The HTC One will be a hit, pass Galaxy S4 for ONE reason..

[Highrisedrifter]

The marketing hype surrounding the GS4 this past week was incredible - and a sure sign that, at least this year, Samsung and Apple are again going to dominate. The average consumer gets their tech news from mainstream media like CNN, the local news, or social media, and Samsung dominated on nearly every outlet. The sheer hype behind the "Apple killer" that Samsung has become synonymous with is a good sign for them.

We have a reference point to compare it to - HTC's unveiling of the One a few weeks back. It simply received 0 media exposure outside of tech websites, who were far more concerned with the PS4 release on that day. (Even BlackBerry Z10 outing received massive media attention).

Regardless about how you feel about build quality, which features are desired by the market, and which phone is truly superior, you can't deny Samsung remains leaps and bounds ahead of HTC from the perspective of hype. And that's going to go a long way in driving consumers to the GS4 over the One this spring.

There are always going to be perceptions about features but, in my opinion, all that seems to matter with consumers these days are features they can identify with (with little knowledge of real, technological specifications). The GS4 has a massive screen that dwarfs the iPhone, it has a 13MP camera, and it has an HD screen. We all know that NONE of these features make a phone superior - but these features are far more palatable to the average consumer. And so called gimmicks like the latest array of features Samsung touted last week are exactly the kind of features that entice customers, whether or not they will actually use them in the end (see: Siri).

HTC missed the ball on two things: screen size and easily marketable specifications. I believe they're going to have an incredibly difficult time convincing customers that their low megapixel camera takes better pictures than the 8 and 13MP standards on the market (although this indeed may be true). And side by side, the GS4 is going to dwarf the One in size, appearing superior although that may not be the case. And although the aluminum finish may win over some aesthetic-centric consumers, those people were probably headed in the direction of the iPhone anyways.

I agree with earlier posters: all HTC needs to do is steal back some market share from Samsung to appease their investors and shareholders. But to suggest the one will outsell the GS4 is a very ambitious claim.

Sent from my SAMSUNG Galaxy S3 on Sprint

Great points. It's exactly what I see today too. If I go to pretty much all of the UK big name carriers, the Samsung Galaxy S4 is plastered all across their home page. If I want to find details on the HTC One, I have to go digging.

I don't think they missed the ball with screen size though, after all the iPhone 5 is only 4" still. I do think that being that the S4 is smaller in form factor but has a bigger screen (let's take screen quality arguments out of the equation for a mo) is a telling point. I love the nigh-on edge-to-edge 5" display of the S4 but the 4.7" on the HTC is no slouch either.

 

[tekhna]

Great points. It's exactly what I see today too. If I go to pretty much all of the UK big name carriers, the Samsung Galaxy S4 is plastered all across their home page. If I want to find details on the HTC One, I have to go digging.

I don't think they missed the ball with screen size though, after all the iPhone 5 is only 4" still. I do think that being that the S4 is smaller in form factor but has a bigger screen (let's take screen quality arguments out of the equation for a mo) is a telling point. I love the nigh-on edge-to-edge 5" display of the S4 but the 4.7" on the HTC is no slouch either.

The fact that Samsung made their phone thinner and lighter with a bigger screen and a bigger battery is pretty telling. People seem to think Samsung "got lazy" or that design isn't efficient use of space. It's bizarre.

 

[JHBThree]

The fact that Samsung made their phone thinner and lighter with a bigger screen and a bigger battery is pretty telling. People seem to think Samsung "got lazy" or that design isn't efficient use of space. It's bizarre.

They did get lazy.

Sent from my HTC6435LVW using Tapatalk 2

 

[BEARD GANG]

Is super lcd3 better than amoled

 

[tekhna]

They did get lazy.

Sent from my HTC6435LVW using Tapatalk 2

Which is why their phone is thinner and lighter with a bigger screen and battery?

 

[Charles Lambton]

Which is why their phone is thinner and lighter with a bigger screen and battery?

Thinner & lighter because of the use of plastic a far less durable material then aluminum. Not everyone wants a bigger screen in their phone, the One is perfect for me and for many other people. Now lets take a closer look at the screen, same resolution 1080x1920 but with a slightly smaller screen the One has a higher pixel density. Reviews for S4 have stated that the screen isn't as bright as they hoped and the colour wasn't as nice as the One's. Then we have the fact that it is a pentile display and that can distort sharpness and give hard lines a blurry look. From what I've read it also looks like a cheap way to increase pixel density and resolution.

