S4 Vs HTC One

beno619

omega666 wrote: »

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I think these "gimmicks" set the S4 apart from the rest. When the screen scrolls with your eye movement or using the hand gestures to move a web pages or using air view to preview stuff it catches peoples attention.
Many not be something you use every day but it's nice to have the choice
and to show people. I have to say i'm very happy with the S4.

Oh I agree 100%.

But I'm more interested in features that il use everyday and improve the user experience. It's more important than a feature just thrown in to sell devices IMHO.

We could go all day tbh, they are both great devices and I was surprised how much nicer it was than the S3 when I played with it yesterday.

philthrill69

beno619 wrote: »

I'm currently using a One X and am admittedly a HTC fanboy but I try not to make that cloud my judgement.

The One, GS4 and to a slightly lesser extent the Xperia Z are all great phone and will be a quantum leap coming from the N900.

You should go into a store a try them and pick the one you like best.

I have an S2 at the moment, the N900 was my last phone. Does the HTC One support Flash playback and does it also support USB otg? Just wondering did you hear about the gaps between the different materials that some people are reporting about the HTC One?

DesperateDan

I added a poll in case people are interested

SmithySeller

philthrill69 wrote: »

Just wondering beno619 and smithyseller, what is your current handset and what was your pervious handset, not saying your htc fanboys or anything but you know yourselves that some people are really set in their ways whether it be Apple, Samsung or HTC and can be biased without trying the rest. I myself came from an N900 to an S2 and am now considering a HTC so I have no allegiance to anyone.

I currently have an iPhone 4, Samsung Galaxy Nexus, a Samsung Galaxy S3 and the HTC One. I am currently using the HTC One, its the best of the three Droids

If I'm honest I could have easily bought the S4, but walking into a shop, you have the S4, the S3 and even the Express (is that what its called?) and they all look the same. The S4 and S3 are super phones. But I wanted a change but it had to be at least Android Jelly Bean. The HTC fit the bill and has a bit of wow factor. The rest of the software features for me are not tangible differences between the two, the S4 and One that is and the gap can be closed by apps in some cases. So the HTC One won out, and its funny at first the screen might not strike you as better, until you compare along side each other. Im glad I made the choice, and in my head the correct choice. First HTC btw, and its not perfect, but what phone is?

Gorilla Rising

omega666 wrote: »

I think these "gimmicks" set the S4 apart from the rest. When the screen scrolls with your eye movement or using the hand gestures to move a web pages

Hand gestures to move pages? It's a touch screen phone. It's actually easier to move pages by touching the screen as opposed to waving your hand over it.

This qualifies as a gimmick in my book.

As for the email preview thing. A bit of a gimmick too (although may be handy to some). I think most people know what emails they're going to open and those they're not.

beno619

philthrill69 wrote: »

I have an S2 at the moment, the N900 was my last phone. Does the HTC One support Flash playback and does it also support USB otg? Just wondering did you hear about the gaps between the different materials that some people are reporting about the HTC One?

Yep it supports both out of the box.

I have heard about those issues, just check in store and if your not happy ask for another.

beno619

To add more weight to what my conclutions about the camera experience on the One vs the S4.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=40906597&postcount=5164

SmithySeller

To add to the debate;

http://www.techradar.com/news/phone-and-communications/mobile-phones/samsung-galaxy-s4-fails-to-beat-htc-one-to-best-mobile-title-1148165

http://www.stuff.tv/top-10s/smartphones

DesperateDan

The wavy hand thing on S4 is rubbish and much slower than using your actual fingers. Interestingly by default the pause video by looking away thing is off - maybe they realised it would be very irritating. With all these things though it's nice to have the option, phones OS's are starting to become very configurable indeed

SmithySeller

Check this out from computerworld;



Galaxy S4 at left (or top), HTC One at right (or bottom). A little low-light action, taken in a dimly lit garage with no flashes.


Galaxy S4 at left (or top), HTC One at right (or bottom). Another low-light comparison. (As mentioned earlier, I used default settings for all of these images -- but the GS4 didn't fare much better even with its "night" mode activated in these conditions.)

