Introduction
Seriously, we
got like a thousand tips. So here it is - the HTC One vs the Sony Xperia Z
battle of the gorgeous-looking flagships.
Both devices are the crucial points
in their respective manufacturer's struggles to turn their fortunes around. The
Sony Xperia Z and HTC One come with different skill sets but generally tend to
appeal to the same group of users. Design conscious multimedia-addicts, who
need top notch performance and value a streamlined interface over an endless
number of features scattered around.
Of course, each of the two contestants has its own unique talents. The One will certainly be a favorite to those that have a soft spot for sweet audio - both through headphones and speakers. The Xperia Z on the other hand will certainly win the hearts of the outdoorsy, adventurous types who will love the fact that water and dust resistance no longer equals an entry-level feature set.
So let's see who draws first blood.
HTC One over Sony Xperia Z
·
Super
LCD3 display with 469ppi density
·
Aluminum
unibody
·
Optical
Image Stabilization, image sensor with 2µm pixel size
·
Snapdragon
600 chipset
·
HTC Zoe,
BlinkFeed
·
Front
mounted stereo speakers, Beats Audio
·
IR
blaster
·
Smaller
footprint
Sony Xperia Z over HTC One
·
IP57 dust
and water protection
·
Larger
screen
·
All glass
body
·
Higher
resolution camera
·
microSD
card support
·
Thinner
body
It turns out the Sony Xperia Z and
HTC One have quite a lot of differences, which are bound to give each of them
an edge in some of the trials today. So it's shaping as an exciting matchup
likely to resolve itself only after a fierce exchange of blows.
Going by the early sales estimates,
it might be tempting to conclude that this is a fight for the second place as
the Samsung Galaxy S4 is bound to beat both of these without breaking a sweat.
Yet sales figures don't always mean a better smartphone and we can bet many
will see their next dream handset emerge from this fight. After all, you
probably won't get a more powerful water-resisting smartphone than the Xperia Z
or a more visually appealing musically talented smartphone than the One.
HTC One and Sony Xperia Z
So back to the task at hand - each
of these two smartphones is bound to win the few rounds that play exactly to
its strengths, but there are plenty of fights hanging in the balance. Will the
new low-res UltraPixel camera with OIS of the One beat the 13MP conventional
snapper on the Xperia Z? And which of these beasts manages its battery better?
There's plenty to play for here, so
let's get going. The first stop is hardware, right after the break.
Design
and build quality
HTC and Sony both know how to make flagship
devices with great looks and premium feel. The two companies took different
approaches to the design, but the final result was great in both cases.
HTC has stuck to its guns, building a gapless
unibody smartphone that is entirely made out of high-grade aluminum and feels
impressively solid in the hand. The only part of the One that comes off is the
SIM tray but even that requires a tool to operate.
Sony has put their best design ideas behind
the Xperia Z and labeled it as precision engineered. The front and back panels
of the smartphone are made out of tempered scratch-resistant glass that look
stunning, even if they are not quite as solid when held in hand. The company
also paid proper attention to details like the signature power button, which is
specifically engineered for comfortable operation. The Xperia Z isn't a unibody
construction but doesn't have a removable back cover, so accessing the battery
is, again, a no-go.
HTC
One and Xperia Z side by side
That said, the Sony Xperia Z design still
holds a few important advantages over the HTC One unibody. The IP57 certification
for water and dust resistance is the most prominent among those, but you
shouldn't also forget the microSD card slot that allows for cheap and quick
memory expansion. There's also the microSIM slot which can be operated without
a sharp tool at hand, which might come in handy if you need to swap SIM cards
on the go.
The HTC One has gone with a slightly smaller
4.7" screen, allowing it to retain a slightly slimmer footpint despite the
dual-frontal speakers, each with its own Beats amplifier. The marketing term
here is BoomSound and the benefits are easy to hear. The HTC One offers clearer
and deeper sound than any device we've ever heard in the office and the
placement of the speakers means watching videos or playing games will be a more
immersive experience.
The
HTC One's front
The Sony Xperia Z strikes back with a super
slim 7.9mm waistline, which means it have a smaller overall volume despite its
larger 5" screen. Of course, you should keep in mind that the Xperia Z's
screen features on-screen buttons that take away from the real estate, but the
software hides them in the gallery and video player, and while playing games so
you get the extra space back where it counts.
The
Sony Xperia Z's front
The HTC One isn't in the running for thinnest
device but manages an acceptable 9.3 mm waistline. Its hardware controls do
cause some usability issues though. The power button (which doubles as an IR
emitter for controlling various appliances around your home) is located on top
and is a rather hard to reach. The key itself is sitting pretty low and its
press feedback is poor - traits shared with the volume rocker on the right side
of the HTC One.
The
HTC One buttons aren't the easiest to operate
The sides of the smartphone have nice colored
accents and feel almost unanimous to the finger until you open the flaps over
the SIM, microUSB or microSD card slots, which are all covered with plastic
flaps in order to fend of water and dusts.
Sony
Xperia Z from the side
The volume rocker consists of a thin and long
button, while the power button is raised and falls comfortably under your
thumb. Both buttons feel responsive and refined with good elevation and are
fine-tuned to give out the right feedback.
