HTC One (M8) vs iPhone 5S

 HTC One (M8) vs iPhone 5S

 

The new HTC One (M8) is official and it's one of the best looking smartphones we've laid eyes on, so naturally we've put it up against the equally glamorous iPhone 5S to see how the two style icons compare.
Will the Touch ID toting, smaller screened iPhone 5S take your fancy, or will HTC's last mobile marvel win you over with its larger display, dual cameras and booming Boomsound? Read on as we put the two head to head.

Retailer	Product	Price	Ship	Offers
	HTC One M8 LTE 16GB SIM Free / Unlocked (Silver)	From £356.99 In stock	From Free	Yes (2) View offers	View
We've found prices from 8 retailers

Headline Features

As we've already mentioned the key feature which makes the new HTC One (M8) and iPhone 5S stand out from the rest of the mobile crowd is their design.
The quality isn't just surface deep however, with both handsets packing powerful processors, the latest operating systems and a wealth of additional features.
You'll find Apple's clever Touch ID fingerprint scanner hidden up the home button on the iPhone 5S, providing an easier and more secure way to unlock the phone and pay for purchases in iTunes and the App Store.

Retailer	Product	Price	Ship	Offers
	iPhone 5s 16GB Gold - Unlocked - Apple	From £459.00 In stock	From Free	No	View
We've found prices from 7 retailers

The 8MP iSight camera on the rear of the device has been given a spruce up over the snapper which featured in the iPhone 5, and under the hood sits Apple's punchy A7 processor.

While the HTC One (M8) negates any fancy fingerprint or retina scanning tech, it does keep the dual front facing BoomSound speakers which have been overhauled from the original One for even better audio quality.
Round the back you get not one, but two camera lenses - more on those in a bit - and on the right side of the One (M8) you'll find a microSD slot. This allows you to build on the 16GB/32GB of internal storage - something you can't do on iPhone.

Design

If design is a core aspect of your smartphone buying process then you'll be fully satisfied with either handsets on show here.
Apple has always been known for its premium build quality and the iPhone 5S is no different with its compact metal and glass frame looking as good as it feels.
In an age where the size of smartphones is rapidly getting out of hand, the iPhone 5S comes as welcome relieve to your palm as its manageable dimensions make it easy to hold and slip into a pocket.

The angular edges aren't the most comfortable though, and if you find yourself with 5S in hand for an extended period of time it may start to dig in a bit.
We were thoroughly impressed with the design of the HTC One last year, but somehow the Taiwanese firm has managed to go one better with the One (M8).
Its gently curving back means that even for a big phone (the new HTC One has a 5-inch display versus the 4-inch offering on the 5S) it rests nicely in the palm and the rounded edges are kinder on your hands during extending periods of holding.

Of course the HTC One (M8) is considerably heavier than the 112g iPhone 5S, weighing in at 160g. That might be a bit of a deal breaker for some, but those of you who have already experienced phones such as the Xperia Z1, Lumia 925 or Galaxy S4 you won't have any issues.
We prefer the unibody design of the HTC One (M8) overall as it ties the handset into one neat package, although the iPhone 5S looks and feels just a premium.

OS and UI

In this head to head we have the two biggest mobile operating systems (OS) up against each other - Android and iOS.
No prizes for guessing which platform each phone runs, but the HTC One (M8) comes with the freshest flavour of Google's OS - Android 4.4 KitKat. To be more exact the version is 4.4.2, but it doesn't stop there.
HTC has also slapped its brand new Sense 6.0 user interface (UI) over the top to provide that familiar HTC on-screen look and feel.

Sense 6.0 isn't a huge departure from Sense 5.5 which can be found on the HTC One Max, with a few new features such as gesture controls to wake the handset and automatically launch you into an app.
HTC's Sense overlay is one of the most comprehensive on the market and while Android purists may be put off, it's a well honed interface which provides a welcome amount of control.
If having control is your thing you won't be such a big fan of the locked down iOS 7 which is running on the iPhone 5S - it prefers to control you instead.

Now that's not a bad thing as iOS 7 does make many tasks easier than Android and anyone who has bought into Apple previously will feel at home here - it's also super easy to transfer yourself from an old iPhone to the 5S.
iOS 7 saw the biggest shake up in Apple's mobile platform since its conception with a new design and colour, but beneath the layer of gloss it's business as usually with a powerful OS providing you with an excellent user experience.

Screen

The HTC One (M8) is the daddy here with its 5-inch, full HD display boasting a 441ppi, while the iPhone 5S is left with a 640 x 1136 Retina resolution clocking in at 326ppi.
Apple has stuck with its Retina display for a few years now and it's been surpassed by pretty much every mobile manufacturer out there. That's not to say it's a poor quality offering, as it still manages to render text and video well, but that's aided by the small 4-inch display.