From Reddit:

I would like to share my opinion on both phones, as I figured out there aren't many simultaneous owners of both models. Hopefully someone will find it helpful. In fact I've owned HTC One for over 1 month already. I was using it entire April, and 6 days ago I bought S4 i9505 (qualcomm), and since then I keep comparing both - buying and playing with smartphones is kind of a hobby for me I guess.

Ok, so let's go:

Hardware (case)
Obviously H1 is aluminium, and S4 is plastic. To my surprise, I actually prefer to hold S4 because it's considerably lighter (perhaps it's just the weight balance, not the weight figure itself). Also somehow S4 lies in my palm more comfortably (more rounded corners?) and - what's a killer thing to me - I have less problems using it with just one hand than HTC One.

On the negative side, the buttons at the bottom of S4 are IMO poorly located; I hit the back button with my palm quite often, and pressing the home button is not comfortable.

So, to my very surprise, despite the "premium quality" of H1 build, I actually prefer S4 when it comes to the build/box, just because it lies more comfortably in my palm.

Also, S4 has full RGB notification led, which is also quite big, while HTC One has a tiny two color dot, and applications can use only one color: green. So the S4's notification led is way more useful. Also, Light Flow works just fine on S4, and doesn't work correctly on HTC One.

Display
It's a tough call IMO. I definitely prefer colors and brightness on the HTC One; the white is actually yellowish on S4, no matter which display profile settings I try, and even at maximum brightness it's nowhere as bright as H1.

But on the other hand, those two phones have almost identical sizes as far as I am concerned, and yet S4 has considerably bigger display, which in my opinion is a huge win (for S4). Thanks to that, I can use smaller fonts on S4 than on H1, and still see everything easily, what means I can see more data at once on the S4 screen than on H1.

Also, I really love the very thin left/right bezels on the S4. On H1 the bezels are quite huge, and thus the display seems (in comparison to S4) "limited", surrounded around by black blocks. Quite a different feeling as far as I am concerned, S4 being much nicer here.

I believe adjusting to uglier colours is easier than giving up really pleasing bezel and bigger screen. I guess when (provided I will) I stop using H1, and thus I won't be comparing the colours every few hours and seeing how ugly the whites on S4 are, the S4 won't have any considerable negatives anymore. So again, to my surprise (I traditionally preferred IPS displays, never liked AMOLEDs), so far I prefer the S4 display to the H1' one.

Software/UI
UI on HTC One is much, much smoother than on S4. I guess there's some bug in touchwiz that causes occasional UI jerkiness which simply is not perceivable on the HTC One. I owned Nexus 4 before HTC One, and UI on HTC One is IMO smoother than on the Nexus. That's quite an achievement. The worst part on S4/Touchwiz is opening/closing applications (returning to the launcher). Very often those animations are jerky, just as the phone was capable of only 5 fps or so. And I'm not using the stock launcher - I'm using Nova launcher (on both phones).

That said, I disabled those animations in the Developer options (Window, Transition and Animator animation/duration scale) and pretty much I have no problems with S4 anymore (but of course I don't have opening/closing animations anymore as well . As I wrote, I suppose it's either some bug in touchwiz that's causing it, or some general problem in Android 4.2 (maybe some garbage collector issue, resulting in more frequent global pauses?)

Another strange lag on S4 is when I'm trying to unlock the screen with pattern lock. Sometimes (quite often I would say) when I wake up the device using the power button, the pattern shows, I'm trying to unlock the screen, and.. nothing happens. I repeat the unlocking pattern, and only then it works. It seems as if the display was not accepting touch input for a short moment after waking up. This is not the case on HTC One, I can unlock the screen instantly there after waking up the screen.

Otherwise, the only Touchwiz feature I'm using are the quick toggles in the notification area. Those are missing on the HTC One, and I find them really helpful (especially for disabling/enabling screen rotation - using a widget on the home screen is way more uncomfortable for that).

I'm not using any other Touchwiz specific features, though I can see how Multiwindow could be occasionally useful.

One - huge to me - advantage of the S4 software is that it doesn't link the Notification and Ringer volumes. I can set the ringer to be really loud, and notifications to be very quiet. Not possible on the HTC One. This is quite a big advantage of the S4 as far as I am concerned at the moment.

