Key Difference: Samsung Galaxy S4 is the successor to the very popular Samsung Galaxy S3. The company boasts new features into a slightly smaller and sleeker design. The phone’s screen has been increased to a stunning almost 5 inches with only slight decrease in size of the phone. The screen is a full HD Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen that provides a greater resolution of 1080 pixels, almost 441ppi density. HTC was expected to launch its flagship phone HTC One in March 2013 with a brand new Qualcomm quad-core processor but has postponed the launch to an unknown date in April. HTC One sports a 4.7 inch Super LCD3 screen, with Full HD1080p, 468 PPI and corning gorilla glass 2.

Samsung and HTC have both announced new models of their flagship phones, the S4 and the One respectively. Due to the dynamic nature of technology, phone companies have to be constantly on the brink of innovation that makes their product different from all the other products on the market. Both the companies are successful smartphone producers and have been noted for their innovative phones and tablets. Both the phones are expected to be out in the first half of 2013 and should provide fierce competition to each other and other smart phones.

After building anticipation for almost three months, Samsung has officially released the newest variant of its flagship phone. To many the time spend waiting has not been wasted, while others seem to believe that the phone is not that intriguing to make them upgrade from their current S3s and iPhones to the S4.

Samsung Galaxy S4 is the successor to the very popular Samsung Galaxy S3. The company boasts new features into a slightly smaller and sleeker design. The phone’s screen has been increased to a stunning almost 5 inches with only slight decrease in size of the phone. The screen is a full HD Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen that provides a greater resolution of 1080 pixels, almost 441ppi density. The weight of the phone has also been reduced to 130 g and the width of the phone has been reduced by 1mm. The phone has sharper and straighter lines with just curved edges. In terms of design it is quite similar to the S3. The chassis is made up of polycarbonate plastic and the display is highly sensitive that accepts touch through gloves. The phone is available with either the 1.6 GHz octa-core Samsung Exynos 5 processor or the 1.9 GHz Snapdragon Fusion Pro quad-core processor, depending on the market. It is available with 16/32/64 GB internal capacity options and if that is not enough it can be upgraded by another 64 GB using the SD slot. The S4 comes with 2 GB RAM, which has become a norm for smartphones these days.

The phone comes with a stunning 13 MP primary camera, a 2 MP secondary camera and HD video recording capability. The S4 runs Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean, but it has yet to be seen if it will offer an upgrade to the new Key Lime Pie version when it is available in mid-2013. The phone is available in two colors Black Mist and White Frost, though there may be chances for other colors once the phone is available for purchasing. Now for the fun part! The phone offers brand new features that are sure to pull in some big spenders. The S4 offers hovering capabilities known as Air Wave, which allows users to swipe between screens, videos, photos without actually touching the screen. Another fun feature is the Smart Scroll and Smart Pause; Smart Scroll uses a sensor and the front camera to automatically scroll when a person is done reading a certain paragraph. The scrolling can also be controlled using tilt. Smart Pause uses the sensor to pause videos automatically when the phone senses that the person is no longer looking at the screen and then resumes when the person looks back at the screen.

Group Play is a feature that allows users to use NFC or Bluetooth to tap and transfer videos, photos, music and even engage in multiplayer games with other S4 users. There are many new camera features as well including dual camera, sound & shot, drama shot, story album, cinema photo and eraser mode. Dual camera allows users to use both the cameras at the same time including when trying to take a photo. The person taking the photo can place their face to the photo taken using the secondary camera or vice-versa. Sound & Shot feature takes 9 seconds of audio when capturing a photo. Drama Shot combines all the actions from a Burst shot into one screen. Story album enables the users to create an album using their shots and audio. Cinema photo feature allows the users to animate one portion of an image, while keeping the rest simple. Eraser Mode allows users to erase objects from the image that they do not wish to include. Other features also include S Health (users can track their diet, steps, exercises, etc.), S Translator, S Voice assistant, Galaxy S Voice Drive and Integrated Optical Reader. Samsung has yet to announce the release date and the price of the S4.

HTC was expected to launch its flagship phone HTC One in March 2013 with a brand new Qualcomm quad-core processor but has postponed the launch to an unknown date in April according to Engadget. It is expected to give direct competition to iPhone 5 and Galaxy S4. In terms of hardware and software, HTC One sports a 4.7 inch Super LCD3 screen, with Full HD1080p, 468 PPI and corning gorilla glass 2. The HTC One comes with Android v4.1.2 Jelly Bean that is upgradable to v4.2.2. The case is an all-aluminum frame with an antenna built into its backing. It includes a 1.7 GHz quad-core Snapdragon 600 processor, Adreno 320 GPU and 2 GB DDR2. The phone is available with non-expandable, 32 or 64GB internal capacity. It offers a 4 megapixel 2688 x 1520 pixels primary camera with autofocus, LED flash and BSI sensor, along with a 2.1 MP, 1080p@30fps, HDR secondary camera. The main feature is the new pixilation system that is opted in the primary camera of the phone, which provides each pixel size of 2.0 µm and sensor size of 1/3'.

The One also includes a new camera app known as ‘Zoe’, which records a short video alongside every photo taken and allows the resulting photos and videos to be automatically combined and synchronized with music to produce a multimedia presentation known as a Zoe. The One also offers a new feature on the home screen known as the BlinkFeed. This is a newsfeed that automatically upgrades every two hours if connected with a mobile service or more frequently when connected via WiFi. The BlinkFeed takes up the main home screen and cannot be removed, resulting in the home screen as not being as customizable as in the previous phones. The price of the phone has not yet been released.

Since both the phones have yet to be launched and are not yet available to the public, nothing can be said about which phone will capture the market. The Zoe feature of the HTC is quite similar to the Story Album feature and the Sound & Shot feature. In terms of features, the S4 is offering quite a few innovative ones including the hovering, scrolling and etc. However, HTC is offering an innovative new camera that offers a new pixilation system. It also offers an all-aluminum chassis with a built-in antenna. Will the HTC One trump Galaxy S4? We can only wait and see when both the phones are launched later on in the year.

The information for the detailed table about the two phones has been taken from the HTC website, knowyourmobile.com, expertreviews.co.uk, and GSMArena.com.

Image Courtesy: samsung.com, anandtech.com