Due to its sharp edges the Xperia Z feels
very broad and is a bit unwieldy for those with small hands.
On the back of both devices you'll find the
camera lenses complete with single LED flashes and secondary, noise-suppressing
microphones. The HTC One has an arching design, which starts off slim at the
extremes and grows thicker towards the center of the back. The Xperia Z relies
on the same philosophy as on the front - flat minimal surface.
Both
phones from the back
Winner:
Sony Xperia Z. While we prefer the looks and the feel of the HTC One, the
practical advantages of the Sony Xperia Z earn it the victory here. The IP57
certification, the microSD card slot, the easily swappable SIM slot and the
more comfortable buttons outweigh the benefits of the aluminum unibody.
Screen comparison
Sony is among the first to bring a
FullHD smartphone to market and made a big deal about mobile BRAVIA 2 engine
that enhances the image quality. HTC didn't boast as much about its Super LCD3
technology but we can safely say that it speaks loudly for itself and we loved
seeing it for the first time on the Butterfly and DROID DNA.
First, let's get the technical side
of things out of the way for a moment. The HTC One sports a 4.7" Super
LCD3 panel of 1080 x 1920 pixel resolution, resulting in the insanely-high 469
ppi density. The Xperia Z spreads the same resolution over a 5" diagonal
and boasts 441 ppi. The difference in numbers is minor and downright impossible
to detect in real-life usage. Both phones utilize conventional RGB matrices and
are as sharp as it gets - you will need a microscope to tell them apart.
HTC One and Sony Xperia Z
screens up close
The studio shots don't reveal as
much as tables and charts do but you can still check out the Xperia Z next to a
couple of HTC 1080p smartphones.
The HTC One vs Sony Xperia Z
screens
When it comes to image quality, the
Super LCD3 on the HTC One is clearly superior to the TFT of the Xperia Z. The
One offers excellent contrast instead of the mediocre figure achieved by the
Sony smartphone and has nicely saturated colors, too. Viewing angles are also
immense on the HTC flagship and rather disappointing on the Xperia Z, so it's
no contest here.
As you can see from the table below,
the HTC One is brighter than the Xperia Z and among the brightest panels we've
tested.
Display
test
|
50% brightness
|
100% brightness
|
||||
Black,
cd/m2
|
White,
cd/m2
|
Contrast
ratio
|
Black,
cd/m2
|
White,
cd/m2
|
Contrast
ratio
|
|
HTC
One
|
0.13
|
205
|
1580
|
0.42
|
647
|
1541
|
HTC
Butterfly
|
0.14
|
173
|
1200
|
0.45
|
501
|
1104
|
Samsung
I9505 Galaxy S4
|
0
|
201
|
∞
|
0
|
404
|
∞
|
Samsung
I9300 Galaxy S III
|
0
|
174
|
∞
|
0
|
330
|
∞
|
Sony
Xperia Z
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
0.70
|
492
|
705
|
Oppo
Find 5
|
0.17
|
176
|
1123
|
0.51
|
565
|
1107
|
Samsung
N7100 Galaxy Note II
|
0
|
215
|
∞
|
0
|
402
|
∞
|
LG
Optimus G Pro
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
0.41
|
611
|
1489
|
Nokia
Lumia 920
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
0.48
|
513
|
1065
|
LG
Optimus G
|
0.14
|
197
|
1445
|
0.33
|
417
|
1438
|
Apple
iPhone 5
|
0.13
|
200
|
1490
|
0.48
|
640
|
1320
|
In terms of sunlight legibility both
phones are equally matched with the less reflective panel of the Xperia Z
making up for its lower brightness.
Sunlight contrast ratio
·
Nokia 808 PureView4.698
·
HTC One S2.901
·
Samsung
Galaxy S II2.832
·
Samsung Galaxy S II Plus2.801
·
Huawei
Ascend P12.655
·
Nokia Lumia 9002.562
·
HTC One2.504
·
Sony Xperia Z2.462
·
Samsung
Galaxy S III mini2.422
·
Motorola RAZR i2.366
·
Samsung
Galaxy Note II2.307
·
Apple iPhone 4S2.269
·
Samsung
Galaxy mini 21.114
Winner: HTC One. While both devices
offer overall excellent screens that are great for consuming multimedia on the
go, the HTC One clearly has the upper hand. All the Sony Xperia Z has on its
side is slightly larger size and the Mobile BRAVIA 2 engine, which while doing
a good job, can't quite make up for the deficiencies of its sub-par display
panel.
Battery life
Our two contenders are evenly
matched in terms of battery backup. The HTC One draws its power from a 2300 mAh
Li-Polymer battery while the Sony Xperia Z uses a 2330 mAh Li-Ion unit.
HTC has designed a Power Saver mode,
which switches the device's radios while in stand-by and can tone down CPU
consumption but is no match for Sony's more complex Stamina Mode. The Sony
smartphone not only gives you the usual options, but allows you to choose which
apps get access to background tasks and notifications while in stand-by. We
found that enabling the Xperia Z Stamina mode makes notable difference to
stand-by efficiency, whereas the Power Saver on the HTC One barely affected the
endurance.
Then there are chipsets to consider.
The Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro has four Krait cores clocked at 1.5 GHz while
the newer Snapdragon 600 in the HTC One uses four of the newer Krait 300 cores
clocked at 1.7 GHz.
So let's get down to it. We start
off with talk time - a phone's bread and butter. The HTC One achieved an
impressive 13 hours and 38 minutes, but was no match for the Xperia Z with its
incredible 16 hours and 3 minutes. While the difference is impressive it's safe
to say that both phones did great in this trial .
Talk time
·
Motorola RAZR MAXX (ICS)21:18
·
LG Optimus G
Pro20:45
·
Motorola DROID RAZR MAXX20:24
·
Motorola
RAZR i20:07
·
Samsung Galaxy Note II N710016:57
·
Sony Xperia
Z16:03
·
LG Optimus G15:30
·
Nokia Lumia
62014:17
·
Oppo Find 514:17
·
Google Nexus
414:17
·
Samsung Galaxy S413:53
·
HTC One13:38
·
Pantech
Burst4:46
The Web browsing differed quite
significantly, though. The HTC One came on top of our chart here with the
amazing 9h and 58 minutes of browsing endurance on a single charge. The Xperia
Z got only an average 6h 37m score here and came far behind its competitor.
Web browsing
·
HTC One9:58
·
Apple iPhone
59:56
·
Motorola RAZR MAXX (ICS)9:12
·
Apple iPad
mini9:05
·
Samsung Galaxy Note II N71008:48
·
Samsung
Galaxy S48:42
·
Sony Xperia
Z6:37
·
Samsung Galaxy Nexus3:01
The video playback endurance told a
similar story. The HTC One again achieved a great score, just exceeding the 10
hour mark, while the Xperia Z died at about half-wait point - 5h 39min.
Video playback
·
Motorola RAZR MAXX (ICS)16:35
·
Apple iPad mini12:51
·
Samsung
Galaxy Premier12:51
·
Samsung Galaxy Note II N710011:27
·
Samsung
Galaxy S410:16
·
Apple iPhone 510:12
·
HTC One10:02
·
Samsung I9300 Galaxy S III10:01
·
Samsung
Galaxy Express10:00
·
Samsung I9105 Galaxy S II Plus10:00
·
Nokia 808
PureView9:53
·
Samsung I8530 Galaxy Beam9:42
·
Sony Xperia Z5:39
·
Nokia Lumia 7103:27
Despite the early setback the HTC
One was able to easily outdo the Sony Xperia Z in the overall tests. The web
browsing endurance of the HTC flagship was particularly impressive and the
video playback was easily in the upper half of our charts too. The Sony Xperia
Z was off to a promising start, but once the challenges that involved operating
the screen started slid down to mediocre levels.
However, the battery challenge isn't
over until the stand-by efficiency is factored in and we were in for another
surprise. The HTC One had high battery drain when in idle mode, whereas the
Xperia Z did quite well and the final result came perfectly even at 48 h. This
means that if you do an hour of calls, browsing and watching video each day
you'd need to charge either of those smartphones every 48 hours.
User interfaces
The Sony Xperia Z and HTC One are on par as far as the underlying Android version goes ,4.1.2 Jelly Bean, but both have extensively customized interfaces courtesy of their makers. Sony tried to stay relatively close to stock Android (more so than most other makers), while HTC continues with the recognizable Sense look.
Before we go on, here are hands-on videos to refresh your memory on what the UI of each phone looks like.
The lockscreen of the Xperia Z is behind the times with no widgets and only unlock and camera sliders. It doesn't work very well either, using the camera slider launches the camera as expected but going to the gallery from the camera (to check your last pic) sends you back to the lockscreen. Also, if you're running the camera and lock the phone, the next time you hit the Lock key you get the lockscreen.
The lockscreen and its options
The homescreen is much better and aside from Sony wallpapers and widgets it looks just like the stock Android launcher. Unlike it, however, you can add and remove homescreens, an extra bit of flexibility that even die-hard purists will appreciate.
Managing the homescreen
The
Socialife app
The notification area has been tweaked with
the addition of four toggles - ringer/vibrate, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, mobile data.
The
notification area now has a few connectivity shortcuts
The task switcher has been revamped too, it
holds shortcuts for mini apps, small applications that float on top of the rest
and allow you to do two things at once. You can only run apps that are
specifically made for such use and only one at a time.
The
updated task manager now features 'small apps' • The Calculator small app
The HTC One lockscreen received some visual
modifications since previous versions of Sense. It is more functional than the
Xperia screen (but nothing close to the Android 4.2 one) - there are several
versions, which in effect have one widget each (for messages or for photos).
There are four shortcuts too.
The
new lockscreen has no new functionality
There are no camera issues with this
lockscreen - launching the camera unlocks the phone properly and if you lock
the phone, the next time you hit the Lock key bypasses the lockscreen (unless
you have setup a passcode, of coure) and shows the camera instantly.
The notification area in Sense traditionally
had toggles but those are gone now. The task switcher has changed, too - it's a
3 x 3 grid, which shows more apps at a time than the previous version with the
large side-scrollable shortcuts.
