iPhone 5 vs HTC One – Intro
Update: The iPhone 5 has been replaced with the plastic iPhone 5C which has almost exactly the same spcs as the iPhone 5 but with a bigger battery and the metallic iPhone 5S which is a significant upgrade.
Metal phones are in fashion, and it’s largely down to the popularity of two of the year’s best mobiles – the HTC One and the iPhone 5.
However,
aside from being made of the cold, hard, shiny stuff, these are
completely different phones. But which is right for you? We’ve compared
their vital statistics to help you find out, from what they look like and how they sound to what they’re like to use and how fast they can go…
HTC One vs iPhone 5 – Design
HTC One – Aluminium rear and front, plastic side strip, 137.4 x 68.2 x 9.3mm, 143g
iPhone 5 – Unibody aluminium shell, 123.8 x 58.6 x 7.6mm, 112g
The HTC One and iPhone 5 are the two highest-profile aluminium phones of the year so far. Metal is in.
However,
their looks and feel are quite different. The HTC One is a much larger
phone, at around 15mm wider than the iPhone. This will make quite a
difference if you have smaller hands. 
The HTC One – slim, but not super-slim
Ergonomics
are completely different too. The iPhone 5 is a super-slim rectangle
that doesn’t shy away from severe edges. The HTC One’s rear is a curved
plate of aluminium, giving the phone a much softer feel.
It does
leave the HTC significantly thicker than the iPhone 5 – 9.3mm thick
against 7.6mm – but the HTC One never feels chunky. Large? Sure, but not
chunky.
The sheer size of the HTC One, which makes the 4-inch
iPhone 5 look petite, ensures that it’s a fair bit weightier. It’s 31g
heavier, but what’s notable here is not how heavy the HTC One feels, but
how light the iPhone 5 is. Almost unnervingly so. 
The
HTC One is the only one of this pair to use any plastic in its
construction. There’s a strip of white plastic (or black in the black
version) that runs around the phone’s outside edge. It’s a bit of a dirt
magnet, but doesn’t reduce the strength of the body. 
HTC One vs iPhone 5 – Internal Speaker
HTC One – Stereo speakers, front-facing
iPhone 5 – Mono speaker, fires out of bottom of phone
Speakers are an often-neglected part of mobile gadgets – even though they’re used pretty frequently. The iPhone 5 has a decent-quality speaker for its size, offering reasonable treble fidelity for a phone. In standard Apple fashion, there’s a decent baseline experience on offer here.
However, the speaker is still pretty limited. The sound fires from the bottom of the phone, through two grilles that sit to either side of the Lightning port, but the sound comes from a simple mono driver.
Why two grilles for a single speaker? It makes the sound much harder to muffle, which becomes particularly important if you’re playing games or watching a movie – holding the phone in landscape orientation.
The HTC One is a cut above. It uses a pair of user-facing speakers mounted to the front of the phone. They fire through the little dotty grille cut into the area above and below the screen. 
This combo offers much better bass, more meaty sound and higher volume than almost any other phone out there at the moment. If anything, we found that the lowest volume was a little too high at times, rather than there not being enough on tap.
The HTC One also has a Beats mode, which tailors the sound for the small speaker, making it sound richer and more refined. It does this (in part) by cutting the mid frequencies, which give small speakers like this an ‘ugly’ edge.
Of course, it’s still nowhere near good enough to consider a ‘mini hi-fi’ if you want to use your phone as a music source – let’s not get carried away here, folks. For kitchen listening though – especially for podcasts or the radio – it’s great. 
HTC One vs iPhone 5 – Screen
HTC One – 4.7-inch 1080p IPS screen
iPhone 5 – 4-inch 1,136 x 640-pixel IPS screen
A
comparison of the screens of the HTC One and iPhone 5 is a case of
weighing up similarities and differences. Most obvious of all, the HTC
One screen is significantly larger than the iPhone 5’s.
It is
4.7 inches across where the iPhone 5’s is a 4-incher. As we find with so
many of this year’s top-end Android phones, the HTC One makes the
iPhone 5 seem a bit toy-like in its small size. This instantly makes
HTC’s phone better to watch videos on.
Their
resolutions are also completely different. The HTC One’s display is one
of the most pixel-packed we’ve ever seen. It has a 1080p screen like
the Samsung Galaxy S4, but as it’s packed into a smaller space than that 5-inch phone, it’s even sharper. Pixel density is a staggering 469ppi.
We
thought the iPhone 5’s 326ppi 1,136 x 640 display was impressive, but
HTC takes it to the next level. There is an argument to be made that
density beyond the iPhone 5’s is a bit pointless as you can’t tell the
difference in sharpness, but the HTC One’s screen is more immediately
impressive, for multiple reasons.
Both phones use the same
screen type – IPS. This is an excellent panel type for phones, offering
great viewing angles, fairly natural colours and decent contrast. 
The iPhone 5 and 4S, side-by-side
These
are two of our favourite mobile phone screens. But for adding those
extra screen inches without any sense of sacrificing sharpness, the HTC
One gets our vote.
