Battery life and charging
Battery life is one of those hard areas where it can be totally different for every person.
In our tests, the HTC One and Sony Xperia Z2 seem to lead the competition, making it to almost two days of life, while the LG G3 barely grabs a day, and the Samsung Galaxy S5 often loses out to just under a day.
To Samsung’s credit, however, it does come with an ultra low power saving mode that makes it possible to get a full 24 hours of life in those times when you have very little life to work with.
When it goes to this mode, some neat things happen, such as the disabling of connections, push and synchronisation, and even the screen going black and white, which we’ve proven doesn’t do as much as Samsung indicates, except to dissuade you from using your handset.
Charging all of the phones from these brands is handled through a microUSB port, with HTC and LG leaving theirs exposed, while Sony and Samsung have port covers thanks to the ingress protection for dust and water resistance.
LG and Sony, though, have other charging options.
For instance, the Sony Xperia Z2 has a proprietary magnetic port on the side to support its own dock format for charging, making it more convenient for bedside charging than relying on a simple microUSB port.
LG goes even further and includes the wireless Qi charging we saw on the Google Nexus 5 (made by LG) and some of Nokia’s handsets, making it possible to charge your phone just be leaving it on an induction pad.
Without a doubt, this is our favourite charging option, and if your phone supports this, you get high marks from us. All charging should be as effortless as this.
Camera
If you had the choice of carrying just your smartphone and its camera or a smartphone and a dedicated camera, most people will probably choose the former, and it’s a fact camera makers are being forced to face.
Compact cameras are going the way of the dodo — poor dodo — and smartphone cameras are replacing them, because unless you’ve been living in a cave and don’t have access to any smartphone, all of the devices out there that cost over $500 have decent cameras that can rival your regular compact, provided you don’t mind having any zoom.
The flagship models we’re looking at certainly come with decent cameras, and they’re all very capable and yet very decent.
We won’t go into the nitty gritty of each — we have reviews for that, so check the last page of this guide — but there are some things to focus on.
HTC’s is likely the first that will grab attention, technically including two cameras with different lenses for some very impressive effects. Change the focus distance after the fact, work with combined colour filters across different planes, and take high quality front-facing pictures with a 5 megapixel camera.
These are just some of the things HTC is offering in the new One, and if it wasn’t for the fact that the Ultrapixel camera on the back was only technically 4 megapixels, we’d be highly impressed.
But it’s only a 4 megapixel camera, and that’s not a great thing to have around.
Oh sure, in low light, it’s quite nice, and the technology means you can do some really creative things, but just be weary images can’t be resized all that much on the One M8.
The same cannot be said for the others, as the LG G3 features a 13 megapixel shooter, the Samsung Galaxy S5 goes for a 16 megapixel camera, and Sony’s packs in a 20 megapixel module that can either shoot in the full resolution or pack the image with pixels back down to 8 megapixels.
All three of them are great cameras, and all three offer Ultra HD capturing, perfect for those 4K TVs and monitors starting to come out, which is another feature the HTC misses out on, with only Full HD offered there.
They all have different features on top of the great cameras, mind you, and we’re particularly happy with:
LG’s laser-based autofocus, which provides speedy contrast-detection focus times relying on a small laser
Samsung’s playful image modes, many of which do similar things to the camera in the HTC One M8, and
Sony’s software for the Z2, and how it lets you flex creative muscle thanks to the sheer number of artistic effects on offer (we had way too much fun with the mosaic one, which made photos look like 8-bit video games).
Basically, all the cameras are excellent, but we’d have to say that Sony and LG felt like the best for us throughout our testing.
A couple of items that are very important and worthy but not in this review, were the overall design aestethic including removing buttons for a clean design, reducing weight and edge to edge screen real estate. There really only is one that his all those marks out of the phones – the g3. Furthermore, an untarnished version of Android is also important. The battery life in the g3 lasts me two full days which was surprising with that excellent display.
It’s a hands down winner for me.