The
notification area • task switcher
The homescreen is pretty special - one of its
panes, called BlinkFeed, is dedicated to showing you a mix of interesting news
and social networking updates. BlinkFeed is similar to Socialife, except it's a
dedicated homescreen pane and not a widget and it doesn't rely on Google Reader
for news info, HTC has partnered up with hundreds of news outlets.
BlinkFeed
is the default homescreen pane
If it bugs you, you can set the default pane
to be one of the others, which are standard widget-and-shortcut homescreen
panes.
BlinkFeed
aside, the homescreen is pretty standard
Here we should note the different control
scheme. The Sony Xperia Z uses the official setup of three on-screen buttons
(Back, Home, App switcher) while the HTC One has two hardware keys, Back and
Home. Home serves a triple purpose - a Home button, a Google Now button (long
press) and an App switcher button (double tap).
We have to say we like the Xperia's controls
better - traditional Android controls play better with most apps. You get used
to the HTC setup eventually, but three functions per key is simply not very
intuitive. Also, if you're using an old app (those are getting fewer and fewer)
a row at the bottom of the screen will be dedicated to just a virtual Menu
button.
Still, HTC has given the One another weapon.
The powerful Transfer feature, which will pull the contacts from your old phone
over Bluetooth (works for Android 2.3+ and iOS) or even read an iPhone backup
file to find the data.
Transferring
your data from your old phone to the HTC One is easy
Winner: Sony Xperia Z. Many feel very
positive about the stock Android experience and the Xperia Z comes pretty close
with a couple of nicely functional and yet unobtrusive additions that enhance
the user experience. We would look into installing a third party lockscreen
though.
The HTC One does have the better
lockscreen, but both should be scrapped soon when the phones get their Android
4.2 upgrades. As for the changes HTC has made to the rest of the UI, we miss
the notification area toggles and think BlinkFeed should have been a widget
(like Socialife, which is easier to remove if you don't like it).
Additional software
The HTC One is pretty unique in the mobile phone world with its Zoe gallery. The camera works in conjunction with the latest ImageChip tech, which can snap up to 20 full resolution photos and record 3 seconds of video each time you hit the shutter key.
Later, it can automatically stitch the 3 second video segments (and also still photos) into a short animation that can easily be posted on Zoe Share and reshaped on Facebook and Twitter. Those videos look pretty awesome and you get with no extra effort as the phone does it all automatically.
Zoe has social networking integration • Events view is where Zoe comes in
The extra photos and video have more uses too. You can, for example, remove a moving object from the scene (say, an absent-minded tourist walking into your shot), make sure no one has their eyes closed. Another cool trick is Sequence shot, it composes several copies of a moving object in the same image, making for a cool-looking dynamic shot.
The Zoe photo editor has tons of options
But Zoe can do tons more, including moderate-level picture editing like skin smoothing, making eyes brighter and wider and so on. A slider allows you to tune the strength of the effect.
The Sony Xperia Z has an almost standard Android gallery. One Sony addition is the ability to view thumbnails of your photos placed on a map. Facebook and Picasa integration lets you view online galleries and like and comment on them (the HTC One gallery does that too).
The Sony Xperia Z Album gallery
There's a photo editor (not nearly as advanced as Zoe) and a video editor (which requires manual editing).
Sony has one of the richest histories when it comes to multimedia. The company brought the iconic Walkman branding to the music player and have done a decent job of adding extra features to the player.
SensMe evaluates each song's mood and automatically creates playlists for a given mood (upbeat, energetic, mellow, dance, etc.). The Infinite button helps you find a music video on YouTube, look for lyrics or for more from the same artist. Sony's own TrackID will help find the song you're listening to.
The Walkman music player
As for sound-enhancing features, there are basic stuff like a 5-band equalizer (with presets) and Clear stereo. ClearAudio+ (different from Clear stereo), which tunes the playback to match each individual song. Then there are the loudspeaker options, xLOUD and Clear Phase.
Both the Sony Xperia Z and the HTC One have stereo FM radio with RDS if you prefer good old broadcasts over the newfangled Internet radios.
HTC is a younger company but audio is a huge part of its image. Part-owners in Beats Audio, HTC has added the Beats audio enhancement feature, which can be either on or off. There's no equalizer, you have to trust that HTC and Beats engineers have done their job well.
HTC's Beats-enabled music player • it automatically finds the song's lyrics
The music player will automatically find album art and lyrics (and display them karaoke style). SoundHound takes care of song recognition (but you only get 99 recognitions for free).
A big advantage is BoomSound - HTC's front-facing stereo speakers that provide better sound than most phone's single speaker. Better still, they aim the sound at you when watching videos instead of bouncing it off the table.
Sony is big in the video market and the video player on the Xperia Z is fairly nice. It handled most standard video files (AVIs with DivX and XviD, MKV files). That's better than what stock Android has to offer, but there's no subtitle support and no AC3 and DTS audio support. We do like that it automatically finds info about movies, though.
The Xperia Z Movies app
The HTC One fails to play MKV and DivX files (also no go on AC3 and DTS), but it does support subtitles. Also, it has an option to play High Frame Rate videos (including ones shot with the phone itself) in real time (i.e. 60fps) or in slow motion.
