New Phone

[Klutzington]

I personally have a problem choosing between the HTC one and the S4 too. The thing is, I love the samsung for the expandable storage, removable battery and 13 mp camera. (I make alot of pictures of text, so it needs to be sharp instead of beautiful). The thing with the Samsung though is that I think it has way too much bloatware and the interface is not nice at all. To me it feels cheap and not worth the money.

The HTC one has a great look and feel, I never thought I'd value the speaker sound of a phone but if you hear it, it's just amazing. I love the intraface. Sense 5.0 is very slick and clean. If it'd have SD storage expansion it would be nearly perfect. I would like to see it with a removable battery and a 13 megapixel camera though. However, the camera's that are on the HTC one are absolutely beautiful when it comes to taking normal pictures and I would prefer them over a 13 megapixel if that was my main reason to make pictures. The front facing camera with its wide angle lens makes it just truly beautiful.

So it's a tough call if you ask me. Do you want to have a phone that feels cheap, has bad software but still has good quality internals and expandable storage and a removable battery. Where the phone can take damage better and is easier to repair, or..

Do you want a phone that has a truly good build quality but no expandable storage, removable battery, which is unrepairable but which is just perfect software and hardware wise.

I haven't chosen myself, I decided to skip a generation.

Yeah, this is precisely my problem. I am leaning toward the HTC One, which is actually slightly cheaper on Amazon, but am still going to go to a Sprint/ATT store just to hold the phones and play with them before deciding on it.

[Zelk]

I've had two HTC phones in the past and I have a Samsung S3 mini currently. My experience is that the Samsung phones are better built. Both my HTC phones didn't last the length of my contract without having major faults. For one of them I had to get a new batter and casing, and the others speakers didn't work whenever I called someone. My Samsung phone is fine and surprisingly resilient.

[Cthulhu 2020]

The HTC may "feel" more sturdy with its metal shell, but if you're not getting a proper extra case, you're running the risk of breaking it either way. A proper case will cover up any kind of phone casing. As far as bloatware, it can easily be gotten rid of. I've uninstalled several things that I never see myself using and should I decide that I do want them after all, they're available in the samsung store for free.

[Sorshen]

Aluminium chipping looks and feels terrible :/
One needs a case.

[Lilbruz]

A few things as I see it.

I had 2 iPhones (3 and 3G). I had 2 Samsung Galaxy (S2 and S3), and now I have the HTC One, and I have never - and I mean EVER had a better phone in my life. And I had mobile phones for 20 years, about 1-2 models a year !

First of all, for your own sake, DONT throw out the One as an option because of "omg it has no removable battery and no SD card" Ask yourself this: Have you ever in your life had the need to switch out the battery on your modern smartphone, and have you ever needed more storage"

Now, if you answer yes to any of these, there are options. But I´d reckon 90% of people never had the need for a battery change, and maybe 75% never needed more storage.

About the battery. Its EXCELLENT ! Use the built in features, a little know-how about Android (lots of guides on Google) to adjust the OS to not use battery when not needed, and your battery life will last for AT LEAST a day with moderate use, and even more with less use ofc. Also, if you use your phone a lot, it will ofc use more battery - every phone will. But honestly, dont listen to the crap about "oh, I cant get through 24 hours without charging my phone. Its mostly bullshit or someone that doesnt use the battery saving or uses the phone non stop.

Also, who is never close to a charger/USB for a whole day IF the need arises ?

Even if you have trouble with battery not lasting a workday (Which you wont have unless you are careless with use), and you are working in a building with no electricity, buy a batterybox. Its small boxes - basically batteries with an USB cord. Charge that up and take it with you, and you have (depending on what type you buy) one or 2 full charges right in your pocket. Problem solved. And dont even start with "But then I have to pay extra and bla bla bla". Yes, you do. But how much do you think an original battery for your phone (if you could change it) would cost ? Here is a hint: MUCH more than a USB battery pack.

Storage. The One has 32 GB of storage. Of that, about 25GB is available for your stuff like music and such. Thats a lot of space for most people. Now in this day and age, people stream music and movies like crazy, and you can use cloud storage to store basically everything. Yet, people STILL complain that there isnt enough storage on phones, and yes, SD cards are really cool to have, but you can still expand the One if you need it - and cheaper than an SD card.

Buy an USB OTG cable. Its basically a USB to micro USB cable you plug in your phone, and then plug in ANY USB device. Hell, you can even plug in a USB hub and use mouse and keyboard. But for storage, you plug in USB sticks. Get a 64GB USB stick, and voila, you now have 64GB extra storage. Not enough ? Plug in a 1TB 2.5" Harddrive ! Yes, its not small and compact as an SD card, but I use an OTG Cable and any USB stick (they come in really small form factors too), and it only adds a little to the phone in terms of size.

