New HTC One (M8) or Galaxy S5 ?

[trandz]

Walked out with an S5 but might be bringing it back. I have this weird issue at times the phones screen wont turn on for like 10+ seconds after locking. Yes, I turned off S-Voice, toned down all the animations etc etc. I also get minute lag spikes doing nothing spectacular for it to lag. We shall see. If I do return it, I'd get the gold one from Best Buy.

 

[nestafaria]

It's a tough call. It depends what's important to you. I preferred the fluidity of the M8 and I like on screen buttons.... But.... I mostly use my camera for landscape and the water proofing is a big deal to me. I get rained on playing golf a lot. I also prefer amoled so I got the s5. Ideally I'd like to have both and switch back and fourth.

Posted via Android Central App

 

[ThrottleJohnny]

I went with the m8. I think it's the most beautiful smartphone ever designed. However, that doesn't mean the S5 is anything less than stellar. It can't hold a candle to the m8 in terms of looks or function (this phone is so smooth), but I was almost tempted by the camera, gorgeous screen water/dust proof design. Having played with both phones, HTC wins, but not by as much as some would have you believe with their exaggerations and misinformation. Both phones are beasts under the hood, and both outclass the iPhone.

 

[jessen]

We have an M8 and an S5 at home now - and while I don't like the M8's on-screen buttons, it's still the better phone for one simple reason: it's much, much faster than the S5. The whole UI on the S5 is somewhat slow-ish. Partly it's subjective - it just FEELS slow somehow. But other things are more obvious: apps start slower, there's a considerable amount of lag in some apps (Tapatalk, Chrome and Feedly, for example) and the UI (e.g. when starting the task launcher). The S5 should be blazingly fast, but it just isn't. I already put Nova on it but that didn't make a real difference. It's just another Samsung.

Read way too many reviews on the S5, HTC One and Z2. Finally decided against waiting for the Z2 and headed down to check them out in person. I'm really glad I did. The S5 was noticeably sluggish with default apps on it. I mean it was just connected to wifi and it took much longer to scroll through screens, open menus, and launch apps than the M8. The M8 did all tasks in the blink of an eye. I will gladly sacrifice a few megapixels if it means that my phone and applications respond quickly.

This is my 3rd HTC phone(Evo and Evo 4G). I loved the Evo, regretted getting the 4G over the S3. This one looks amazing, feels great and is lightning fast. I love it. If anyone is considering buying either of these phones, please do yourself a favor and compare them in the store. I really wish the reviewers made a bigger deal about the UI speeds because it is noticeable. Also, the speakers are amazing. Very crisp and has quite the volume.

 

[B0WIE]

Read way too many reviews on the S5, HTC One and Z2. Finally decided against waiting for the Z2 and headed down to check them out in person. I'm really glad I did. The S5 was noticeably sluggish with default apps on it. I mean it was just connected to wifi and it took much longer to scroll through screens, open menus, and launch apps than the M8. The M8 did all tasks in the blink of an eye. I will gladly sacrifice a few megapixels if it means that my phone and applications respond quickly.

This is my 3rd HTC phone(Evo and Evo 4G). I loved the Evo, regretted getting the 4G over the S3. This one looks amazing, feels great and is lightning fast. I love it. If anyone is considering buying either of these phones, please do yourself a favor and compare them in the store. I really wish the reviewers made a bigger deal about the UI speeds because it is noticeable. Also, the speakers are amazing. Very crisp and has quite the volume.

Yea, most of the reviews are pretty slanted, and not in a logical way. Some things are specifically overlooked. I'm not going to insinuate pay-offs and such, but when a company advertises as heavily as Samsung, it's very difficult to find reviews that are not going to favor it. It's just the way the business works. It's very common for companies to pull their advertising as a way of punishing a publication for unfavorable reviews.

 

[ReggieTee]

I'm definitely going M8. After owning the S2, S3, and S4, my hands on with the S5 today left me underwhelmed. Going back to my roots for a year. Haven't owned an HTC since the Evo 4G.

 

[o2k]

Read way too many reviews on the S5, HTC One and Z2. Finally decided against waiting for the Z2 and headed down to check them out in person. I'm really glad I did. The S5 was noticeably sluggish with default apps on it. I mean it was just connected to wifi and it took much longer to scroll through screens, open menus, and launch apps than the M8. The M8 did all tasks in the blink of an eye. I will gladly sacrifice a few megapixels if it means that my phone and applications respond quickly.