The HTC One video player
At the end of the day, if you're going to do any serious movie watching on the Sony Xperia Z or the HTC One, we'd recommend grabbing one of the excellent free third-party players. The Snapdragon chipsets are powerful enough to handle 1080p playback easily.
The HTC One does have one advantage here - its IR emitter. With the dedicated app, you can control TVs, AV receivers and disc players. So, you can turn on the TV, start the Blu-ray player (or use DLNA or Miracast to play from the phone itself) and adjust the volume of your home theater setup, all from the HTC One.
The Sony Xperia Z does not have an IR emitter.
Finally, the HTC One comes with Polaris Office, which features document editing, while the Sony Xperia Z has only a viewer, OfficeSuite 6, editing is a paid upgrade.
Winner: HTC One. Zoe alone might have been enough to win us over, but the IR remote functionality is great too. We already commended it for the speakers on the front and we'll look at the audio quality in a second.
The Xperia Z offered a slightly better video player, but not enough to stand on its own. It also gives you more freedom to control sound enhancements if you don't like the Beats singular setting.
Audio quality
The Sony Xperia Z did quite well in
our dedicated audio quality, but as we've managed to confirm several times
already the HTC One is simply in a class of its own at the moment.
Both the Xperia Z and the One have
perfectly clean output when attached to an active external amplifier, but the
HTC flagship took the round with much higher volume levels.
The Sony Xperia Z let some
distortion creep in when we plugged in a pair of headphones, while the HTC One
output was barely affected. Once again, we noted a huge volume level difference
in favor of the HTC One.
And here go the results so you can
see for yourselves.
Test
|
Frequency
response
|
Noise
level
|
Dynamic
range
|
THD
|
IMD
+ Noise
|
Stereo
crosstalk
|
HTC
One
|
+0.11, -0.20
|
-82.7
|
82.7
|
0.0023
|
0.026
|
-80.9
|
HTC
One (headphones attached)
|
+0.02, -0.32
|
-82.4
|
82.3
|
0.0045
|
0.057
|
-68.3
|
Sony
Xperia Z
|
+0.11, -0.10
|
-81.9
|
82.1
|
0.043
|
0.041
|
-81.3
|
Sony
Xperia Z (headphones attached)
|
+0.62, -0.09
|
-81.7
|
81.5
|
0.204
|
0.249
|
-56.4
|
HTC One frequency response |
Sony Xperia Z frequency
response
|
You can learn more about the whole
testing process here.
Winner: HTC One. The extra high
volume levels of the HTC flagship and its slightly cleaner output helped it
ease to the victory here.
Loudspeaker
We tested out the loudspeakers of
both phones as they're important for both notifications and for multimedia
consumption. The HTC One packs two speakers on its front, each with a dedicated
amp. It wasn't the loudest phone we've tested, but the sound quality is
arguably the best in the smartphone game. The Sony Xperia Z meanwhile offered
below average performance, as we guess that water-proofing isn't helping the
sound much.
You can learn more about the
loudspeaker test here.
Speakerphone
test
|
Voice,
dB
|
Pink
noise/ Music, dB
|
Ringing phone,
dB
|
Overal
score
|
Sony
Xperia Z
|
60.1
|
58.3
|
61.6
|
Below Average
|
Apple
iPhone 5
|
66.8
|
66.1
|
67.7
|
Below Average
|
Nokia
Lumia 920
|
61.6
|
64.8
|
65.8
|
Below Average
|
HTC
One X+
|
64.6
|
65.8
|
74.6
|
Average
|
Asus
Padfone 2
|
57.3
|
66.7
|
77.8
|
Average
|
HTC
Butterfly
|
69.0
|
70.7
|
77.9
|
Good
|
Oppo
Find 5
|
70.7
|
67.7
|
73.0
|
Good
|
Samsung
I9505 Galaxy S4
|
70.6
|
66.2
|
77.3
|
Good
|
HTC
One
|
69.3
|
66.6
|
75.9
|
Good
|
Google
Nexus 4
|
71.1
|
66.6
|
78.8
|
Good
|
Samsung
Galaxy S III
|
75.1
|
66.5
|
75.0
|
Good
|
LG
Optimus G
|
74.6
|
71.3
|
82.7
|
Excellent
|
Winner: HTC One. Two loudspeakers
that produce louder, crisper sound - it's no contest really.
Synthetic benchmarks
Qualcomm's Snapdragon is one of the
most popular smartphone chipsets around and it's the basis of both the Sony
Xperia Z and the HTC One. There's an important difference though. The Xperia Z
uses Snapdragon S4 Pro, while the One uses Snapdragon 600.
The S4 Pro uses four classic Krait
cores clocked at 1.5GHz, while the 600 uses four Krait 300 cores at 1.7GHz. The
two versions of Krait are similar, but the 300 has several speed tweaks that
make sure it's doing better even when clocked at the same speed as its
predecessor. Both chipsets use Adreno 320 GPUs but there may be a difference in
clockspeed.
There's certainly a difference in
clockspeed for the CPUs though. 200MHz in favor of the HTC One might not sound
like much, but in combination with updated architecture should give it quite an
edge.