So the basic "negative" things people and reviews say about the One is "no exchangable battery and no SD card", and thats mostly the cons of this phone. Now as you can see, I argue that these negative things are null and void for the most part and for most people in most situations, but even IF you need more battery and more storage, there are very easy and cheap solutions to counter the "negatives" about this phone.

Take away the "nagatives" and you are left with one, if not THE best made and best looking phone ever made. Trust me, you will not be disappointed with the HTC One.

I dont even want to go into the whole "Galaxy vs One" deal about software...TouchWiz vs Sense...cause there are enough videos about that, and it comes down to what you need and what you value most.

Another thing someone else said, the speakers (with or without earbuds/headphones) are M I L E S better than ANY phone currently on the market.

Hope this helps

---------- Post added 2013-06-02 at 03:25 PM ----------

Aluminium chipping looks and feels terrible :/
One needs a case.

Then buy one ? I recommend the hard case from HTC. If you dont like the red/grey, its soon out in dark grey/black.

And no, I dont work for HTC hehe

---------- Post added 2013-06-02 at 03:31 PM ----------

Aluminium chipping looks and feels terrible :/
One needs a case.

Then buy one ? I recommend the hard case from HTC. If you dont like the red/grey, its soon out in dark grey/black.

And no, I dont work for HTC hehe

Oh, and one more thing about the battery. When HTC One sleeps, it SLEEPS. I had 100% battery when unplugging the charger at night, and when I woke up over 8 hours later, it STILL had 100% left. I have never seen that in ANY smartphone. And I tried it again, and I still got things like mail and stuff through, so you are not cut off from the world either

[Sorshen]

Oh, and one more thing about the battery. When HTC One sleeps, it SLEEPS. I had 100% battery when unplugging the charger at night, and when I woke up over 8 hours later, it STILL had 100% left. I have never seen that in ANY smartphone. And I tried it again, and I still got things like mail and stuff through, so you are not cut off from the world either

Yeah, you have no idea what you're talking about.
One, as well as i9505 and other high end phones out there, have a Snapdragon 600 SoC with quad Krait-300 cores, they ALL have Hexagon DSP architecture and asymmetrical multi-processing / voltage control for ultra low power/deep sleep states.

[Lilbruz]

Yeah, you have no idea what you're talking about.
One, as well as i9505 and other high end phones out there, have a Snapdragon 600 SoC with quad Krait-300 cores, they ALL have Hexagon DSP architecture and asymmetrical multi-processing / voltage control for ultra low power/deep sleep states.

Oh, so 3 different battery meassuring apps AND the built in one was just pulling my leg when they ALL showed 100%, were they ? Ok.

I dont really care if you believe me or not. Im just telling you that after 8 hours, It went from 100% to 100%

[Sorshen]

The phone won't go to deep sleep if there are active processes eating core resources in the background. In this case, the " % battery goes down while sleeping" values are mostly user/ROM dependent - control the apps you install, the bloatware and the services you disable/kill.

Both phones will be availabe in Google Play store soon (cheaper, AOSP versions, Nexus-like) - that's the best version of these phones you'll find since, imo, Sense 5 is crappier than even Touchwiz.

[Tribunal]

Love my S3 (still discovering new stuff it can do!) and it's solidly made to boot. I also had an old HTC Evo and seriously considered the HTC One until we switched to a carrier without it. Similarly, that Evo felt damn near unbreakable at times. It took tumbles onto concrete with a non-protective skin type case and was not affected.

I'd say you're pretty safe with the s4 (checked it out at the store, the upgrades from the s3 are all somewhat minor but all positive. One or two (new gallery) are like WHY CAN'T MINE DO THAT) or the One X. If you want to save some money an s3 is still a really, really solid phone as well. Soon to be a Google/unlocked version too.

Or if you can afford to wait, there's always the Moto X coming soon. Yeah, it could still flop, but with allll the risks and efforts put into it, I personally doubt it. I know if I was looking to buy 'soon' but could wait, I probably would.

[Lilbruz]

The phone won't go to deep sleep if there are active processes eating core resources in the background, the " % battery goes down while sleeping" values are mostly user/ROM dependent - control the apps you install, the bloatware and the services you disable/kill.

Did you read my post like at all ? I didnt say this was the out of box settings. I specifically said that with the built in battery saver and a little know how about Android and guides, this is what my battery looked like after 8+ hours. Im not saying I had EVERYTHING on like facebook, weather, twitter, news and all kinds of feeds on. I had mail (again set up NOT to check every hour or anything) and normal SMS/phone stuff.

