As expected, both Samsung and HTC announced their new flagship smartphones during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. That means that it is time for the ultimate comparison of the top high-end smart mobile phones of the year – iPhone 6, Samsung Galaxy S6 and HTC One M9.
Camera
Sometimes a device’s specifications sound much more impressive on paper than they perform in reality. That is the case with the camera of the latest HTC One smartphone. The handset boosts with 20MP rear camera, as opposed on iPhone 6’s 8MP and Galaxy S6 12MP. Nevertheless, Apple’s device offers a more decent image quality. In addition to that, the handset does an excellent job when it comes to snapping low-light photographs. Samsung has tried to improve its Galaxy S6 in a similar direction. The South Korean company decided to stick to the same megapixels, but to improve the camera’s low-light capabilities.
Display
With its iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, Apple finally stepped into the field of big-screened handsets. Nevertheless, HTC One M9 and Samsung Galaxy S6 both seem to offer more things on the table. HTC’s latest flagship smartphone comes with a 5” screen, which easily makes it a phablet. In addition, it supports full HD. Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge are even more impressive with their 5.1” quad HD super AMOLED displays. In addition to that, Samsung has improved the resolution of its flagship handset to 1440×2560.
Performance
Both Galaxy S6 and HTC One M9 pack more power than the latest iPhone… at least on paper. Samsung has put a octa-core Exynos 7 processor clocked at 1.5GHz and 2.1GHz. HTC, on the other hand, has separated the cores of the Snapdragon 810 processor into bundles running at 1.5GHz and 2GHz. Compared to iPhone 6 dual-core 1.4GHz Cyclone processor, that sounds like a major improvement. Nevertheless, Apple has managed to combine the device’s hardware and software in a very smart way. As a result, the new-generation iPhone does not disappoint when it comes to performance and speed. S6 and One M9 seem like powerful gadgets, but they are yet to put to the test.
Battery Life
Apple choice to put a 1810 mAh battery in its latest iPhone was not approved by many consumers. Both iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus are reported to offer poorer battery capacity compared to their predecessor. Now the game is about to get even tougher for the U.S. giant, as Samsung and HTC decided to go big on battery life. HTC’s One M9 packs a powerful 2840 mAh battery that offers a standby time of up to 402 hours for 3G. Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge each come with a 2600 mAh battery. On the other hand, thanks to the company’s wireless charging technology, only 10 minutes of charging, offer four hours of power.
Storage Capacity
For the first time, the latest models of iPhone, Samsung Galaxy S and HTC One are so alike when it comes to storage capacity. That is probably because manufacturers have started to focus more on cloud storage and less on increasing the physical storage capacity of their devices. All three of these smartphones are offered with a maximum of 128GB of internal storage. Only HTC’s flagship device supports microSD card and that is why its physical memory is limited to only 32GB. Apple’s iPhone 6 seems to trail behind with its RAM capacity of just 1GB. In contrast, ONE M9 and Galaxy S6 each pack three times more RAM.
New Functions
For the latest iPhone, the key change had to do with its screen size. For the first time, Apple released a device with a 4.7” display. Moreover, the U.S. company even launched a iPhone 6 Plus, which rocks a massive 5.5” screen. Also, let’s not forget the introduction of the mobile payment service Apple Pay is already in use in North America.
Samsung also unveiled a few new things. It added the curved display of Galaxy Note 4 Edge to Galaxy S6 Edge. Still, that did not come as a surprise to fans. Also, the South Korean company introduced Samsung Pay, a mobile payment platform similar to that of Apple. HTC, on the other hand, showed ambition to establish presence on the virtual reality and health market. Along with its new smartphone, the company unveiled HTC Grip, a premium smartband, HTC Vive, a VR headset. Both of these devices are supported by the new HTC One, yet they are separate devices rather than features of the handset.
Conclusion
As a device that was introduced nearly half a year ago, Apple’s iPhone 6 does lag behind when it comes to RAM, battery life and display. HTC One M9 and Samsung Galaxy S6 are similar in a number of ways. However, the S6 is very different from its predecessor, whereas M9 follows a well-known pattern. Therefore, HTC certainly disappoints with its newest One M9 handset. As for the battle between S6 and iPhone 6, it is still interesting despite the 6-month gap between them.