It shows pretty clearly in
BenchmarkPi, a single-threaded benchmarks. Some multithreaded workloads may not
care much for the difference between chipsets (Linpack), but others do
(Geekbench 2). Overall, you can expect the HTC One to be slighlty faster than
the Xperia Z is CPU-heavy tasks.
BenchmarkPi
Lower is better
·
Samsung Galaxy S4134
·
LG Optimus G
Pro147
·
HTC One151
·
Sony Xperia
Z264
·
HTC Butterfly266
·
Oppo Find 5267
·
HTC One X+280
·
LG Optimus G285
·
Samsung Galaxy Note II305
·
HTC One X
(Tegra 3)330
·
LG Optimus 4X HD350
·
Samsung
Galaxy S III359
·
Meizu MX 4-core362
·
Nexus 4431
Linpack
Higher is better
·
Samsung Galaxy S4749
·
LG Optimus G
Pro743
·
HTC One646
·
Sony Xperia
Z630
·
HTC Butterfly624
·
LG Optimus G608
·
Oppo Find 5593
·
Samsung
Galaxy Note II214.3
·
Nexus 4213.5
·
Meizu MX
4-core189.1
·
HTC One X+177.7
·
Samsung
Galaxy S III175.5
·
HTC One X160.9
·
LG Optimus
4X HD141.5
Geekbench 2
Higher is better
·
Samsung Galaxy S43227
·
LG Optimus G
Pro3040
·
HTC One2708
·
Sony Xperia
Z2173
·
HTC Butterfly2143
·
LG Nexus 42048
·
Samsung Galaxy S III1845
·
LG Optimus G1723
·
LG Optimus 4X HD1661
·
iPhone 51601
AnTuTu and Quadrant test the whole
system - CPU, GPU, RAM, storage - so the lead of the HTC One widens here.
AnTuTu
Higher is better
·
Samsung Galaxy S423607
·
HTC One22678
·
Sony Xperia Z20794
·
LG Optimus G
Pro20056
·
HTC Butterfly19513
·
Samsung
Galaxy S III15547
·
Oppo Find 515167
Quadrant
Higher is better
·
LG Optimus G Pro12105
·
Samsung
Galaxy S412028
·
HTC One11746
·
Sony Xperia
Z8075
·
HTC One X+7632
·
LG Optimus G7439
·
Oppo Find 57111
·
HTC One X5952
·
Samsung Galaxy Note II5916
·
Samsung
Galaxy S III5450
·
Meizu MX 4-core5170
·
Nexus 44567
But how much of that is due to a
difference GPU performance (because of a higher clockspeed)? Well, GLBenchmark
2.5 Egypt (the 1080p off-screen test) showed the difference is quite
significant and in favor of the HTC One (6fps or about 17% faster).
GLBenchmark 2.5 Egypt (1080p
off-screen)
Higher is better
·
Samsung Galaxy S440
·
HTC One34
·
Asus Padfone 231
·
Oppo Find 530
·
Sony Xperia Z29
·
LG Optimus G29
·
HTC Butterfly27.9
·
Apple iPhone
527
·
Nexus 426
·
Samsung
Galaxy Note II17
·
Samsung Galaxy S III15
·
HTC One X+12
·
HTC One X9
Real-world games might not show a
difference for a while though. Epic Citadel is a tech demo for Unreal Engine,
which has been used in many high-end 3D mobile games and the benchmark mode
often hit the software 60fps limit on both smartphones.
Epic Citadel
Higher is better
·
Samsung Galaxy S457
·
HTC One56.4
·
Sony Xperia Z55.6
·
LG Optimus G
Pro54.2
·
Nexus 453.9
·
Asus Padfone
253.4
·
LG Optimus G52.6
·
Samsung
Galaxy S III41.3
·
Oppo Find 538.6
The HTC One uses the stock Android
browser and comes with Chrome preinstalled too, while the Sony Xperia Z has
Chrome as its single web browsing option out of box. We used the stock browser
on the One and Chrome for the Xperia Z benchmarks as we believe those are the
default browsing options on the two smartphones.
Raw JavaScript performance is good
though not stellar on both phones, with the HTC One having the lead (possibly
due to its faster CPU).
SunSpider
Lower is better
·
Samsung Ativ S891
·
Apple iPhone
5915
·
Nokia Lumia 920910
·
Samsung
Galaxy Note II972
·
HTC One X+1001
·
LG Optimus G
Pro1011
·
Motorola RAZR i XT8901059
·
Samsung
Galaxy S41089
·
HTC One1124
·
Samsung
Galaxy S III1192
·
Meizu MX 4-core1312
·
Sony Xperia
Z1336
·
LG Optimus G1353
·
HTC
Butterfly1433
·
Nexus 41971
·
Oppo Find 52045
The HTML5 benchmark, Vellamo, also
puts the two phones close together (closer to the top this time) with an
advantage for the One.
Vellamo
Higher is better
·
Samsung Galaxy Note II2418
·
HTC One2382
·
Sony Xperia Z2189
·
HTC One X
(Tegra 3)2078
·
Samsung Galaxy S42022
·
HTC
Butterfly1866
·
Oppo Find 51658
·
Samsung
Galaxy S III1641
·
LG Optimus 4X HD1568
·
LG Optimus G1522
·
Meizu MX 4-core1468
·
Nexus 41310
Winner: HTC One. This was an easy
win - the One beat the Xperia Z in every category (though often by small
margins). The Sony Xperia Z is by no means a slouch, it just uses the previous generation
of the chipset and has lower clock speeds.