The battery is larger but it's going to depend on how efficient the hardware is. Let's see what the reviews say about battery usage before it's considered a point in one direction or the other. So far the One has fantastic battery life considering the hardware.

 

[tekhna]

Thinner & lighter because of the use of plastic a far less durable material then aluminum. Not everyone wants a bigger screen in their phone, the One is perfect for me and for many other people. Now lets take a closer look at the screen, same resolution 1080x1920 but with a slightly smaller screen the One has a higher pixel density. Reviews for S4 have stated that the screen isn't as bright as they hoped and the colour wasn't as nice as the One's. Then we have the fact that it is a pentile display and that can distort sharpness and give hard lines a blurry look. From what I've read it also looks like a cheap way to increase pixel density and resolution.

The battery is larger but it's going to depend on how efficient the hardware is. Let's see what the reviews say about battery usage before it's considered a point in one direction or the other. So far the One has fantastic battery life considering the hardware.

Ugh. The best you can do is plastic vs. aluminum? C'mon man. And you do realize Samsung crammed a bigger screen into essentially an identical body as the One (or GS3) by not having that massive speaker and lower bezel?
You're probably right about the One screen being higher quality, but the human eye can't see past ~320 PPI anyway, so all those extra pixels are doing is sucking battery.

 

[Charles Lambton]

Ugh. The best you can do is plastic vs. aluminum? C'mon man. And you do realize Samsung crammed a bigger screen into essentially an identical body as the One (or GS3) by not having that massive speaker and lower bezel?
You're probably right about the One screen being higher quality, but the human eye can't see past ~320 PPI anyway, so all those extra pixels are doing is sucking battery.

The plastic vs aluminum argument is valid, it's the trade off of quality construction for being slightly heavier and thicker. The massive speaker gives you the advantage of having better sound, so essentially what HTC did with the one is sacrifice .3 of an inch of screen real estate to have a higher quality screen and better sound to accompany it. Truly making the one a better device for media, just as HTC is marketing it.

 

[MercuryNine]

At the end of the day HTC One is a better all around phone. To many gimmicks with the s4.

Sent from my LG-LS970 using Android Central Forums

 

[tekhna]

The plastic vs aluminum argument is valid, it's the trade off of quality construction for being slightly heavier and thicker. The massive speaker gives you the advantage of having better sound, so essentially what HTC did with the one is sacrifice .3 of an inch of screen real estate to have a higher quality screen and better sound to accompany it. Truly making the one a better device for media, just as HTC is marketing it.

So now a**holes on the subway can play music through their phone speaker even louder? Thanks, HTC.

Plastic vs. aluminum is irrelevant. Seriously. If you drop your phone, the screen is probably going to break. It doesn't matter if the body is aluminum or plastic, at the end of the day, the weakest link is the screen. And for all the discussion of "plasticky vs. ROCK SOLID" or whatever people are using to describe Samsung vs. HTC, my GS3, my iPhone, and my HTC Rezound all feel the same through matte TPU cases.

 

[Charles Lambton]

So now a**holes on the subway can play music through their phone speaker even louder? Thanks, HTC.

Plastic vs. aluminum is irrelevant. Seriously. If you drop your phone, the screen is probably going to break. It doesn't matter if the body is aluminum or plastic, at the end of the day, the weakest link is the screen. And for all the discussion of "plasticky vs. ROCK SOLID" or whatever people are using to describe Samsung vs. HTC, my GS3, my iPhone, and my HTC Rezound all feel the same through matte TPU cases.

Sounds like someone has had a few fun experiences on public transit, I was thinking more about the times when you try to show someone something on your phone, max out the volume and its either left sounding like crap or they still can't hear it even though it's a foot away from their face. So let's say you drop the phone while using it and it hits on a corner, with plastic it can and will crack and flex in the drop. With aluminum it might be scuffed. If it's not going to flex there is less of a chance of the phone's screen breaking.

So now your argument about durability descends into "Well I use a case with everything I own so it doesn't matter anyway". Not everyone will use a case with their phone, some want it to just be durable without having to put a case on it... you know what is durable? Aluminum? You know what isn't? a thin plastic back that is designed to be popped off.

Sure it comes down to personal preference on what one you want but to say that the aluminum vs plastic argument doesn't matter is just idiotic.