That 4-inch screen size is fast becoming the default for the entry-level mobile market, and with high-end rivals topping 5 inches and full HD displays you can't help but feel a little short changed when presented with the offering on the iPhone 5S.
The low cost Moto G has a bigger screen than the iPhone 5S, yet the same pixel density - it just doesn't add up.
Especially if you then go straight over to the HTC One (M8) and lay eyes on its full HD resolution which is more defined than the 5S.

The larger screen also makes watching movies and playing games a lot easier, not to mention more enjoyable.
Of course the size may prove too big for some, but the HTC One (M8) is still manageable - it's certainly not as unruly in the hand as the likes of the One Max or Sony Xperia Z Ultra.

CPU and RAM

When it comes to raw power there is only one winner here on paper - the new HTC One (M8). It sports Qualcomm's latest quad-core chip - the Snapdragon 801 - clocked at 2.3GHz and that's backed up by 2GB of RAM.
The iPhone 5S on the other hand sports a 1.3GHz dual-core processor and just 1GB of RAM - but don't let that put you off.

Because iOS 7 only needs to support a handful of devices Apple has managed to optimise the platform to ensure it gets maximum performance from its modest components.
What does this mean? Well it means you're not going to see a great deal of difference in terms of navigation, speed and load times between the iPhone 5S and HTC One (M8).
We did notice that the One (M8) tended to be a shade quicker than the 5S, especially when it came to more intensive tasks such as loading a graphically heavy game, but you're unlikely to be slowed down by either device.

Battery life

With its larger screen and more powerful innards you may well be fearing for the battery inside the HTC One (M8), and to be fair at first we were too - but those fears were quickly extinguished.
HTC has squeezed a slightly larger battery into the One (M8) over its predecessor - up from 2300mAh to 2600mAh - but the real star of the show here is the Snapdragon 801 chip.
In our tests we found that even with heavy usage the HTC One (M8) was able to last around a day and a half on a single charge, and if you cut out gaming and movies it'll see out two days.

Move over to the iPhone 5S and things don't look quite so stellar, although it's not bad news.
The current standard we expect from out smartphones is a full day of usage and the 5S delivers that - but that's all the 1560mAh battery gives you.
For those of you who like to carry spare, fully charged batteries in your bag there's some bad news, as neither device offers a removable power pack thanks to the unibody designs of the handsets.

Camera

When it comes to looking at the cameras on the HTC One (M8) and iPhone 5S it gets a bit interesting as on paper neither handset sounds like a top of the range mobile snapper.
The iPhone 5S boasts an 8MP camera, while over on the HTC One (M8) you get two sensors on the rear of the device with the main one equivalent to just 4MP. Compare these to the 16MP Galaxy S5, 20.7MP Xperia Z2 and 41MP Lumia 1020 and it appears to be a losing battle.
We found what the iPhone 5S produced the better general images when heading out and about snapping various scenes, but it's in post production where the One (M8) really fights back.

The new One (M8) comes out on top in terms of tricks, with an impressive array of post-capture tools allowing you to easily and quickly create a really unique image.
The best feature here is U-focus, which allows you to select the focus point of an image after the photo has been taken. This means you can choose whether to highlight an object in the foreground, or a landscape in the background.
It's all thanks to the Duo Camera setup on the rear of the new HTC One, where the second, smaller lens only captures depth information, rather than a complete image.

Both devices sport front facing cameras, with the iPhone 5S equipped with a 1.2MP offering for those all important Facetime calls, while the new HTC One boasts a 5MP camera - perfect for a cheeky selfie.

Price

The HTC One (M8) is a high end smartphone and thus commands the same lofty price tag as its predecessor. While £550 (around $650, AU$850) is a lot of money, the new HTC One is no more expensive than its Apple counterpart.
In fact the 16GB iPhone 5S, which doesn't feature a microSD card slot, will set you back £549 ($649, AU$869) while the 32GB is £629 ($749, AU$999) and the 64GB variant clocks in at a whopping £709 ($849, AU$1,129) SIM free.
It means the new One (M8) is priced reasonably well and it falls in line with the likes of the Galaxy S5 and Xperia Z2, while also having the advantage of going on sale before both of them.

Early verdict

So which should you get - the iPhone 5S or the new HTC One (M8)? Well, that's actually up to you rather than us, as both are top quality devices offering rather different experiences.
If you're heavily embedded in the Apple ecosystem, have plunged hundreds into iTunes or simply want a more palm and pocket friendly mobile the iPhone 5S is the one for you.
Its glamorous design is just as premium as that of the HTC One (M8)'s, but its more compact chassis makes it easier to transport - although movie watching and gaming aren't quite as good on the smaller, lower resolution 4-inch display.
Anyone looking for a real powerhouse of a mobile they can flaunt in front of their iPhone wielding friends will want to get their hands on the HTC One (M8).
We love its all-metal unibody design, making it look and feel fantastic and that helps justify its lofty price tag a lot better than the all plastic Samsung Galaxy S5.

source:-HTC One (M8) vs iPhone 5S