That said, soon enough there will be Cyanogenmod available for both phones, so I wouldn't put too much weight to the software differences if I was in the market for either phone.

Battery
Yet again to my surprise, so far it seems my HTC One has slightly better battery life than S4. Most of the battery on S4 is eaten by the screen, somehow H1 manages to conserve battery better there. Also H1 has some fine power saving options built in (like disabling data transfer after some time). I expected the opposite, as S4 sports 2600mAh, while H1 only 2300mAh. The difference is not huge, a few hours more on H1 so far, both phones comfortably make it through full day (24 hours).

Speakers
No contest here. HTC One is worlds better, in a different ballpark, nothing really to compare here. I can hear H1 ringing while I'm a few rooms away, and S4 is like a typical phone with speakers on the back; not really loud and kind of muted.

Camera
Again, tough call. Generally I would say I prefer the S4 camera, because at good light it's simply much better than the H1 one, and at low light situations I can use burst mode on S4, select the sharpest picture, and later scale it down to 4MP eleminating some noise in the process, while making it even sharper. I definitely prefer Point of View on H1 - it's simply wider, 28mm for H1 and 31mm for S4. Optical image stabilization on H1 is also nice, but honestly, those low light pictures still are far away from being usable for me - from either camera - when compared to any recent APS-C/Full Frame sensor. I'm also quite into the photography, so I can't really stand bad quality pictures

That's it. I hope I won't start any flame wars here. It's just my honest opinion, I couldn't care less which model "wins", and I have zero brand loyalty to Samsung and/or HTC. My plan is to use S4 exclusively for a week or two now, and then decide. So far I'm rather inclining towards S4, as I believe software issues will be fixed either by Samsung or by Cyanogenmod, and I really like the bigger screen (in roughly the same sized box) + it's more comfortable to hold in my palm

I agree with some of the positives and negatives in the post above, disagree with others.

Now that the S4 is out, it seems it's not living up to the hype. I think that anyone who goes to the One from another device would say it's an amazing device. Only people coming to the the S4 from an older device would say the same. If you're coming from S3/Note 2/One X it would be a little ho hum.

For the record, I have the One, and was planning on getting the S4 in a month or two. Not too sure now.

philthrill69

I've watched a lot of comparison videos and have found this to be the most unbiased and informative.

I just don't think I'm gonna be taking that many low light shots or using the stereo speakers and i don't think i could ever get used to not having my pull down toggles.

I was almost sold On the One but after this video and The above review The S4 will be in my pocket this weekend.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIV1TRt0Bqk&feature=youtube_gdata_player

philthrill69

philthrill69 wrote: »

I've watched a lot of comparison videos and have found this to be the most unbiased and informative.

I just don't think I'm gonna be taking that many low light shots or using the stereo speakers and i don't think i could ever get used to not having my pull down toggles.

I was almost sold On the One but after this video and The above review The S4 will be in my pocket this weekend.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIV1TRt0Bqk&feature=youtube_gdata_player

If pull down toggles are that important to you, you can just use an app like Power Toggles which does the same thing. Custom ROM's on the One also have the toggles, and apparently HTC are putting them in with the Android 4.2 update.

Either phone is a good one, you won't regret it.

beno619

Basil3 wrote: »

If pull down toggles are that important to you, you can just use an app like Power Toggles which does the same thing. Custom ROM's on the One also have the toggles, and apparently HTC are putting them in with the Android 4.2 update.

Either phone is a good one, you won't regret it.

They would have to add it to 4.2 as its the only notable addition to that version of Android.

Im still nonplussed by why they never enabled quick settings in Sense 4,it was coded into the framework yet never turned on from my understanding ?
It was also in Sense 3 right ?

philthrill69

beno619 wrote: »

They would have to add it to 4.2 as its the only notable addition to that version of Android.

Im still nonplussed by why they never enabled quick settings in Sense 4,it was coded into the framework yet never turned on from my understanding ?
It was also in Sense 3 right ?

Unfortunately that's a risk in not willing to take on a two year contract. Not sure about Sense 3 as I've never owned a HTC.

beno619

beno619 wrote: »

They would have to add it to 4.2 as its the only notable addition to that version of Android.

