HTC One or iPhone 5 – The Best Of Apple vs Android
The HTC One or iPhone 5 question will be plaguing us for the next 6 months of 2013. The majority of Australians now have smartphones. 2 years ago, this question would have been much easier to answer. However, comparing the HTC One vs iPhone 5 has become more challenging as Android has improved, HTC have added differentiated software on top of the core Operating System ( HTC Sense ) and Apple, well, Apple have started to bore people.
For me, the larger screen of the HTC One, better camera / video performance in low light and interesting, personalisable software like HTC’s Blinkfeed mean it’s a better device. Not just a bit better, a lot better.
Below is an depth comparison of each feature.
HTC One or iPhone 5 – How Do They Look ?
Both the HTC One and iPhone 5 have a modern physical appearance. The aluminium and glass of both makes them feel high quality. They’re light, firm and cool to the touch. The iPhone 5 is flat backed, straight and weighs 112 grams, the HTC One has a rounded back and more countoured, organic feel. It weighs 143 grams. Perhaps counter intuitively, I prefer the rounder, more solid look and feel of the HTC One.
The most obvious difference between the HTC One and iPhone 5 is the the screen size. The iphone 5 measures 4.00 inches across it’s longest diagonal. The HTC One is 4.7 inches. 0.7 inches might not seem like much but viewing them side by side, the screens are completely different propositions.
Apple seem to have their head in the sand about this. Over the last 2 years, Android manufacturers have been out performing Apple in 2 ways. First of all, range. There are a variety of Android screen sizes with everything from 3.0 inches all the way up to the 5.2 inch Galaxy Note 2. And everything in between. Secondly, the average size has been getting larger. Starting with the 4.3 inch Samsung Galaxy S3 screen, average people have been re-educated on what the ‘normal’ size of a screen is.
Both the HTC One and iPhone 5 have backlit LCD screens and they both do a good job of catching your eye and keeping it entertained. To be fair to the iPhone 5, I think it performs slightly better outdoors, in situations where it can be hard to read a screen, like direct sunlight. To me, that marginal benefit is completely outweighed by how engaging larger screens are. I feel like I have to squint watching a film or TV show on an iPhone 5. I could do a flight to LA with the HTC One screen cradled in front of me.
HTC One vs iPhone 5 – HTC’s Software Is Streets Ahead
The HTC One runs on Android. Current in market is Jellybean, the main benefit of which is speed. Soon to be released is Key Lime Pie. HTC promise you’ll be able to upgrade.
More importantly, HTC have actually innovated with the software they’ve released on the HTC One. You’ll get all the usual Android inclusions from an App store with more than 700,000 apps. ( For fairness, Apple have a similarly large quantity )
There were 2 standout software features for me in the latest version of HTC’s unique Android overlay software, Sense 5.0 on the HTC One. Generally, Sense 5.0 is more stark, slick, simpler than previous versions and has some standout capabilities.
- Blinkfeed : A homepage app which aggregates feeds from News services you like, Facebook, Twitter and other feeds. It presents these feeds visually as a mosaic on the homescreen. Phones are used for doing real things like sending a text or making a phone call. They’re also used to pass the time in interesting ways and Blinkfeed is the best placed way of doing that I’ve ever seen. Like Flipbook but always in front of you because it’s on the HTC One’s homepage, constantly updating entertainment and information scrolls in front of you so you can delve in to whatever you find appealing.
- Zoe : Software which pulls together pictures of everything you did that day and presents them like the DVDs people put together after their holidays. It even sets it to music !
Comparing this to scrolling through the icons on an iPhone 5 ( which reminds me of looking at box after box of eggs ) might make you, as it did me, realise just how much iOS ( Apple’s Operating System ) has stood still while Android has progressed.
HTC One or iPhone 5 Cameras – Look Beyond The MegaPixels
The iPhone 5 has an 8MP camera. The HTC One has a 4 MP camera. The iPhone 5’s is twice as good then ? Not so fast !
Again, HTC have done something new and interesting with the camera. Their ‘Ultrapixels’ and larger aperture camera capture 3 times as might light in any given situation. The result is a camera on the HTC One which takes better pictures and video in low light conditions. The camera on the HTC One is also more sensibly placed in the middle of the back than the top corner, as it is with the iPhone 5.
Most of my pitures are taken after work in the evening, with friends in pubs or restaurants. If you’re the same, my guess is that you’ll prefer the camera on the HTC One. With a feeble flash, night time pictures on the iPhone 5 are not as good.
The camera on the iPhone 5 does give more consistent images. The resolution on the 8MP camera helps with clarity and detail in typical day time shots.
HTC One or iPhone 5 – Don’t Worry About
- Speed : The HTC One has Quad Core 1.7 GHz processors and 2 GB of RAM. A quick glance at the specification sheet for the iPhone 5 may lead you to believe the iPhone 5 has only Dual Cores. In fact, Apple also have a couple of graphics chips on the same board. What matters to people is how quickly the device reacts when they want to use it and whether the experience stutters. Everything from opening the phone up from lockscreen to fast forwarding high definition video works lightning fast on both devices.
- LTE / 4G : Both the HTC One and iPhone 5 have the very latest network access speeds available to them. Again, both are blindingly fast in 4G coverage. At least until the networks fill up.
- Memory : In fact, the iPhone 5 has more memory options than the HTC One. The iPhone comes in 16 GB, 32GB and 64 GB variants. The HTC One only in 16GB / 32GB varieties. In my experience, 32GB is enough even for those with large music collections and a love of video to watch wherever they are.
HTC One or iPhone 5 – Summing Up
In my view, the HTC One is streets ahead in this comparison with the iPhone 5. Simply put, the market and people’s expectations have moved on since Apple launched their first iPhone back in 2007. Apple just haven’t kept up. This point is brought to live when you put the iPhone 5 next to the HTC One.
Aesthetics are a personal thing of course. To me, the HTC device looks great.To me, it’s organic curves make it look better than the iPhone 5. The weight of the HTC give it gravitas.
Moving away from opinion, I think it’s fair and factually correct to say that the HTC One looks more modern. The 4.7 inch screen on the HTC One is more representative of what people want in a mobile these days. The larger screen makes engaging with your phone an easier, more enjoyable prospect. Something you do for fun rather than necessity.
Add to that the Android software running on the HTC One. It keeps the stark, basic capabilities of Ice Cream Sandwich, including the ability to personalise your phone the way you like it. Stick Sense on top which provides useful features like Zoe to provide a summary video of your day and collate news and social feeds for you so you don’t have to meander through apps on the bus to find something interesting to explore.
The camera and video recorder on the HTC One work better in low light conditions. The sound is better on the HTC One – it has stereo speakers you can actually hear and an impressive depth of sound it plays back. Almost everything else on the phone is the same.
No wonder Apple’s market share is falling. Well done HTC. In my view, the HTC One is the best phone on the market so far in 2013.