 

[tekhna]

Sounds like someone has had a few fun experiences on public transit, I was thinking more about the times when you try to show someone something on your phone, max out the volume and its either left sounding like crap or they still can't hear it even though it's a foot away from their face. So let's say you drop the phone while using it and it hits on a corner, with plastic it can and will crack and flex in the drop. With aluminum it might be scuffed. If it's not going to flex there is less of a chance of the phone's screen breaking.

So now your argument about durability descends into "Well I use a case with everything I own so it doesn't matter anyway". Not everyone will use a case with their phone, some want it to just be durable without having to put a case on it... you know what is durable? Aluminum? You know what isn't? a thin plastic back that is designed to be popped off.

Sure it comes down to personal preference on what one you want but to say that the aluminum vs plastic argument doesn't matter is just idiotic.

If you drop a phone on its corner, the screen will break. Period. Has nothing to do with aluminum or plastic at that point. And you're ignoring the fact that the tensile strength of polycarbonate can be greater than aluminum (don't know what kind of aluminum or poly at work). But whatever. It feels plasticky, or something.
And bendable is GOOD. Bendable means bending, not cracking.

The fact that HTC can't actually ship their phones because of their aluminum decision is a validation of the decision Samsung made--it's hell of a lot quicker to build a polycarbonate phone than an aluminum phone. If you can't even build enough phones to ship, it's, as I said, irrelevant.

Edit: and having a removable back is actually an advantage. I've dropped my phone before. Back pops off. Goodness, that dissipated a lot of energy, didn't it?

 

[Charles Lambton]

The reason why they are having trouble with production is because of manufacturing issues with the new camera components as can be found here:

HTC Confirms One Shipping Delays | NextPowerUp

Before you start blabbing about the screen breaking no matter what, maybe you should look at drop test video's like this one:

iPhone 5 vs Samsung Galaxy S3 Drop Test - YouTube

iphone 5 vs galaxy s3, the iphone with an aluminum body fares far better than the s3.

 

[tekhna]

The reason why they are having trouble with production is because of manufacturing issues with the new camera components as can be found here:

HTC Confirms One Shipping Delays | NextPowerUp

Before you start blabbing about the screen breaking no matter what, maybe you should look at drop test video's like this one:

iPhone 5 vs Samsung Galaxy S3 Drop Test - YouTube

iphone 5 vs galaxy s3, the iphone with an aluminum body fares far better than the s3.

Back in the real world, I don't know a single GS3 owner who has broken their phone. And looking over at the GS3 forums, don't see too many people over there breaking them either.
Yep, the camera, and the fact that it takes 220 minutes per phone just to manufacture the chasis. That's absolutely absurd in manufacturing terms.

 

[Charles Lambton]

Back in the real world, I don't know a single GS3 owner who has broken their phone. And looking over at the GS3 forums, don't see too many people over there breaking them either.
Yep, the camera, and the fact that it takes 220 minutes per phone just to manufacture the chasis. That's absolutely absurd in manufacturing terms.

So now the argument over whether having an aluminum body is better is out the window, now it's in your experience you don't know any S3 owners who have broken their phones.
1. Just because no one you know has broken an S3 doesn't mean they don't break.
2. The point that I was trying to make was that aluminum is a better material, not that the build quality on the s3 is somehow defective. The video clearly shows that it has the advantage.

I'd like to see the article stating that the manufacturing time for the chassis is part of the reason for the delay, otherwise it's just an interesting number. Nice to know that HTC put's that much time into the body of the phone I want to own for the next three years. Better then being flash injection molded in 5 seconds and then spat out onto a conveyor.

Edit: Found another drop test video from a different set of reviewers showing the exact same results. Samsung's plastic just can't stand up to an aluminum device, the screens can still break on both but it definitely takes more to do it when the body is made from aluminum. It was actually almost laughable how little it took to break the screen on the s3, a drop from 4 feet onto a corner...

Drop Test: iPhone 5 vs Samsung Galaxy S3 - YouTube

 

[tekhna]

So now the argument over whether having an aluminum body is better is out the window, now it's in your experience you don't know any S3 owners who have broken their phones.
1. Just because no one you know has broken an S3 doesn't mean they don't break.
2. The point that I was trying to make was that aluminum is a better material, not that the build quality on the s3 is somehow defective. The video clearly shows that it has the advantage.

