Looking for some real world reviews of these phones, after years of owning HTC phones I'm looking at changing networks and the network I'm looking at only have lower end HTCs so these two are the front runners at the moment, I'm interested to hear your thoughts. 

Every single phone shop i've been to, everyone of them has said the HTC beats the S4 hands down. As for the experia Z, thats not as good as the S4. 

Day

Looking for some real world reviews of these phones, after years of owning HTC phones I'm looking at changing networks and the network I'm looking at only have lower end HTCs so these two are the front runners at the moment, I'm interested to hear your thoughts. 

 

The S4 is a good handset, but is very 'plasticy' not sure about the Sony.

 

Have you checked out the HTC One??

 

That looks like a superbly built & designed handset.  :yes:

 

If I didn't have or want the iPnone I would be looking at the Sony or HTC One, but not the S4 due to build quality.

I'm happy with my Nexus 4. Don't find it off the pace anywhere.

I haven't tried the others you mention, but of the two I'd be more inclined to the Samsung.


Do try and find an HTC One to look at though, it may suit you. You'll be used to the interface and it is a quality product according to all the reviews.

I've just got a HTC one, such an awesome phone, so much quicker than the S4, camera is better and so many more usable features.

Day

Thanks for the replies, I'm looking to switch to Virgin, as an existing TV customer they have some decent deals and good coverage in my area, unfortunately the phone choice is restricted, the only two HTCs were the Desire and a Windows phone.

 

I must admit the HTC one does look really smart, is the battery removable on this phone? my wife has an older HTC One and the battery was knackered after a year but couldn't be removed. 

As an aside, I've just switched from O2 to a Virgin SIM only deal on my iPhone 4S.  £15 per month for unlimited calls, data and texts.  I'm well impressed with Virgin's coverage.  They piggyback the T-mobile / Orange network and its far stronger than O2 ever was.  3G never runs out and consistent 8+meg speeds.

The Z doesn't seem to be as great in real life as it looks on paper as the display suffers poor viewing angles and the camera isn't as good as the S4.  I don't believe the Z's software install is as over the top as the S4 and the Z is weather sealed whereas the standard S4 is not, the S4 Active is but it's only just been released.

 

John

Pleased to hear a good review of the Virgin network, as for the phone, it will be at least a month before I switch so hopefully there will be more choice by then.

I've just got a HTC one, such an awesome phone, so much quicker than the S4, camera is better and so many more usable features.

Day

 

How did you carry out this scientific comparison?

I've just got a HTC one, such an awesome phone, so much quicker than the S4, camera is better and so many more usable features.

Day

Which contradicts most of the expert reviews I've read!

Personally I went for an S3 as the audio chipset is superior to most phones including the iPhone.

Sent from my GT-I9305 using Tapatalk 2

How did you carry out this scientific comparison?

A number of respected tech sites have the same conclusion although maybe not all of the areas are slated at the same time.

How did you carry out this scientific comparison?

 

Around 2 hours demo with each phone. Why do a scientific comparison when its a real world experience that matters? The HTC was quicker to load, no lagging, sound quality was far superior due to the front mounted stereo speakers/beats software, camera startup was quicker. When trying out the S4 it didnt want to respond to commands as quick, the eye movement recognition isnt as good as its made out to be either. Granted, the HTC doesnt have expandable memory, is slightly heavier and thicker. But other than that, its a really understated phone. HTC havent been doing all that well financially but the One has really set the bar. The S4 tries to do too much all at once.  Oh, and the HTC comes with a really nice set of Beats headphones:)

Day

Edited 25 July, 201312 yr by Day-VRS

A number of respected tech sites have the same conclusion although maybe not all of the areas are slated at the same time.

 

Swings and roundabouts from what I can see. Reviews don't back up the "so much quicker" statement. 

 

Either phone would be excellent.

Edited 25 July, 201312 yr by Chronicbint

Is it tech radar or Gizmodo who do side by side videos?

They have the 2 side by side.

The HTC one had to change it's microphone (something to do with using Nokia patented ones supplied without permission) so the voice quality may have changed.

 

The experia Z is a nice phone from what I can see, and I think it's waterproof too, which can't be a bad thing.

 

FWIW beats audio is software and a marketing exercise.

Edited 26 July, 201312 yr by cheezemonkhai

Perfect, thank you. I smashed my screen over a year ago, almost 2 in fact on my galaxy S.

I've been trying to find a new phone, but never gotten close to sorting one.

 

The sony caught my eye for it's IP rating alone. Never really been an issue, but it does get wet in a rucsac/tent.

