In my opinion...
HTC One has over S4:
- better industrial design. You really need to hold one in person to appreciate the build quality and design.
- better camera
- better speakers
S4 has over One:
- user replaceable battery
- expandable memory via microSD
- better dimensions and larger screen
I suggest you try both out in person to get a feel. In a perfect world, I would just tell you throw your money at the HTC One Google Play Edition, but from the reviews I've read, they messed up the camera UI and some camera features (understandable from being stock Android). It just felt like a dream come true; iPhone-quality design and hardware married with pure unmolested stock Android. Too good to be true I guess, otherwise there'd be no point to the Nexus devices, but I'm just ranting now...
But try both of them out in person at a local shop if you can, even more so that you're new to Android. Touchwiz and Sense (OEM skins on top of Android) are two opposite things. Touchwiz is more.....refining? There's a lot of stuff you can fiddle with and tinker, configure to your liking. Sense is more here's-how-what-we-think-you-are-most-comfortable-with. For those who don't want to mess around with a lot of settings. In a sense, HTC does get it right, but sometimes I do yearn for some of the settings in Touchwiz, but on the flipside, I can't stand some UI elements of Touchwiz and much prefer the more stock Android-like elements in Sense. (an example would be their icons vs Holo/Sense 5.0/iOS7/WP8, it's a subjective one but a very valid one)
Try them out to see which UI you're more comfortable with.
From a performance and hardware standpoint, they're both just as good. Snapdragon 600 is a beast (even against the better Exynos 5 Octa flavoured S4), enough said. So don't need to mull over whether you're getting something slower or faster. Worry more on the price point and what you like the feel of and certain features.
M3J said:
But I think the battery makers can make do with the space they've been given. Like, look at how ZeroLemon designed their battery... sure it adds more weight and bulk, but it also provides a superior battery life to other batteries because they're using up the space that extended batteries leave empty. Not sure if this makes sense, but google it.
Would rather charge my phone each night than carry a brick in my pocket all day...
kkck said:
As far as I understand the issue with battery life is not one of technology itself but rather the materials. A given material can hold only so much energy and technology can't change that. Until materials capable of holding more energy aren't available we are not going to see improvements in batteries themselves. Thats why focus is given to efficient hardware rather than better batteries overall and why the new intel processors are a big deal. As far as I understand (although my information might be a tad outdated) there are no new materials imminently available for batteries.
Valid point. But it's not as cut and dry. I ranted and singled out battery, but ultimately it's a combo of battery, hardware, and OS. iPhones usually have very good battery life because Apple controls both software and hardware. It's the same in the x86 world, you get more juice under Mac OSX versus Windows, though that's been squashed with the advent of W8. So OS does play a part. As well as like you mentioned, hardware, such as displays (it just keeps getting bigger), and SoCs but sometimes those are in the hands of process nodes and architectural advancements.
/wall