I'd like to see the article stating that the manufacturing time for the chassis is part of the reason for the delay, otherwise it's just an interesting number. Nice to know that HTC put's that much time into the body of the phone I want to own for the next three years. Better then being flash injection molded in 5 seconds and then spat out onto a conveyor.

Nope, it's that there are literally hundreds of these "test" videos out there, and yet you don't see a horde of angry Samsung users out there. Which tells you something.

There's been a ton of speculation about it. It's just as much rumor as the camera talk--there's no actual statement from HTC as to the cause HTC One faces shipment delays, may hit stores in April | Mobile - CNET News
And nope, it's absolutely not better. If it's gonna be a hit of Samsung proportions, as the title of this thread claims, HTC had better be able to step up its manufacturing. Don't see how you're doing that when it takes such an incredibly long time to machine the case.

 

[Charles Lambton]

Nope, it's that there are literally hundreds of these "test" videos out there, and yet you don't see a horde of angry Samsung users out there. Which tells you something.

There's been a ton of speculation about it. It's just as much rumor as the camera talk--there's no actual statement from HTC as to the cause HTC One faces shipment delays, may hit stores in April | Mobile - CNET News
And nope, it's absolutely not better. If it's gonna be a hit of Samsung proportions, as the title of this thread claims, HTC had better be able to step up its manufacturing. Don't see how you're doing that when it takes such an incredibly long time to machine the case.

Of course you wouldn't see hordes of angry Samsung customers out there, again I'm not saying that Samsung's build quality is bad but Aluminum is better... You seem to be constantly trying to shift the point of that argument into one where I'm saying Samsung devices are defective, they are fine but the build quality is better with aluminum. You can't argue with that because as "hundreds of these "test" videos out there" show aluminum is less likely to break and less likely to shatter a screen.

Yet you have no clue whether the manufacturing time of the chassis is the cause, as you said it's just as much rumor as the camera. So short of seeing actual manufacturing numbers for the chassis that are lower then they should be or an official announcement from HTC on the matter it really doesn't matter either way.

 

[reeneebob]

The 200 million iPhones in the wild prove you wrong. Your anecdotal evidence means nothing when the market shows so clearly that consumers as a whole just don't care.

Sent from my HTC6435LVW using Tapatalk 2

Reread what I said - I SAID THE IPHONE IS THE ONE EXCEPTION. I said it twice. In both posts. Reading comprehension. It's a wonderful thing.

Joe Blow consumer absolutely does care about removable battery and expandable sd card. I sell these things for a living and can't even count how many times a customer is down to the GS3 or the One X or other non swappable model and ask about the battery, and upon hearing it's not remove able go with the Galaxy. Only the iPhone is chosen regardless.

I'm one salesperson who has experienced it on numerous occasions. I doubt I'm an anomaly. But you clearly are some all powerful, all knowing person who speaks for all. Fact remains the iPhone is the one exception to the rule of what I've experienced. I'm sorry if that's inconvenient to your little fanboy worldview.

Any time a customer is choosing between the HTC and the Samsung? I've yet to sell the HTC and every time it's come down to the battery and sd card slot.

SENT FROM TAPATALK 2 - Anything I say in no way represents the view of my employer, and please do not PM me regarding account information or questions. Thanks.

 

[NotJustAPhone]

Let's keep the discussion civil.

Sent from my SGSIII

 

[BigDinCA]

Back in the real world, I don't know a single GS3 owner who has broken their phone. And looking over at the GS3 forums, don't see too many people over there breaking them either.
Yep, the camera, and the fact that it takes 220 minutes per phone just to manufacture the chasis. That's absolutely absurd in manufacturing terms.

Well my brother just shattered his screen last week. And he didn't even drop it on anything hard. He was driving and it bounced off of his front seat into a cupholder 6 inches away.

As far as the 220 minute manufacturing process, that isn't as long as you think. I know. I work on industrial machining systems, predominantly CO2 lasers. But I have been around my fair share of everything else and trust me when I tell you that 220 minutes total manufacturing time isn't that long for a device like this. As an example one of my customers manufactures toilets for prisons, made entirely of stainless steel. But in the end, it's just a toilet bowl at the bottom of a stand and a sink formed at the top. No seams whatsoever. That takes nearly 200 hours. And there are no electronics or screens in there. It's not like you can only make one device at a time.