Smartphones market is crowded and fiercest than ever with each manufacturer trying to outdo each other. Leaving Apple iPhone and its iOS, all manufacturers have released a smartphone with various mobile platforms. Talking about the smartphones having the best of the features from its respective manufacturer released in 2013, we’ve Android based HTC One, Samsung Galaxy S4 and Sony Xperia Z, Lumia 925 with Windows Phone 8 and Blackberry’s latest OS 10 on Z10. Let’s see how they compare with each other-
Design
HTC one have been getting rave reviews about its aluminum unibody design with dimensions of 137.4×68.2×9.30 mm and 143 g weight. The aluminum chassis gives it very distinct and beautiful look. The battery is non-removable due to the zero-gap construction.
Samsung Galaxy S4 seems like its predecessor Galaxy S3 only with slimmer and sleeker. Though, the plastic doesn’t make the smartphone very good looking, but it helps in keeping the dimensions 136.6×69.8×7.90 mm and weight at only 130 g. It also makes back cover removable revealing battery and slots for microSIM and microSD cards.
Sony Xperia Z uses a glass and plastic for its body, making it pretty good when looked from the distance. But, the use of glass makes it a fingerprint magnet. The best part of Xperia Z is its IP 55/IP 57 compliance making it water and dust resistant. For this purpose, the battery is non-removable and all the ports in Xperia Z have got protective covering.
Lumia 925 is recently introduced by Nokia as a design and camera upgrade to Lumia 920. It features a beautiful metallic body with dimensions of 129 MM x 70.6 MM x 8.50 mm and a weight of 139 g. The smartphone also supports wireless charging via a cover available in funky colors like Red, Yellow, etc.
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BlackBerry Z10 have a normal plastic body with BlackBerry’s standard rubberized back for providing grip. The design is nothing exciting with dimensions of 130 x 65.6 x 9 mm and a weight of 137.5 g.
Winner: HTC One followed by Lumia 925. Special mention goes to Xperia Z for its ruggedness and durability factor.
Display
HTC One sports a 4.7 inch screen with a Full HD resolution translating to a pixel density of 469 ppi. The screen is bright and offer good viewing angles.
Samsung Galaxy S4 offers a huge 4.99 inch screen supporting Full HD resolution (~441 ppi). The AMOLED screen offers good display even under direct sunlight. The screen is Gorilla Glass 3 making it scratch resistant.
Similar to S4, Xperia Z flaunts a 5 inch display with Full HD resolution equating to a pixel density of 441 ppi. The screen is rugged with Gorilla Glass 2 technology.
Lumia 925 features a 4.5 inch PureMotion HD+ screen with resolution of 768 x 1280 pixels, which means pixel density of 334 ppi. The display offers a clear and sharper view and can be easily seen form all viewing angles. Use of Gorilla Glass2 makes the screen scratch-resistant.
BlackBerry Z10 has a screen of 4.2 inches with resolution of 768 x 1920 pixels, which equates to pixel density of 355 ppi. The screen offers decent viewing angles.
Winner : Samsung Galaxy S4 for its large screen and Full HD display.
Hardware
HTC One runs on 1.7 GHz quad-core qualcomm snapdragon processor with Adreno 320 graphic processor. It has a 2 GB RAM making the multi-tasking on the smartphone a joy. It has storage of 16GB/ 32 GB with no option for external memory. It is fueled by 2300 mAh Li-ion battery.
S4 has two variants based on the number of cores in the processor- 1.6 GHz octa-core processor and a 1.9 GHz quad-core processor with a PowerVR GPU. It has 2 GB RAM delivering smooth performance to the smartphone. In terms of memory, it has internal storage of 16 GB with option for external storage of up to 64 GB via microSD card. It is fueled by massive 2600 mAh Li-ion battery.
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Xperia Z is powered by a 1.5 GHz quad-core Krait processor along with Adreno 320 graphic processor. It has 2 GB of RAM for buttery smooth performance of the smartphone. It has internal storage of 16 GB with flexibility of external memory expansion of 32GB via microSD card. It has a 2330 mAh battery having a STAMINA mode feature, which closes battery sucking apps as soon as device is sent to sleep and opens them back when device is powered on.