And again, I dont care if you believe me or not, but I can tell you this phone sleeps MUCH MUCH better than anb S3. In the app where you can see wake-ups, it hardly had any over a period of 8 hours, and my S3 had loads - even with me trying to limit them.

Again, you have to disable adds you dont use and mingle the setting a bit, and you will of course not get this kind of battery time out of the box. But I think I made that quite clear already

[Klutzington]

I am curious about this... does anyone have experience w/ the Nexus 4?

I'm exploring this option; buying a Nexus 4 off of Amazon/Ebay and using T Mobile due the county I live in, the reception is better than Sprint. I researched the frequencies that T Mobile runs on and they run on 1700 MHz and 2100 MHz (both are needed for a phone to work on their network). My question is would this phone work? In the description, it says UMTS 850/1700/1900/2100, is that the same thing? I just want to make sure, so that other phones I look at I know whether or not they are capable of running on T Mobile's network. And yes, the phone is unlocked so that I can pop in a SIM card to switch to T Mobile.

[Asics]

Recently upgraded from a Droid X to a Galaxy S4. I would give it a 9/10, just a few minor tweaks and it would be perfect. Would highly recommend.

[Deleted]

Probably because there is has been nothing special about the iPhone since the 4?

There are no aesthetic changes yes, except the little increase in screen size. But what I have noticed is that my iPhone 5 is a lot faster than my brother in law's iPhone 4. There really is a big difference when it comes to that.

One note though, the 3G reception is really strange sometimes. When you're standing in the middle of a big city it sometimes loses the signal, but this seems to be a known problem. So be careful ^^

[Deleted]

I find it funny how indecisive people get over buying a new phone (myself included). Everyone looks for all the cool features, CPU, camera etc. when most phones do the same stuff and have very little in terms of differences. After the initial period of playing with gadgets and the odd app it just becomes a medium for texting and checking Facebook.

My opinion - Look at the top three and get the one that looks the nicest.

[Masark]

S4 also has a bigger battery than any of them, in addition to a 13 mp camera and stronger processor.

The S4 also has a user-replaceable battery, so you can shove in an even bigger one if you feel the need.

It also has a microSD slot for more storage, unlike the One.

[Deleted]

Still wondering if it would be worth it for me to buy the Nexus 4 for €469.

[Klutzington]

I am really looking at the Nexus 4 as a viable option. I am loving the look of the phone :3

[apatheticalex]

I am curious about this... does anyone have experience w/ the Nexus 4?

I'm exploring this option; buying a Nexus 4 off of Amazon/Ebay and using T Mobile due the county I live in, the reception is better than Sprint. I researched the frequencies that T Mobile runs on and they run on 1700 MHz and 2100 MHz (both are needed for a phone to work on their network). My question is would this phone work? In the description, it says UMTS 850/1700/1900/2100, is that the same thing? I just want to make sure, so that other phones I look at I know whether or not they are capable of running on T Mobile's network. And yes, the phone is unlocked so that I can pop in a SIM card to switch to T Mobile.

I am pretty sure it works on Tmobile since there was only one version of this phone made and Tmobile sells them.

If I lived in an area where T Mobile was decent I would do this without a second thought, T mobile has some of the cheapest plans available with one I find absolutely amazing 30/month - 100 mins unlimited data and texting. Who calls each other anymore anyway? My best advice for new buyers is do not get stuck on a contract plan, You never know where you'll be a year from now - finance and location wise and having to eat a 300-200 termination fee and having a phone that might not even be useable in the area you are going is just not worth it.

[Masark]

I am really looking at the Nexus 4 as a viable option. I am loving the look of the phone :3

You may want to wait around a bit. There's the "Nexus Experience" One and S4 also appearing Soon™.

[Deleted]

S4, One and N4 are generally regarded as the top choices for android right now (N4 mainly because of its' price)
Here are some links to anandtechs reviews of those devices so you can help yourself make a more informed opinion.

Galaxy S4 review http://www.anandtech.com/show/6914/s...axy-s-4-review

HTC One review http://www.anandtech.com/show/6747/htc-one-review

Nexus 4 review http://www.anandtech.com/show/6440/g...nexus-4-review

If video reviews are more your thing (or you just want some extra info) check out http://www.youtube.com/user/TheAngel...?feature=watch
There are reviws or comparisons of all the aforementioned phones I believe.
Lastly some advice directly from me: go to a store and try out the devices. The N4 may not be easy to find but the S4/One should be everywhere. Both the S4/One will also soon be available from the play store with AOSP (stock android ie nexus experience). As for actual N4 refreshes or entirely new nexus devices: It's all rumours at the moment.