This is my 3rd HTC phone(Evo and Evo 4G). I loved the Evo, regretted getting the 4G over the S3. This one looks amazing, feels great and is lightning fast. I love it. If anyone is considering buying either of these phones, please do yourself a favor and compare them in the store. I really wish the reviewers made a bigger deal about the UI speeds because it is noticeable. Also, the speakers are amazing. Very crisp and has quite the volume.

^^^^ this, no matter what you finally decide to get.

 

[iN8ter]

Also make sure you at least reboot the one in the store. Walking up to a unit and playing with it is probably not intelligent. More people probably were playing wit the S5 than the M8, anyways. Probably had a ton of apps cached in RAM and was doing a ton of swapping when you were playing around with it.

 

[Greg C]

I have not experienced any lag whatsoever on my S5. I am using Apex Launcher instead of TouchWiz. All my apps open snappy. There is no rattle and the camera exceeds my expectations. I can really do without all the manufacturer and carrier bloatware though. Both phones are very deserving of the high ratings they aare getting. It's going to come down to what YOU are looking for. It was a tough choice for me to make.

 

[SocratesRising]

I've only owned Samsung Galaxy series smartphones. Prior to those it was the junk like the Razor ...hahahaha ...remember those and how cool we thought we were...

Anyways, I've always liked android vs. iPhone because you can customize to a great degree. However to be fair, I've never actually used an iphone for more than a few minutes so I am not really the guy to throw stones at it, I'm sure they are nice enough and do what they are supposed to do well. I digress. I was forced to buy a phone last Monday because my GS3 died on me. I knew I had a week to go prior to the S5 coming out so I researched like crazy as I hate to be 'forced' into a purchase like this without really studying my options. The majority of the reviews on the MATE came back very favorable, not perfect but good. Considering I'm also not a camera freak (I mostly just set it to auto and run with it) I wasn't too worried about the megapixel dilemma.

I can tell you I am extremely impressed with the M8. It is smooth, lightning fast, great screen resolution, SENSE is a nice breath of fresh air compared with TouchWiz (*but I'm not 100% a fan of Sense in some instances), the build quality seems spot on for the most part and I'm digging the sound. The phone is slightly longer than I'd like - but I'm already used to it - no biggie. I think it is beautiful and it does everything I need a smartphone to do very, very well. It is definitely a step up from the S3.



About my only issue really is I have a bit of trouble getting used to the phone / contacts (people in SENSE talk) application. In the galaxy, you could swipe right for a phone call while on a contact, swipe left for a message and it was easy to toggle between favorites, contacts, and the phone. In SENSE, it just isn't quite as easy. There is a bit of a learning curve considering I was quite adept with the galaxy after 4 or 5 years. It isn't really a deal breaker though.

A co-worker picked up the S5 and she let me play around with it for a few minutes. It is snappy and looks nice...but it seemed a little cartoonish to me after using the M8 for a week. The colors a little too bright, the icons seemed a little bit off and it just felt odd in the hand compared to the work of art M8.

For me I believe I've made up my mind and I'm going to stick with the M8. Oddly - if I was to switch it would be for the Note 3 at this point simply due to screen size - I'm OK with the large screen and the internals aren't too far apart. But in a way, having to get used to SENSE vs. TouchWiz has been refreshing. And bottom line the S5 just didn't seem to offer anything different than my S3 other than the very noticeable speed difference.

Based on superior build quality and feel, the light and airy SENSE, super fast lag free operation and the vastly superior sound quality I believe HTC has won me over for this go around. Job well done HTC, thanks for creating such a beast in such a beautiful cover. M8 wins this time fairly handily.

 

[Kibbster]

I had the GS2 and Note2 before the M8 and they were good phones for their time.
One thing I always hated about Samsung phones is Touchwiz - what a total mess of a UI - Hated it!
Touchwiz isn't a problem though because you can switch launchers (God bless Android!)

The multi-coloured jumble of menus is a big problem there is no way around.
The menu layouts were improved with the later JB update on the Note2 but still made the phone look like a Fisherprice "My first smartphone"
And the notification menu was a total mess that was completely unnecessarily re-worked just because Samsung wanted to put their stamp on the phone.

