared to Apple iPhone 5.

HTC One feels so great in your hands and the detail used in this phone is outstanding.

Xperia Z also looks good but its glass back is a fingerprint magnet which is a drawback. Not to forget that Xperia Z is water and dust proof so some users might keep this in mind while buying Xpria Z. In the end HTC One wins this department too.

Hardware:

The internals used in these phones are equally good when it comes to daily life performance but on the paper they do differ in many ways.

Samsung Galaxy S4 is powered by Qualcomm Quad-core Snapdragon 600 processor clocked at 1.9 GHz while HTC One uses the same chip but is clocked at a lower 1.7 GHz. Xperia Z on the other hand uses a Qualcomm Quad-core MDM9215M chipset which is slightly outdated as compare to the other two.

So the fight is mainly between Galaxy S4 and HTC One and S4 surely has an edge keeping in mind the higher clocked processor but in daily use this difference is hardly observed. Gaming performance is smooth in both of these phones and apps open really fast.

Galaxy S4 wins in terms of hardware.

Camera:

More pixels means better picture quality that is what most people in Pakistan think before buying a new smartphone. It is true to some extent but this is not always the case. Samsung and Sony used 13 Megapixel camera sensors in their flagship devices but HTC has come up with Ultra-pixel technology and I am really impressed with it. Actually the Ultra-pixel technology captures 300% more light than any other typical camera sensors used in other phones and the result is better low-light picture quality. HTC One uses 4 Megapixel sensor but the picture quality is comparable to 13 Megapixel camera used in S4 and Xperia Z. If you ask me I will go for the HTC One but I have heard many people in Pakistan when asked about HTC One “ Yaar sirf 4 Megapixel camera hai,” so I think S4 will take the lead here.

Storage:

Samsung Galaxy S4 comes with 16/32/64 GB of internal memory and that too with the support of microSD card while Xperia Z also comes with microSD card slot and 16GB of internal memory. HTC One on the other hand comes with 32 and 64 GB of internal memory but without microSD card slot and with this much memory I do not think there is the need of extra memory.

Battery Life:

To be very frank, most of the smartphones just manage to last one day with moderate to heavy use. According to me Galaxy S4 do last longer than the other two but again this depends on the usage by the user. I must mention here that Galaxy Note 2 was the only smartphone I used which did last more than a day with heavy use but keeping in mind its big size and much bigger battery, this was expected. So Galaxy S4 wins the battery race!

Price:

Coming to the most important part the price, Samsung has officially launched Galaxy S4 in Pakistan at Rs72000 with official warranty. It is also available at Rs64000 in the local market without warranty. Sony Xperia Z now costs about Rs55000 in the local market while the price for the HTC One is on a higher side with Rs78000 because of the shortage of supplies from HTC.

The huge price difference between these three flagship phones makes it very difficult for the buyer to select the best for them. But I would always go for HTC One as HTC has doubled the production of HTC One and soon the price will decrease.

Xperia Z seems to be the best choice with the lowest price tag while Galaxy S4 will be the choice for those who prefer to buy smartphone with official warranty.


    • Out of 5 categories Display, Hardware, Camera,Design and Battery life S4 has won 3 (Camera, Battery Life and Hardware), inclined towards HTC??

    • “More pixels means better picture quality that is what most people in Pakistan think before buying a new smartphone.”

      No doubt, this statement hold true!

  • its clearly evident that the person who reviewed these phones is not a real smartphone user

    because he failed to mention the real qualities that set these three apart from each other

    Galaxy S4 has two models one which is quad core and the other that is dubbed as octa core which basically mean two different processors

    Sony xperia Z has issues when it comes to viewing angles due to the outdated tft capacitive screen

    htc one has sense ui which is good but not on par with samsung’s touch wiz that has learned a lot of new tricks on its way

    sony is using the oldest of the chipset so the gpu doesnt perform as good as it does on htc one while samsung has a overclocked processor so it works faster

    samsung takes the lead when it comes to sensors as well with the likes of barometer and infrared blaster but xperia z has some tricks of its own as well ip57 certifications that gives it a go when its wet and dirty while htc one has the looks that makes it stand out like a gem amongst the three.

    The camera’s on s4 and z have the same pixel value i.e 13 but the differ a lot when it comes to performance due to the tweaking by samsung which gives it a little edge on xperia. Htc one on the other hand brought with itself a new technological innovation which it calls ultra pixels which basically means better low light performance and it does exactly what it says the shots from htc one are way more vivid and the colors are vibrant when it comes to dark scenarios but they range from average to disastrous when it comes to lit environments.

    galaxy s4 comes with jelly bean 4.2.2 on board while htc one has just been updated to it while xperia still is running on the old 4.1.2 version. Samsung has a huge advantage now that google has chosen to use its flagship instead of a new nexus model which means s4 will have more developers interested in it.

    while sony choose to use ip57 certification which clearly is something out of the league for the two other flagships, htc one is using gorilla glass 2 while samsung choose to use gorilla glass 3.

    sony and samsung both have added an extra feature to there flagship by opting for usb on the go feature while htc still lacks in that and samsung went a little out of the way by giving usb hosting as well through the micro usb port

    basically all of these phones are made for different segments of the market when it comes to people who like to have a good phone and the ability to get handled a roughly then sony is something for them

    when it comes to people who are classy and want to stand out in the crowd then htc one truly is something stunning

    while s4 is for those who want to have something from both the worlds i.e the power and a strong development

  • Warning for Samsung users. Samsung galaxy phone screens have a tendency to crack on their own for no reason. It has happened to my S2 and a little research on the net shows that it is a worldwide problem with s thru s3 and im sure s4 will have this issue too. Samsung is trying to cover this major flaw instead of facing up to it

  • SONY Xperia Phones available in official warranty now by SONY Pakistan ..
    for further please contact Bilal Mustafa _ 0321-9265055 ( SONY PAKISTAN )

  • My brother was confused among these choices. He shortlisted htc one and s4. Everyone knows that htc one is the king, but he is now buying s4 because of the camera. He uses it much so he is going towards s4, but i bought htc one because i dont use the camera too much. STILL in parties or other functions one’s camera is exceptional. My rewiew is tha htc one one wins build qualilty, battery time,design,features and s4 wins the hardware and camera departments.It is up to you, get these both devices in your hands and decide.Both are giants anyway.


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