iPhone 5s vs. HTC One: A comparison

New Delhi: Unarguably, HTC One and iPhone 5S are among the best of the lot when it comes to high-end smartphones. Both make liberal use of metal and feel great in the hand. While HTC is extreme on the outside – big screen, big camera pixels, big sound, Apple's iPhone 5S is extreme on the inside – 64-bit processor, amazing image signal processor, huge range of LTE support. The HTC One is a great smartphone that comes with premium construction, powerful processor and intelligently designed speakers and a gorgeous 1080p screen which gives excellent colors and viewing angels. It offers speedy performance, completely lag-free interface and an attractive, streamlined Sense user interface. Its “UltraPixel” camera performs really well in low light. The HTC One comes with the Beats Audio meaning you'll hear the best sound output quality in the market. The audio output is well balanced and the phone performs really well at high volumes. It runs Android 4.2.2 with HTC's Sense 5.0 interface on top.And much like the HTC One, the iPhone 5S is clad in aluminum, giving it a nice hefty feel. Apple has maintained the same hardened glass front and aluminum chassis, but now it is offering two new colors — space gray and gold. The iPhone 5S comes with 4-inch Retina display with full sRGB standard and widescreen video. It delivers 640 x 1,136 resolution, rated at 326ppi. Though the iPhone 5S' camera retains the 8-megapixel count of the iPhone 5, it is now capable of capturing 120 frames-per-second slow-motion video and 10 frames-per-second burst photography. Driven by the A7 chip, the camera snaps photos and videos faster for cleaner, more detailed, and more vibrant shots. Under the hood, the iPhone 5S' advancements are far more significant. Apple has laid claim to producing the world's first 64-bit smartphone processor with the new A7 system-on-a-chip (SOC).Let us do a detailed comparison of both the smartphones: SizeThe One is much larger than iPhone 5S, but it is still comfortable to hold. The One measures about 11 per cent taller, 15 per cent wider, and 18 per cent thicker than the iPhone 5S.Winner: HTC OneWeightThe iPhone 5s is 22 per cent lighter than the HTC One.Winner: iPhone 5SBuildBoth the smartphones are made of aluminium and have great build quality. Much like the HTC One, the iPhone 5S has unique design features like chamfered edges and the home button that is made of laser-cut sapphire crystal with a stainless steel detection ring circling it.The iPhone 5s is available in three colors: Space Gray (with a black front), Gold (white front), and Silver (white front). The One is most often seen in silver and black, but there are also red and blue versions floating around.Winner: HTC OneDisplayLike the exterior design, the iPhone 5s' screen is largely carried over from its predecessor: a 4in, 1136 x 640 LCD Retina display that delivers a pixel density of 326ppi. There's plenty of resolution here for web browsing and apps, and everything looks incredibly sharp and detailed, as you'd expect from a Retina display with a high pixel density of 326ppi. Thanks to the high-quality IPS panel, this is a great screen. It's bright, produces excellent whites and vibrant colours, and offers excellent viewing angles mean that you can see what's on screen clearly from anywhere.On the other hand, the HTC One's 4.7in full HD screen rocks when it comes to detail: its pixel density is a staggering 469ppi. The brightness and contrast packs a nice punch too.Winner: HTC OneFingerprint SensorOne of the biggest features of the iPhone 5s is its Touch ID fingerprint sensor that makes it much easier to secure the device using the owner's fingerprint for authentication. By simply placing your thumb on the sensor — or any finger, for that matter — the iPhone 5S can identify your fingerprint and unlock your phone. The iPhone 5S' fingerprint sensor is a nice piece of technology. It is capacitive and when you touch the iPhone's fingerprint sensor, it measures the minuscule differences in conductivity caused by the raised parts of your fingerprint, and it uses those measurements to form an image. Apple embedded this sensor in the Home button, and added a ring to turn it on and help reduce signal errors.When you set up the iPhone 5S for the first time you can register a new fingerprint profile through a brief calibration process. The smartphone asks to repeatedly press your finger to the sensor, including the edges of your print, so that it can capture and store a unique TouchID. The iPhone 5S supports multiple profiles for multiple fingers and users, allowing you to give loved ones streamlined access to your device. Touch ID can also be used to make App Store or iTunes purchases. Just place your finger on the home button for a second or two, and like magic, you've been verified. Touch ID has 360-degree fingerprint readability. Apple claims that your fingerprint information is stored on the Secure Enclave. The information isn't accessible to any software, servers, or to iCloud.Winner: iPhone 5SProcessorThe Apple A7 is a 64-bit, 1.3GHz, ARMv8, dual-core CPU chip, which makes it twice as fast (according to Apple) as the A6 found in iPhone 5 and iPhone 5c. Apple calls the A7 chip as the world's first 64-bit smartphone processor with the new A7 system-on-a-chip (SOC). Not surprisingly, it is a beast on the paper. The A7 on the 5S can handle data more efficiently with a 64-bit format, akin to what's found on desktop computers, rather than the 32 bits traditionally used in phones. Games and other graphic-intensive apps can take advantage of this. Strikingly, the A7 processor is “only” dual-core and all that the company wanted was an efficient processor. And as a result, the iPhone 5s ranks among the top smartphones in CPU and GPU benchmark tests. The A7 processor is a major achievement in terms of balancing performance