Lumia 925 offers a dual-core 1.5 GHz qualcomm snapdragon processor and Adreno 225 GPU. It has 1 GB RAM which is lesser than the competition but still is enough for normal tasks. It has internal memory of 16 GB/ 32 GB which is not expandable. It’s fueled by
Winner: Samsung Galaxy S4 closely followed by Sony Xperia Z.
Camera
HTC has taken a different direction for One’s camera by packing in only a 4 MP sensor, albeit it has more number of pixels and hence being called ultrapixel. But, the camera is below par for night or even normal light condition in comparison to 8MP and even 13MP cameras. The front-facing camera is of 2MP. HTC offers a Zoe feature, which takes 3.6 seconds video to capture a moment, which can be shared later on social networks or HTC zoeshare website.
S4 offers a 13MP camera with auto-focus and LED flash. The camera works well for light and even dark situations and offers various options like face and smile detection, geo-tagging, etc. Samsung has added lots of features like Sound and Shot, Dual Shot, Eraser, Animated Photo, etc. to make the image capturing a wonderful experience. The secondary camera is of 2 MP which is useful for video calling purposes.
Xperia Z also have a 13 MP camera with LED flash and auto-focus. It works well and has various features like Image stabilization, HDR, geo-tagging, etc. It also allows simultaneous recording of videos and images. Its front-facing camera is of 2 MP
Lumia 925 has an 8.7 MP camera with Carl zeiss lens and dual LED flash. It works well even in low-light conditions. It have various features like Burst mode, motion focus, action shot, etc. Nokia have added ‘Smart Camera’ app for taking images which offers various enhancement options for the images. Its front camera is of 1.2 MP.
BlackBerry Z10 houses an 8 MP rear camera capable of shooting videos at 1080p@30fps. The camera works just fine, but incomparable to quality offered by S4 and the likes. It’s also having a secondary camera is of 2MP, which can be used for video calling.
Winner : Samsung Galaxy S4 followed closely by Sony Xperia Z.
Software and Extra Features
If one can’t make out their mind about one smartphone out of these through hardware, display and design, then software will surely solve the confusion.
Though, HTC One, Xperia Z and Galaxy S4 comes with latest Android 4.1 (JellyBean), but each of them have lot of customization added by the respective manufacturer.
HTC One comes with its popular skin called as Sense on the home screen, lock screen and even for default apps. It also has a magazine like news feed for social media updates and websites called as BlinkFeed present on the home screen.
Galaxy S4 is loaded with plethora of features and some of them may sounds useful and others are just plain gimmick. It allows eye tracking technology through Smart Pause and Smart Scroll. It can understand users’ gestures for features like Air View, Air Gestures, etc. Samsung also has security feature called KNOX for enterprise users who want balance between their personal and work life.
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Sony Xperia Z also has some of Sony’s customizations. It also have a very nifty option called Small Apps, which will open a minimized version of some frequently needed apps like Calendar, Alarm, etc. on top of the app user might be using. Thus, without the need of opening the app, user can get their tasks done.
Lumia 925 has latest Windows Phone 8 OS and comes with tons of Nokia’s optimizations. They’ve added Nokia Here, Nokia Drive and Nokia City Lens which provide navigation facilities like Google Maps. It also comes with Nokia Music which allows streaming of music through internet on the mobile and even computer.
Z10 is based on BlackBerry’s new gesture-based OS 10.1. It has various utilities like BlackBerry Hub, BlackBerry Balance to make one’s life productive.
Winner : Samsung Galaxy S4, for the sheer number of features it comes with. Also, Lumia 925 and Z10 can’t match the huge number of apps available for Android.
Verdict
While the on-paper specifications of all of these devices suggest one or two winners, the fact is it all boils to the price and users preference.
If one is looking for a feature packed smartphone and make a style statement, then look no further than HTC One.
If a smartphone with powerful configuration and several software optimizations is needed, then Samsung Galaxy S4 is pretty good choice though its design may not look revolutionary.Also here is a comparison between Samsung Galaxy S4 and iPhone 5 where Giant S4 beats iPhone 5 in several aspects .
If durability and decent configuration is the need, then Sony Xperia Z remains unbeaten for its dust and water resistant capability.
Similarly, Nokia Lumia 925 will find interest from the users who want a radically different OS (WP8) against iOS or Android with stylish design and Blackberry Z10 will please BlackBerry smartphone addicts. Although, both of them can’t be compared to their Android counterparts in terms of hardware configuration.