Camera
features
For the Xperia Z, Sony used a traditional
camera interface with the traditional features. HTC, too, uses a traditional
camera UI (more or less standard Sense camera) but has some very interesting
features.
The Xperia Z uses the well-known two column
UI - basic controls on the right and four customizable shortcuts on the left.
The same interface is used for stills and videos, which can be quite
inconvenient when shooting 4:3 photos and 16:9 videos.
Sony
Xperia Z camera interface
The phone does have a wide array of manual
settings, but you can also rely on Superior Auto. It drops the resolution to
12MP, but it automatically guesses the type of scene and adjusts the settings
accordingly (it displays its choice so you can correct it if it's wrong).
The Sony Xperia Z camera offers all kinds of
features, including face detection, smile shutter, geo-tagging, touch capture
and HDR mode. There's also the home-baked quick launch mode, which lets you
select what the camera shortcut on the lockscreen does.
The HTC One interface appears simpler but
it's actually more difficult to use. Only a handful of settings are available
on the viewfinder (flash and Zoe), while the rest are lumped into a long menu
that requires a lot of scrolling.
HTC
One's camera UI
The same UI serves both the still and video
cameras, but both are natively shot in 16:9 aspect so there's no problem here.
Zoe is the real star of the show here - we
already covered it in the previous chapter, but it bears pointing out that you
need to hold still for a couple of seconds to get a good Zoe shot.
The power of Zoe is that one shot can be used
for different things - to make a drama shot, or to remove a moving object, for
the Zoe Highlights clips and so on. In reality it's many shots (up to 20) and a
3 second video, which makes it so powerful.
Both phones are capable of capturing photos
while recording video. The HTC One snaps a full-resolution (4MP) shot, while
the Sony Xperia Z manages an embarrassing 1MP. We say embarrassing because a
single frame of a 1080p video is just over 2MP.
Burst shot on the HTC One also captures full
res photos, while the Xperia Z tops out at 9.6MP. This mode is important for
the Xperia Z, though, as we'll see later.
Winner: HTC One. The HTC One doesn't
have the best camera UI in the world, but Zoe is amazing and a few other things
are handled better (like snapping a photo during video recording).
Still camera quality
As usual, we've shot multiple camera samples with each of the two phones and we've prepared crops to highlight the differences in image quality. The full resolution shots are also available for your inspection.
Field of View (FoV) is quite important for every camera - it measures how much you can fit into the shot. The HTC One shoots 16:9 photos and they are expectedly wider than the 4:3 shots of the Sony Xperia Z. Surprisingly, the Xperia can't make up for that in the vertical direction, so in general you'll be able to fit more into an HTC One photo than an Xperia Z photo.
We've included the effective FoV of the Xperia Z when shooting in Burst mode (at 9.6MP resolution), too.
Resolution is the other major consideration. We have two very different resolutions here, 13MP and 4MP, a difference of just over 3 times. For the first couple of crops we upscaled the HTC One photos - that makes them softer, but doesn't throw away fine detail (as downscaling the Xperia Z shots would).
The top of the first crop gives us a glimpse of the captured detail and the bottom at color rendering. Despite the major difference in resolution, the total resolution isn't too different. The Sony Xperia Z obviously has an advantage here but its noise reduction algorithms have diminished it quite obviously.
The HTC One does much better with color rendering, painting a pretty accurate picture, while the Xperia Z oversaturates the colors.
Moving on to crop #2. We picked things with very fine detail like the white railing, but also letters. The railing is a hands-down victory for the Sony Xperia Z, as the HTC One simply doesn't have the resolution to show the individual vertical bars.
It gets worse though, even the big letters are nearly illegible due to the noise in the image. Smaller letters in the bottom half of the crop are completely illegible in the HTC One photo, especially the ESPRIT logo, which virtually disappeared. The Sony Xperia Z does a much better here.
For the third crop, we downscaled the Xperia Z image to 4MP, because we knew you were going to ask us to try that too. This is an unfair comparison as it throws out some of the fine detail in the Xperia shot, but it's relevant as most photo sharing results in downsampling of your images.
The HTC One photos still show a good deal of noise in them - so much for those big "UltraPixels" improving image quality.
An interesting thing we noticed is that Sony seems to have messed up the image processing of the Xperia Z quite badly. The Normal mode produces shots that are looking worse than the ones captured in Burst mode at 9.6MP resolution. This is why we included the Burst shot FoV above.
Normal processing has super aggressive and quite clumsy noise suppression algorithm which smears out the foliage and the roof tiles, while making the purple fringing around the white windows more visible. It does remove some of the noise though.
Burst shot seems to skip this processing and while the shots are slightly grainier, the foliage in the tree looks much better and you get much more detail in the fire escape and roof tiles.
To recap, Burst mode gives you better per-pixel detail because it doesn't process the images as much. An Xperia Z camera without the heavy-handed post-processing would have been much further ahead of the HTC One compared to the Xperia Z camera with the current software.
