The HTC One packs a high-grade unibody design, a lightning quick Qualcomm processor and a gorgeous display. It is a premium-grade handset through and through.
Samsung’s Galaxy Note 2 is the revamped second iteration of the company’s stylus-driven ‘phablet’ concept. It shares much of its design and spec with the Samsung Galaxy S3, but sports a larger 5.5-inch display.
HTC One: Key specs and what’s hot
Design, build, display and processor – these are the things that are hot with the HTC One.
The design follows the company’s previous flagship, the HTC One X, but it’s been reshaped with a more angular and slab-like appearance, similar to the HTC 8X Windows Phone.
The emphasis is still on white bodywork popping out against black display panels, and on the front the contrasting bodywork tops-and-tails the touchscreen neatly.
The handset is made from aluminium, so it’s very lightweight, and has a matte finish which is satisfying to get to grips with, while a wafer-thin bezel on the longer sides gives a sleek look and an almost edge-to-edge appearance.
Build quality is what we’ve come to expect from HTC – very premium in how it feels to handle. There’s absolutely zero flex in the chassis.
The display itself is a 4.7-inch Super LCD3 panel with a 1920x1080 pixel resolution at 468 pixels-per-inch, making it one of the sharpest smartphone displays around. As with previous HTC SLCD handsets the colour and brightness are pretty impressive too.
The processor is a seriously competitive bit of kit. It’s the brand new Qualcomm 600 Snapdragon S4 quad-core chip clocked at 1.7GHz with 2GB of dual-channel RAM and an Adreno 320 graphics processing unit (GPU).
Samsung Galaxy Note 2: Key specs and what’s hot
The Galaxy Note 2’s colossal size gives it its key advantage – that massive screen. The 5.5-inch display is excellent for most smartphone entertainment purposes including browsing, films, games, video and viewing high-end picture media.
It’s a Super AMOLED display and does suffer a bit for being pentile, but it’s still quite good with a 1280x720 pixel resolution at 267ppi. For viewing feature films back-to-back on a long-haul flight it’s very rewarding indeed.
The processing power is reasonably competent for the most part, although the Exynos 4412 1.6GHz quad-core chip does tend to run a little hot with more intensive activities.
It’ll run much of what currently resides in Google Play but doesn’t have quite the top-end clout of its rival and may not be quite so ‘future-proof’ for new, more demanding apps and services going forward.
Samsung’s big phone has an advantage when it comes to storage, with a full range of 16GB, 32GB and 64GB options each with microSD capability for cards up to 64GB high-capacity.
Direct Spec Comparison: Shootout
| Device | HTC One | Samsung Galaxy Note 2 |
| Dimensions | 137.4mmx62mmx9.3mm | 151.1x80.5x9.4mm, 183g |
| Display |
4.7-inch SLCD3,1920x1080 pixels,468ppi
|
5.5-inch Super AMOLED, 1280x720 pixels,267ppi
|
| Camera | 4-megapixel,LED flash,1080p video,optical stabilisation | 8-megapixel,LED flash,1080p video |
| Storage | 32GB/64GB | 16GB/32GB/64GB,microSD up to 64GB |
| Processor, RAM, Graphics | 1.7GHz Qualcomm 600 quad-core ,2GB RAM,Adreno 320 GPU | 1.6GHz Exynos 4412,2GB RAM,Mali-400MP GPU |
| Operating System, | Android 4.1 Jelly Bean | Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean |
| UI | HTC Sense 5 | TouchWiz |
| Connectivity | microUSB,Bluetooth,NFC,Wi-Fi,4G,GPS | microUSB,Bluetooth,NFC,Wi-Fi,Wi-Fi Hotspot,Wi-Fi Direct,DLNA,4G variant available,MHL,GPS |
| Battery | 2,300mAh | 3,100mAh |
Points to consider: Practical use
With both phones on relatively up-to-date builds of Android there’s little to compare on the operating system experience.
Admittedly, both do have quite different interface overlays but in each case these can be swapped out with launcher apps if you don’t like them, so it’s not a ‘make or break’ part of the phones.
While the HTC One has a much more fearsome processor, the ‘day-to-day’ operation and experience of the phones will likely be very similar.
This is, in part, due to how smooth and reliable recent iterations of Android are, but also the fact that both phones feature powerful quad-core architecture.
However, the HTC One does have the advantage in terms of future-proofing – it’ll be a much more viable handset for a longer period of time and as more intensive apps, games and services emerge on Google Play.
The build quality is a major point of differentiation here. Samsung’s recent Galaxy models haven’t impressed us on their external build.
The design is reasonably good-looking in terms of shape and there’s not any question on the fit and durability – they’re not fragile - but the real issue is the shininess and tackiness of the plastics.
It’s massively unappealing in a premium price smartphone to have this type of material used as the finish isn’t satisfying at all.
We’ve mentioned that the Galaxy Note 2’s size gives it a brilliant screen for multimedia consumption, but the counter to this is that it’s also not as manageable in the hand as many other competing devices.
We’ve found it’s possible to get used to the 5.5-inch size but initially you may find it clunky and awkward.
HTC, on the other hand, ticks all the right boxes. Aluminium is great, the finish is lovely, the size is much easier to deal with and the whole thing just merges together into a device where you can feel satisfied you got your money’s worth.
Another thing to consider though is the Galaxy Note’s S-Pen stylus capabilities. This is a pretty cool experience and you won’t find anything quite like it anywhere outside of Samsung’s Galaxy Note range.
The result is a phone which functions really well as a PDA or creative companion device, meaning it’s well worth considering if that’s something you’ll find invaluable in your work and life.
It makes all the PDAs of yesteryear look positively shambolic by comparison.
Conclusion
While it is smaller, the HTC One offers a display that’s just as rewarding to view multimedia content through and it has a much more satisfying build quality to boot.
The Galaxy Note 2 is still an impressive phone but it’s a very purpose-specific piece of kit with its massive screen and stylus input.
If you’re looking for a PDA experience you’ll find little better, but as a smartphone the HTC One outclasses it.