Im still nonplussed by why they never enabled quick settings in Sense 4,it was coded into the framework yet never turned on from my understanding ?
It was also in Sense 3 right ?

Yeah, apparently the code was there. Don't know if it returned to stock ROMs, I was running custom with both vertical and horizontal quick settings available.

beno619

Basil3 wrote: »

Yeah, apparently the code was there. Don't know if it returned to stock ROMs, I was running custom with both vertical and horizontal quick settings available.

No it never returned to stock roms, as much as I love HTC they make some terrible decisions quick toggles and the notification lights .
You have to wonder who makes those decisions..

partyatmygaff

And now i'm back to HTC again...

The camera on the HTC One has grown on me and I can see it performing far better in the situations where i'd use a phone instead of my main camera (indoors in low light).

That and i've heard far too many reports of people complaining about lag in Touchwiz reminiscent of the original Galaxy S. I had that phone and it was a complete disaster so I think i'll stick with HTC this generation (for the third HTC in a row).

All of that coupled with the looks and speakers of the One and my decision is more or less made.

Now just to buy it.

80s Child

I'm still undecided. I like the s4 but I just don't know.. My mind says the htc my heart says the s4....still a better love story than twilight! :rolleyes:

theteal

80s Child wrote: »

My mind says the htc my heart says the s4

I would have thought that for most people it would be the other way around

omega666

Well if the S4 is good enough for the pentagon it should be good enough for
everyone

http://thenextweb.com/us/2013/05/03/samsung-galaxy-s4-gets-pentagon-approval-breaking-blackberrys-hold-on-the-us-government/

partyatmygaff

omega666 wrote: »

Well if the S4 is good enough for the pentagon it should be good enough for
everyone

http://thenextweb.com/us/2013/05/03/samsung-galaxy-s4-gets-pentagon-approval-breaking-blackberrys-hold-on-the-us-government/

?

They didn't say it was a good phone, all they said was it met the US Dept. of Defense's security requirements. Not really relevant to consumers.

ccull123

am about to purchase one of these but dont know which. Am moving from an iphone 4. Any recent reviews from anyone who purchased either one would be great.

ccull123

ccull123 wrote: »

am about to purchase one of these but dont know which. Am moving from an iphone 4. Any recent reviews from anyone who purchased either one would be great.

Both are decent phones, it just depends what features are more important to you.

Cale

After a month of deliberation, I'm going for the HTC One.

Preferably the black one, but I haven't seen it on sale with any of the networks.

Anyone know where to get one??

Bluefoam

Why would anyone want pop up boxed when their finger is near the screen. That would drive me crazy. It sounds like a mistake rather than a feature. One of those features that's amazing to play with the first day you have the phone & gets turned off forever the following day.

innocent_lover

Anyone know where to get one??

Meteor has it.

timetogo

For me I chose S4.

For the UI I'm not interested in Touchwiz or Sense. Whatever phone I use I always replace the launcher with Nova Launcher. That has features I actually want (get more rows / columns on the screen, remove icon labels, customise loads of aspects on the home & desktop screens etc.)

I don't use the air gesture swipey stuff. The only Samsung feature I really use is the SmartStay. That's handy. But that was available on the S3.

Any photos I've taken with the phone so far have been excellent. I don't generally take photos in low light conditions. Well not low enough that it causes me a problem. If it's low enough I just turn on the flash. I'm not a photo enthusiast. I only really take photos of friends, holidays etc as mementos.

When I was buying, because of the stuff above it was a toss up between the HTC One & S4. What swung it Samsungs way was the fact that I can put in a microSD card and the fact that the last two HTC phones I've had were a bit average. Great for the first few weeks then stuff about them irritated me (lags for no reason was a big annoyance and the earphone volume on my last one was crap. If I was walking on the road listening to podcasts I couldn't hear them). The HTC One probably wouldn't have had those problems.

I've had the S4 for a week now and there is nothing about it that annoys me. It's very responsive and the screen is great. I don't really use any Samsung specific apps. My main apps are from the app store and would be the same no matter what phone they're on.

Cale

Good post.