HTC One vs iPhone 5 – Storage
HTC One – 32/64GB, non-expandable
iPhone 5 – 16/32/64GB, non-expandable
Over
the last few years, HTC has ticked off a few old-school Android fans –
it was one of the companies that started cutting out memory card slots
from its phones. The HTC One carries on that trend. If you want
expandable memory you’ll have to look to the Galaxy S4.
As a
seriously high-end phone, HTC has sensibly made 32GB the lowest storage
option for the HTC One – slap a few videos on a 16GB phone and you’ll
soon find its memory eaten up. There’s also a 64GB version of the HTC
One, however it comes at a frankly scary premium. You’re looking at
around £700.
iPhones never have, and perhaps never will, offer
memory card slots. The iPhone 5 is available in 16GB, 32GB and 64GB
editions. Much like the HTC One, the range tops out at £700 – whic is
how much the 64GB model costs SIM-free.
HTC One vs iPhone 5 – CPU and Power
HTC One – Quad-core 1.7GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 Krait, 2GB RAM
iPhone 5 – Dual-core 1.2GHz Apple A6, 1GB RAM
Looking
at the specs alone, the HTC One appears to be much, much more powerful.
It has a quad-core 1.7GHz Snapdragon 600 CPU using the up-to-date Krait
architecture. The iPhone 5 has a dual-core 1.2GHz processor with the,
admittedly also pretty darn new, Cortex-A15 architecture.
The HTC One has double the RAM, 2GB instead of 1GB. 
In theory, the HTC One should squish the iPhone 5 in between its curvy aluminium fingers. It’s not quite so simple, though.
In
the Sunspider benchmark, which is roughly a test of how fast a device
can render webpages, the iPhone 5 significantly outperforms the HTC One.
It completes the test in around 900ms, where it takes the HTC One
closer to 1400ms. Much of this is down to software optimisation.
Geekbench,
which is a much wider test of a gadget’s performance, shows results
closer to those we’d expect to see. The HTC One comes out with 2719
points, the iPhone 5 1612 points.
The
HTC One is a more powerful phone, with a generation’s worth of spec
upgrades. However, Android’s less taut system design and a seeming
slight lack of optimisation on HTC’s part seems to hold the HTC One back
a tiny bit – the Samsung Galaxy S4 shows stronger performance than the
iPhone 5 across the board. 
HTC One vs iPhone 5 – Software
HTC One – Android 4.2 with HTC Sense
iPhone 5 – iOS 6, iOS7 incoming
The HTC One saw HTC debut a brand new version of its long-standing Sense Android interface. And it has a new look.
It’s
pared-back and simple – and pretty stylish compared with the older
version. BlinkFeed takes centre stage. This is a home screen that shows
you recent updates from your favourite websites in a scrolling feed of
tiles. The various widgets are also starker and simpler than ever
before. It’s a good effort from HTC.
HTC’s BlinkFeed
The
iPhone 5’s software currently looks more-or-less like it always has.
However, that’s all due to change in just a few short months.
iOS 7
gives the iPhone operating system a complete visual overhaul. Some say
it looks a bit like Android – some say that’s a bad thing – but it adds a
bunch of useful features, including a camera app that has a good deal
more to it – such as filters.
HTC One vs iPhone 5 – Camera
HTC One – 4-megapixel UltraPixel camera with LED flash
iPhone 5 – 8-megapixel camera with LED flash
The
iPhone 5 camera was a minor upgrade to its predecessor, the iPhone 4S.
It uses a re-worked lens construction that helps the camera fit into the
phone’s ultra-slim body. It is a great camera, capable of making some
great shots in good lighting.
Periphery features you get with
the iPhone 5’s iOS 6 camera app include HDR mode, which melds two
exposures to render more detail in any given scene – especially those
with tricky lighting – and the panorama mode. The iPhone panorama is
particularly impressive, as it captures at full resolution rather than
at cut-down quality like many other phones.
An iPhone 5 test shot
The
HTC One offers many, many more features, though, and takes a much more
dynamic approach to its camera technology. As well as HDR and panorama,
the HTC One brings oodles of features and effects, Zoe mode, HDR video
and more.
What’s far more notable is how its sensor works. The
strategy of the HTC One’s UltraPixel tech is to use a sensor roughly the
same size as the current top dogs, but to have fewer, larger photo
sensor pixels. These are able to harvest more light in the same exposure
time as rivals.
An HTC One test shot
The
real-life result of this is that the HTC One takes far, far better
low-light shots than an iPhone 5. In bright daylight, though, the iPhone
5 will capture far more detail. Four megapixels only get you so far.
HTC One vs iPhone 5 – Verdict
The
HTC One is a bolder, more dynamic phone than the iPhone 5. It takes
more risks with its camera, software and design than the iPhone – not
that Apple’s latest really needed to innovate dramatically to draw a
crowd. The HTC is also far better for movie-watching thanks to its much
larger screen. If there was ever a phone to tempt Apple fans away from
their beloved iPhones, this is it. That Android doesn’t have as good as
apps or games selection as iOS ensures the iPhone 5 keeps the lead in
some respects, though.
Read also: HTC One M8 review
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