Burst shot is a stop-gap measure (you lose resolution, FoV, touch focus) until Sony pushes out an update to fix things (fingers crossed).
You can view the full-resolution shots we used for the crops:
We also tried out the HDR feature of the two phones, which can be quite helpful for contre-jour photos and cloudy days . We used downscaled Xperia Z photos here too as we care more about the dynamic range than fine detail.
The HTC One is very quick in capturing HDR photos and the result show decent improvement in the shadows and moderate improvement in the highlights, but a little too flat images. The Sony Xperia Z HDR mode had little effect on both the final image had better contrast.
Another thing we tried was the sweep panorama. Both phones seem to use a video-based solution since the vertical resolution is about 1080. The HTC One showed some stitching issues, but most noticeable is the poor handling of the well-lit areas. The Sony Xperia Z's panorama didn't complete a 360 degree arc, but handled bright areas and stitching better (the color is off though).
Winner: Sony Xperia Z. The color rendering and HDR could have been better, but if Sony tweaks its image processing algorithms, the Xperia Z can put out some pretty good shots. Even as things stand now though, it has an advantage over the HTC One.
The HTC One enjoys a wider FoV, better color accuracy HDR, but the low 4MP resolution limits the resolved detail and image noise eats further into it.
Video camera quality
Just as with the still camera, Field of View is important. We included the FoV for the cameras with HDR off and on as it changes when you engage the mode.
The HTC One has a noticeably wider FoV - as expected - but it gets a whole lot narrower when you enable HDR. The Sony Xperia Z FoV is narrower but remains almost unchanged with HDR on.
Let's take a peek at the quality. Both phones shoot 1080p video at 30fps and store it in MP4 files. The HTC One uses really high bitrate of about 19-20Mbps with stereo audio capture at 196Kbps bitrate and 48kHz sampling rate. The Sony Xperia Z goes slightly lower at 16-18Mbps video bitrate and stereo sound at 128Kbps and 48kHz.
The HTC One videos is sharper and even though it has a wider FoV (which means more objects need to fit in the same number of pixels) the objects are much better defined in it. It also once again wins in terms of color rendering is more accurate. The dynamic range is narrower than that of the Xperia though.
The Sony Xperia Z continuous autofocus triggered more often but at least it was very quick to refocus.
It's important to note that the HTC One has Optical Image Stabilization (OIS), which does an excellent job at keeping the shot relatively steady, while the Sony Xperia Z has only digital stabilization, which doesn't do much.
Here are the sample videos we shot for this comparison, with HDR off and on.
You can also have a look at our Video quality compare tool for another look at the video capturing abilities of both phones.
We mentioned dynamic range, so we have to try out the video HDR recording of the two. The HDR mode on the Sony Xperia Z somehow managed to make the clouds look worse and did virtually nothing for the shadows. The HTC One did improve slightly in the shadows, but it's still not worth the huge reduction in the FoV.
Winner: HTC One. This was a definitive victory - a wider FoV with better image quality and OIS are all major wins for the One.
Conclusion
The HTC One and Sony Xperia Z are the pride
and joy of their respective manufacturers. In the videos dedicated to their
design stories you can clearly see how passionate the teams are about their
products. Fittingly, the Xperia Z and HTC One are two of the best looking handsets
on the market right now.
HTC went with a gorgeous (but sadly hard to
manufacture) aluminum unibody and made the phone it wanted, instead of chasing
the current trend of 5" screens and large resolution cameras. The One may
miss on some standard equipment like notification area toggles but is loaded
with features exclusive to HTC. It also was the first premium flagship to give
up on the megapixel race and look for innovation in another direction. The One
is the rebel of this generation Android flagships, if you will.
Sony picked glass for the exterior of its
phone and packed it with specs to match the other flagships and topped them off
with some Sony exclusives. The IP57 certification is unique among the current
crop of mainstream flagships.
An absolute victory is impossible to award in
a hotly contested fight like this, but once you've figured out your priorities
you will immediately understand which of these beasts is right for you.
The HTC takes a narrow win in the design
round and was even able to overcome its size disadvantage and take the screen
battle. It also narrowly bested its opponent in the battery life and the audio
reproduction tests.
On the software side, we're not in love with
Sense but the HTC One brought more value added features than the Xperia Z (Zoe
in particular is a real gem), plus its chipset is slightly faster. The One also
scored easy wins in the video recording and low-light trials.
The IP57 certification of the Sony Xperia Z
is a victory in its own right and Sony even managed to keep the microSD card
slot, even though it's one more thing that had to be water-proofed. We liked
the user interface, an enhanced stock Android better, too. Then there's the
still camera which does notably better in good light and is one software update
away from wiping the floor with its rival.
You shouldn't also forget that the Sony
Xperia Z has a major advantage in terms of availability - it's been on sale for
a while now and some people have already bought one. Meanwhile, HTC had
troubles getting the One to stores on schedule, which surely cost it some
sales. Furthermore, by the time the One reaches most major markets the Xperia Z
will probably have undergone it's first price cut, giving it another advantage.
But as we said sales are not always a good
gauge of which phone is better. It's what each of them can do for you that
counts and while these two may differ in character, they both put quite a lot
on the table.
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