As the smartphone market has started heating up once again it’s time for another one of these comparisons, there are going to be new flagships and there are also going to be entire new brands to replace the current ones. But this will remain the time of the year when all major manufacturers are done with announcing their flagships, allowing us to compare how they do up against each other.

With Apple’s recent iPhone 6 release, HTC’s flagship the One M8 and Samsung’s Galaxy S5, things are looking great for the consumers. Until the next big thing pops up, these three beasts are going to be at the top of the “what I want to buy” list.

At a distance

Apple’s new iPhone 6 is always going to cause a few faces to turn towards you in a crowd. Their design hasn’t changed by much over the years, the brand’s identity has only improved over time, which is the reason behind all those turned faces to be honest. Regardless of what people say, the iPhone is always going to be a luxury smartphone. It’s a perfect fit for people who like to show off their hands, it’s stable and powerful at the same time.

Being approximately the same design and style as the Galaxy S4, the S5 doesn’t really have much to offer for someone who already owns the predecessor. The metallic finish on the back cover is better that the older designs, a fingerprint scanner is also a nice gimmick but it’s definitely not something that’s unique to this phone because there’s quite a few phones out there that have built in finger scanners.

And then there’s the One M8. An aluminum body completely changes the feel of the phone. Instead of feeling like plastic, the entire One series from HTC has a luxurious metallic feel to it, the design alone gives it a unique look. Holding a One M8 in your hand doesn’t feel like any other smartphone out there, and HTC has honestly out done themselves as far as we’re concerned.

A closer look

Their screen sizes aren’t that far off from each other, the iPhone 6 comes in at 4.7 inches, the Galaxy S5 checks in at 5.1 inches whereas the One M8 sneaks in the middle with a 5 inch screen. However, the iPhone doesn’t have the 1080p screen which is a luxury shared by the other two. It should also be mentioned that the iPhone’s pixel density is also much lower than its competitors even though it has a much smaller screen.

The same can be said for the cameras, Apple could’ve done a much better job at it. The iPhone 6 is able to make a 1080p video but the S5 is already beyond that, clocking in at a 4k video. HTC One M8 however decided to stick to the 1080p when it comes to videos. But when it comes to front cameras it’s a whole different story, both the S5 and One M8 have much better front cameras than the iPhone 6 with both of them being able to provide 1080p videos over the iPhone’s 720p.

And when it comes to things like weight and actual dimensions of the smartphone, the iPhone surely dominates the market, coming in at around 80% the weight of HTC’s One M8 and around 89% of Samsung’s Galaxy S5, Apple surely knows how to make their devices sleeker, lighter and smaller than their competitors.

The iPhone runs on Apple’s own iOS whereas both the S5 and One M8 have Android’s KitKat. As far as performance and the numbers go however, Apple’s still sticking with a dual core processor clocked at 2 GHz for the iPhone 6. HTC and Samsung went for the quad core processors clocked at 2.3 GHz and 2.5 GHz respectively.

Conclusions

Nothing really matters at the end of the day, android lovers will go for the Android phones and Apple fans will pick up the new model as soon as possible. This year’s iPhones were a little bit disappointing to say the least, regardless of whether or not you’re interested in Apple’s devices nearly everyone was expecting a lot more power behind the sleek designs this year.

And even without the latest technology in processors, the iPhone still remains one of the best phones out there purely because of the operating system. Android doesn’t have the stability of the iOS but it’s got the features, app markets as well as an entire community devoted to developing the operating systems for their favorite smartphones.

But isn’t it all about what you want in a smartphone and which manufacturer is able to provide you with exactly that?

Article by Beatrice Persson