and power consumption. Apple also claims the chip is capable of twice the graphics power as its last generation, which comes into play for high-end games and other apps that work hard to churn out high-quality visual effects.The HTC One comes with the Snapdragon 600 processor alonwith 2 gigabytes of RAM. According to Qualcomm, the Snapdragon 600 processors offer system-wide architectural improvements, key component upgrades and expand connectivity options. It says it results in smooth online 3D gaming and super responsive web browsing. On Geekbench 3.0, the iPhone 5S came out the clear winner. Geekbench's score is built from a combination of measurements of computational speed across a variety of real-world processes like JPG compression and decompression. The impressive results confirm many of the improvements Apple claimed in its early September keynote.In another benchmark score, Gizmodo ran the iPhone 5S's GPU through the commonly used GFXBench software, using its most-intense on-screen gaming test and compared it to the publicly available leaderboards for existing flagships. The chart above the average frame rates the graphics processor of each phone. A faster rates in this test would translate to smoother graphics on the most system-taxing games out there. Winner: iPhone 5SMotion CoprocessorApple's iPhone 5s is equipped with both an A7 processor as well as a new "M7" chip that is otherwise known as a "motion coprocessor." The M7 chip is designed to work alongside the A7 processor, capturing motion data from the phone's compass, accelerometer, and gyroscope to power a new generation of health and fitness apps. Alongside the M7 chip, Apple has also introduced new CoreMotion APIs that can take advantage of the M7 coprocessor to create improved fitness and activity apps that are unavailable on similar devices. The M7 coprocessor also measures and track all movement data, even when the phone is asleep. Since M7 is a secondary processor, it saves battery life while allowing pedometer-style apps to run in the background.The HTC One also tracks motion and send that data to fitness apps and accessories, but it does with the main chip. So expect more typical battery drain.Winner: iPhone 5SCameraWith the 5s Apple bucks the industry trend of increasing camera resolution, holding to 8 megapixels while much of the competition drifts towards 13 megapixels and beyond. Instead of squeezing in more megapixels, Apple chose to use bigger pixels to catch more light when illumination is scarce. There's also a lower f/2.2 aperture. The result: brighter and sharper images, especially in low light. Especially indoor scenes are more evenly lit, back lights are better compensated for, and flesh tones — all colors — are more natural and realistic. Video-wise, the 5s' image stabilization results in noticeably less jitter than in videos shot with the 5, meaning less headaches while watching your home movies.However, the HTC One has a 4 MP (1520x2688) camera with an f/2.0 aperture but that allows them to go to a pixel size of 2 micrometers on the same 1/3.2-inch sensor. That means that its UltraPixels are larger and should allow for better light sensitivity, particularly in low light situations. The HTC One's wider, f/2.0 aperture also helps with getting light to the sensor, as does its optical image stabilization (OIS). In a comparative shootout, in most cases, the color depth and saturation of the iPhone 5 seems to be better. The only time the HTC One beats the iPhone 5 is in bright light or in artificial lighting. The HTC One does a better job of balancing the light correctly. In indoor shots, lighting seems to cause a bit of a yellowish or blueish hue in photos taken with the iPhone 5 while the HTC One again does a better job of handling white balance on its own. In most general everyday photos though, the color depth of the iPhone 5 wins out over the HTC One.Both cameras did well at capturing motion during the day. Night was a different story, and both cameras suffered. Winner: HTC OneCamera FlashThe 5s also sports a dual LED flash, which the company calls as "True Tone." The goal of the two LEDs is to make for more balanced and realistic colors when you're using the phone's flash.Winner: iPhone 5SStorageBesides the iPhone's 16 GB model, the storage is even. Neither handset supports microSD cards (except for Asian variations of the One).Winner: iPhone 5SRAMThe iPhone 5s also has the same 1 GB of RAM found in the iPhone 5. The One has 2 GB.Winner: HTC OneBatteryApple's new flagship iPhone 5s easily out-performs its predecessor, the iPhone 5. The iPhone 5s runs on a 1570mAh battery, which is 10 per cent bigger than that of the iPhone 5, which has a 1440mAh battery. The 5S battery allows up to 10 hours of battery on LTE and Wi-Fi browsing. On the other hand, HTC One comes with a 2,300 mAh battery. Winner: HTC OneNFCThe One is equipped with Near-field communication (NFC) while the 5S is not.Winner: HTC One4G LTEBoth phones support 4G LTE data.Winner: DrawSoftwareLike every other iPhone, the 5s runs iOS. Here we're looking at the brand new iOS 7, which brings a new flat design, as well as a quick-settings control center, improved multitasking, and iTunes Radio. In One, HTC's Sense UI sits on top of all versions (except for the Google Play Edition). It adds a home screen feed reader called BlinkFeed, as well as the camera app's Zoes, which are short clips you can share as-is or use to pick the best still shot.Winner: iPhone 5SSpeakersHTC's front-facing speakers are louder and fuller than any other smartphone speakers you'd use. HTC calls its front-facing as "BoomSound" speakers. They deliver the best audio you'd hear.Winner: HTC OneStarting PriceWith the One having been on store shelves for a while, some retailers and carriers have dropped the 32 GB model below its suggested US$200 with a new two-year contract. Release Cycle