Colleague been excusing S4 short comings, ill functioning gimmicks, lag and 2 master-resets in a week.
I and the HTC One stay silently cool.
This is the Samsung S4 vs HTC One essential difference.The Samsung has become the fanboy device. "The S4 has this, is better in this way, is brighter, it's shinny, sensor this, feature that, Sense sucks etc."
The ONE just lays there being cool. Simple. Discrete. Effective. "quietly brilliant".
Not being a fan of Android (too many inexcusable or unbearable faults for me, personally), the best compliment I can make the HTC One is that I don't even feel like I'm using Android. Except for the keyboard. But that's the BB Z10 fault. I find any other keyboard lacking in precision and intelligence now.
The HTC still has some new marketing names like "Ultra Pixel" and "Blink feed". But that is basically it. And you use them. And know what they are. The Samsung has S Beam, Air View, Air Gesture, Smart Stay, Smart Scroll etc, etc, etc... which you end up turning off (mostly) and never quite know what is or where to disable a specific feature. Which leads me to one of the biggest pet hates on Android. Menus, under menus, sub-menus and side menus, extra menus, tab menus etc. The Samsung is a master of making a mess of the Settings menu (<- singular). After configuring all your accounts, try deactivating SMS sync. I'll wait...
Even the display is set up brighter, with stronger colors like a LED Tv on a showroom display. At first glance looks better. But is it? Do videos and photos look accurate? I think not.
The jury is still out on the camera. Since I have to use it for quite a while to compare with the iPhone 5. But that's a good sign. I discarded the S4 gazillion pixel as fast as the rest of the device.
Finally: build, touch, feel and perceived quality.
No crappy tear off back cover (the Z10 has one, but a proper one) or "iPhone4 like" hard edges, no slippery plastic and/or glass, no home button, no chrome. Just silver/black in general and a bit of white plastic (yes, I got a white one*, again). Looks, feels and is solid.
Only real fault so far? It's rounded back. Makes one hand typing with the phone lying on a desk, wobbling, very hard. That kinda says a lot when you have to nit-pick to point out a fault.
But in a world where white cars, phones and tablets are trending, where "look at me" is the way of life, the S4 blends in perfectly and is selling very well with the white, flashy, colorful, spec-y "look at me I just spent €600 on that better than the iPhone thing" look. It does however look just like any other Samsung, like the Galaxy Express for instance.
It's a personal choice. You pick. But me, like I said before I prefer "Solidity from first contact. Usability in the long rung."
Pretty sure I'm gonna stick with the ONE for a while.
Check out these photos from cnet. These do it justice, it's how it looks IRL:
PS (update):
One more thing. Sound. Beware of the headphones you use. It'll destroy them and your ears in the process as well. If you really appreciate music, use (or buy) proper headphones capable of playing the quality this device puts out, and also take the power it dishes as well. And turn off "beats". It acts like "loudness".
Stereo speakers sound good too. Not that you should go around with music/video playing.
Oh and since there's no need for iTunes, this has taken the iPhone spot as the best music phone ever. Easy.
Can't believe I forgot to mention it... #facepalm
(*) colors schemes are just like Apple's now. You get white with silver or plain black.