 

Biggest challenge is walking from o2, never thought about virgin, should do get enough spam through the door.

 

Didn't want to fall for the latest and greatest, but maybe I will. Had a good run on the S afterall. It's just in the last few weeks its begun to really really play up, missed calls, dropping, hanging, can't text sensibly anymore and so on.

 

It was either the s4, htc, or z since I'm trying to ditch apple stuff.

I have a colleague with the experia Z and he loves it (last year he was a devoted iphone man of many years standing). I have had a quick play with it and it seems pretty good. I still have an S3 and it too was called plasticky bt since I stick it in a case that's not really an issue, you never see or feel the plastic.

I've got the Xperia Z and am really happy with it. The screen isn't as vivid as the Samsung SIII/IV, but I don't think that's a bad thing, it's just different. It can wash out an angles, but it's never what I'd call 'bad'.

 

My only gripes are that the low light camera performance isn't great (it's a phone, I wouldn't expect much!), and the headphone jack cover is getting a little hard to put in place securely, the battery life isn't great (on a par with other phones, but still bad), and the media speaker is weak. Otherwise I'm pleased with it. I've not seen the HTC One, but I'd still choose the Z over the S4.

 

I'm also a big fan of the Sony skin/software (Walkman, album) etc. over the offerings from Samsung too.

 

RE the camera, it's not amazing, but in good conditions it can take decentish shots. This was taken using it atop Mount Vesuvius:

 

Edited 30 July, 201312 yr by TriggerFish

I have a colleague with the experia Z and he loves it (last year he was a devoted iphone man of many years standing). I have had a quick play with it and it seems pretty good.

 

I have just recently got the Sony Xperia Z and it is a very nice phone certainly the best phone Sony have made at the moment. There are a lot of people starting to move away from the Iphone mainly because the specs on the new phones are better than the Iphone - well that's what the sales guy was saying in store.

 

2 weeks so far with my Sony Xperia Z and all good up to now although I have not tried it in water and don't think I dare lol

Edited 1 August, 201312 yr by justinbarrow

I can't decide between the Sony Experia Z or an HTC One.

 

My S2 is two years old and my contract will but up for an upgrade with EE.

I've had several HTCs (last one was the Sensation XE) and looked at both the HTC One and the S4. The build quality is better on the HTC but once you put it into some sort of jacket/cover you can't tell and the S4s OE flip cover (you have to buy it yourself) means the phone is still incredibly thin as it replaces the back cover of the S4 with part of the flip cover. It also has a nifty window in the cover that means you can answer calls directly with a swipe of your finger and without having to open it up.

 

Overall I think the HTC still has the best contacts management and the S4 has a bit too much bloatware, but there is an Micro SD card in it which is essential for me and it seemed slightly quicker in most of it's operations than the HTC One. having said that, both phones are very very quick to do anything. The pull down button menu is superb on the S4 too

 

Bottom line is I went for the S4 and haven't looked back. I would have been equally happy with the HTC I suspect, but the S4 just had the better feature set for me.

I did a lot of research into some of the top-end phones the other month. In my opinion the HTC One is the best handset out there. Although the specs of the Samsung Galaxy S4 just exceed it, in real world usage the Samsung can be a bit laggy - I don't like Samsung's Touchwizz UI either.

The Sony Xperia Z is very large and square and is not worth the same amount of money as either the HTC or Samsung. The screen is inferior (although to be honest you may not notice much difference) and certain aspects of the UI (the camera taking an age to load being one) are under developed and clunky.

I settled on the HTC One and was quite happy, although unfortunately the handset that I got was faulty. On return the other handsets had defective screens and I wasn't prepared to spend a lot of cash on something that wasn't perfect (I was buying the handset out-right) so I ended up getting a refund.

In the end I bought a Nexus 4 - and I have to admit that for the price it is awesome.

 

I will also be going onto Virgin on a SIM only deal when my contract expires in November. It actually worked out slightly cheaper for me to buy the phone SIM free and then go SIM only with Virgin than it would have done to enter into a new, high cost contract on one of the top line phones.

Gotta say my S4 is anything but laggy. now I have the latest updates it is even better in almost every way too, I can even save a teen bit of memory by moving apps to my SD card with the latest update (HTCs used to do this straight out of the box-obviously the HTC One can't though ). Mind you, there is a fair bit of bloatware on the S4, some of which I actually have started to use. The pedometer feature is great and pretty accurate too, the best bit being it doesn't seem to impact on my battery life at all

One thing I dont like with the HTC one is the factory keyboard. Now i've installed swiftkey it tends to slow it down a little. Doesnt get anywhere near the iphone for keyboard usability.

Day