I think 9 out of 10 people could close their eyes, pick whichever one and be happy with whatever phone they pick out between these two.

The SD card slot was something I wanted, but the HTC One comes with 32GB storage and I reckon that will be enough.

I don't load tons of apps and games onto phones. Really only want the storage for some movies/TV shows when abroad.

The HTC is slightly cheaper too and I much prefer Sense to Touchwiz (even though I've used custom launchers in the past, I still like Sense).

Anyway, It'll be a big step up from the iPhone I currently have!!

Meteor only have the black one on Bill pay.

SteM

I've decided to wait until the S4 Active is released and see how that compares to the One instead. Anyone know any release dates or carrier info in Ireland for this phone?

Cale

The active has slightly lesser specs than the S4.

Can't see it being a step up from the HTC One.

SteM

Didn't say it would be a step up from the One. Basically the same specs as S4 apart from the LCD display and 8MP camera. More solid feel than the S4 though and it has a battery that I can change and Micro SD slot.

Totally depends on the type of phone you want, I was just asking if anyone had heard about release info in Ireland.

timetogo

SteM wrote: »

More solid feel than the S4 though

Don't know the answers to your questions but for the point above about it being solid.

This is only my opinion. Probably not everyones cup of tea but for every phone I've had since the HTC Desire I've gotten something like this
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00BPYPLCW/ref=oh_details_o01_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
If I had a HTC One Id get something similar. For my S4 I got the one above.

If you get one of those covers.
1: It doesn't matter if the back of your phone is made out of gold or plastic.
2: The phone is solid (as a rock).
3: You'll never scratch the back (not too important)
4: You're less likely to sratch the front as you can leave it face down and the face will be held a few millimetres off the table.
5: The resale value of your phone will be more likely to be good in a year or two as you're more likely to have it in good condition.
6: You'll be protected a lot if you drop it. I got out of a taxi one night and dropped my phone and watched it slide under the taxi. When I got it up there was a slight mark on the €3 cover and nothing on the phone.
7: It adds shag all to the width / height / depth / weight of the phone.

I change my phone pretty much every year. Every year I sell my old phone as perfect which goes a huge amount towards the cost of the new phone.

vibe666

i'm torn between the S4 and the One, just not sure which will fill my needs better.

I'll be upgrading my wifes phone at the same time, we currently have the one x and the one s, so the One would seem to be the natural progression, with whatever is the current mid-range phone to replace my wifes one s.

BUT...

i'm thinking that my next TV (</> 6 months) is going to be one of the new higher end Samsung smart TV's and I'm wondering if there might be features on the S4 which would work well with that.

I'm also going to be using some newer Bluetooth devices that may not work with the One as well (or at all) as they would with the S4, such as a Fitbit One and a Wallet Trakr which I know are both definitely supported by the S4, but i'm not sure if the bluetooth low energy is, or will be supported on the HTC One yet. from what I've read online, the hardware supports it, just not the software (yet).

or maybe hang on for a little while and see what happens with the Note 3 and just go for the big boy, but i'm planning on upgrading this month and I don't think the Note 3 will be out in time.

vibe666

vibe666 wrote: »

i'm thinking that my next TV (</> 6 months) is going to be one of the new higher end Samsung smart TV's and I'm wondering if there might be features on the S4 which would work well with that.

(

I have a fairly decent Samsung Smart TV with built in wifi etc. I thought it was pretty cool with my S3 and Note 2 being able to stream photos and videos straight to the TV.

I was pleasantly suprised when my One has this feature also built in, and it actually works better than it did on my Sammy phones. Can also control the Samsung TV with the One, but the S4 does that also.

spiderman1885

I thought this thread would help! Im completely in the middle, cannot decide!

Getting one or the other today, have an S2 since it came out - loved it at the start but kind of gave up on me in the last 6 months or so, which make me lean against Samsung, but then have friends who've had both HTC & Samsung an would recommend the Samsung!

Struggling with a serious first world problem!

Bluefoam

HTC all the way...

galaxy-s4-vs-htc-one-review-best-android-phone

SmithySeller

I guess its all a matter of opinion, and mine is the S4 is a good phone, but its not even in my top 3 Android phones!