Samsung and HTC are the big smartphone contenders this year as consumers are increasingly looking toward Android-based products for their day-to-day tech solutions. With the HTC One M8's recent release and the Samsung Galaxy S5 not far behind, you might be wondering which one of these flagship devices has the features most important to you.
Let's start with the all-important display. The Galaxy S5 boasts the AMOLED 5.1-inch screen with full 1080p resolution at 430 pixels-per-inch (ppi). The HTC One M8's display is a full 5 inches with 1080p resolution at 441 ppi.
The camera in the HTC features a new dedicated depth sensor that allows you to focus and refocus an image as many times as you'd like, whenever you'd like, even after the picture is taken. The focus info is stored within the data of the image itself, making this possible. The HTC camera also features two sensors -- a 4-megapixel back-illuminated sensor and a 5-megapixel front-facing secondary sensor -- to give better performance in low-light conditions.
With the Samsung, a 16-megapixel sensor is a step up from the Galaxy S4's 13-megapixel sensor, and a new Selective Focus feature works much in the same way as the HTC's after-the-fact refocus ability. The Galaxy S5 has also stepped up its camcorder to allow 4K quality.
Getting a bit more technical, let's talk processors. The HTC uses Qualcomm's Snapdragon 801 processor with 2.3GHz and 2GB of RAM. Although the Galaxy S5 uses the same exact chip, it clocks in at 2.5GHz with 2 GB of RAM.
On the storage side of things, the HTC includes 16GB of onboard storage with microSD support for up to 128GB. The S5 will have 16GB and 32GB onboard options with microSD expansions available to 128GB as well.
But with all of these almost-identical features in both Android phones, rumor has it that Samsung has decided to trash talk the HTC One M8 a bit with some new training materials leaked to Weibo.
- The HTC M8 is not dust and waterproof, while the SGS5 is IP67 certified.
- Galaxy S5′s camera is better, with a higher amount of megapixels, quicker focus, and overall, "more professional."
- The HTC One M8 is not as user-friendly as the S5. Samsung's flagship boasts childproof features, a removable battery and the new Ultra Power Saving Mode.
- The HTC One M8 is not as secure as the S5. The M8 lacks a fingerprint scanner while the S5 has one, on top of KNOX.
Whether those are all valid points or not has yet to be seen in some cases, but this may be in response to HTC's own trash-talking of Samsung during the One M8's announcement where the company called Samsung products "cheap plastic phones" using "software gimmicks" to sell phones.
We do know that the Samsung includes a few tibits that the HTC One M8 doesn't, even though it does have quite a reputation to uphold with the original HTC One heralded as the best Android smartphone of the year last year. The Galaxy S5 will feature a fingerprint scanner for added security and a heartrate monitor to work in conjuction with the increasingly popular health-related apps making their rounds.
So it seems that the Android-based phone you choose this spring will depend on personal preference and how much deep-sea or deep-dust diving you'll be doing. The Samsung Galaxy S5 is expected to release for all U.S. carriers this month and the HTC One M8 is available now.