Also the Samsung features like smart stay etc.
They were like the M8 gestures apart from they didn't actually work very well.

Then you've got the accessibility bugs with apps where the phone starts talking back to you on everything you do.

Samsung needs to learn that if you are going to replace core OS functions, replace them with something that's better or just leave them alone!

The internal hardware and screens (once you select a sensible colour profile) are great on Sammy phones and to be honest the plastic cases although not premium like the M8 aren't that flimsy, although they do creak a bit.

I just couldn't stand the Samsung bloatware and "features" with the re-worked and worsened menus anymore.
I'd had enough of Samsung no matter how good the S5 was going to be so for me it was only ever between the Z2 and M8... and the Z2 still hasn't been released.

The M8 actually feels like a grown up phone after two Samsungs.
Apart from the fact the S5 is waterproof, there is nothing about the S5 that appealed to me at all.
For me the M8 wins by default.

 

[Zomb!e]

Wanted to thank everyone for their honest opinions. I've got the S5 coming, but have still been on the fence. Past issues with several HTC phones and the camera and weight of the M8 were my main concerns. When the S5 comes in I think I'll mess around with it for a day and then head to the store to compare. My concerns with the S5 are the locked bootloader/lack of dev support, TouchWiz, and the useless fingerprint/heartbeat gimmicks that I'll never use.

 

[zipro]

Wanted to thank everyone for their honest opinions. I've got the S5 coming, but have still been on the fence. Past issues with several HTC phones and the camera and weight of the M8 were my main concerns. When the S5 comes in I think I'll mess around with it for a day and then head to the store to compare. My concerns with the S5 are the locked bootloader/lack of dev support, TouchWiz, and the useless fingerprint/heartbeat gimmicks that I'll never use.

Well, the fingerprint reader and the heartbeat sensor are easy to ignore. If you don't use them, you won't even notice they're there. What bothers me more is that I can't have dash clock on my lock screen on the S5.

 

[haevolution]

My concerns with the S5 are the locked bootloader/lack of dev support

This is a big concern and the reason why I haven't even turned on the S5 I have had since Friday. Been busy unlocking/S-off/rooting the M8 and setting it up the way I want. With the S5 any little exploit found is going to be patched so Samsung/Verizon can control your phone for you.

 

[freddyttt]

just played with my friends s5 this AM.... it's unusable in the sun !!!

 

[trandz]

just played with my friends s5 this AM.... it's unusable in the sun !!!

Its better than the s4, but yes it is pretty bad in full brightness compared to my Lumia 1020 which works clear as day.

 

[AustinSlater25]

I have messed with both and you can't go wrong. I didn't notice any lag on the S5 and the camera is fantastic. I have a note 3 and took some pictures yesterday at my sons baseball game that were incredible, the S5 will only be better. I think both cameras can be great depending on what you use your phone for. In yesterdays setting the M8 would of struggled because they would lack detail from a distance. In other settings like indoors, closer range it would shine. So both are good just depends on what you use your camera for. The camera on the S5 isn't slow either. I question peoples responses on this forum sometimes from both sides....people seem to have a bias.

 

[trekk]

I went to rogers in Canada and they had both on display. Seriously if I was to buy between those 2 HTC one M8 hands down.

The S5 is plagued with the same issues that I left Samsung for. The whole UI feels extremely heavy. I would be able to handle a crappier camera, but I cannot handle a device that feels clunky anymore.

Posted via Android Central App

 

[ugxvibe]

M8 in the lead..

Sent from my HTC6525LVW using Tapatalk

 

[zipro]

I went to rogers in Canada and they had both on display. Seriously if I was to buy between those 2 HTC one M8 hands down.

The S5 is plagued with the same issues that I left Samsung for. The whole UI feels extremely heavy. I would be able to handle a crappier camera, but I cannot handle a device that feels clunky anymore.

Posted via Android Central App

Agreed, the S5 is definitely slower than the M8 - not just the UI, but as an overall experience. I've been seeing noticeable lag in all kinds of apps (Google+, Tapatalk, feedly etc).

BUT: where's this "crappy camera" lingo coming from? The S5 has a damn nice camera that runs circles around the M8's.