Not sure if I’d say clean design is something the LG only has. Sony’s Z2 hits that mark for us, as well, though can see what you’re getting at there.
In fairness, however, none of these handsets have “untarnished” versions of Android, and they’re all modified from what Google makes in the first place.
If you want untarnished, seek out the Nexus 5, which we’ve reviewed here: https://gadgetguy.com.au/product/google-nexus-5/
All of the phones in this test work well as phones, and as that’s pretty hard to screw up in a phone these days, is often something we won’t include in a smartphone feature comparison.
As for the loud speakers, the S5 probably wins here due to its extra loud loudspeaker, but the quality is more or less the same when calling someone on all of these.
Really, though, you can’t compare a 12 year old phone with stuff from today. Completely different.
I will still go for the M8 even if the sense in me says the G3 is best
Me too! M8 is that stunning beautiful girl who woos you all the time, while the G3 is that super intelligent girl who can be more dependable
htc one m8 or lg g3..?
If you’re having troubles picking, put them both in your hands at a phone store and see which you like the feel of most.
yes im really having trouble in picking…. what i like about the htc one m8 is its premium build, and its dual boomsound speakers…. while on the lg g3 is i like its camera, and the rear buttons…
Plastic is fine. Some plastics even go back to their original shapes when bent. Unlike many metals.
Wow,Detailed great comaprision!
Is the moto X that unknown that it is not reviewed, or not up to standard?
The 2013 Moto X came out too late in Australia for it to be considered a flagship, and the 2014 model hasn’t arrived yet. We’re anticipating it this month, and are planning on doing a final version of this article with the Note 4 and Xperia Z3, also.
Didn’t forget. Neither are out in Australia yet. We’ll redo this story once we’ve seen ’em! 🙂
Not all follow-ups are better, but the Z3 Compact impresses us, so we’re expecting good things from the Z3.
i will definitely go for M8.!. if you have problem with the camera go and buy Lumia 1020.!.
One could buy 2 Nexus phones at these prices…
In fairness, you can get that on any phone. Gorilla Glass and mineral-strengthened glass is scratch-resistant, not drop proof.
If you want a phone with less chance of breaking, consider one with a curved screen or a case that protects the sides heavily.
The RAM on the unit? Most flagships tend to hit around the 2GB to 3GB mark, which tends to be the sweet spot for Android at the moment.
That said, even large amounts aren’t necessarily going to indicate core performance, as operating system changes — overlays generally, such as Samsung’s Touchwiz — can get in the way and drag the speed down.
One easy fix for a slow phone — especially an older phone — is a backup and a reset, restoring your information afterwards. Phones are very much like computers, which is hardly surprising since phones are computers these days. As such, just like when you reinstall a computer to factory settings you get more speed, the same basically will happen to a phone.
So if your S3 is struggling, try backing everything up and going from beginning.
Thanks very much for this suggestion. I have already done that twice. There is the problem too of trying not to lose contacts and memos which take up quite a bit of time, especially if memos are locked. But yes I could have another go.
Not sure what the memos or contacts are saved to for your device, but we sync our contacts to Google so that they’re usable on every device we use, and memos we tend to run through Google. You might want to look at Google Keep for that.
you can try using super backup app… it will back up apps, contacts, sms, calender ….its awesome… no need to worry about loosing data…
HTC will be the future of smart phones…i strongly believe HTC will make their own OS and capture the market like blackberry was….
i think xperia phones are best only in terms of music; using their walkman that superb the quality of music, samsung is better in internet access, specuially in busy people, LG wins in durability and i dont know in htc because i didnt use the htc yet
HTC m8 is the best not 100% perfect but its above the competition !
the Sony Z3 also came out 2014. why not include it in the list?
Wasn’t available when we did the round-up. We’re thinking of doing it again in the next week or so ahead of MWC, so we’ll include it then.
I love my LG G3! I would not change it for any other phone!
I think the HTC One M8 is the best!
that would br my prefrence
The Note 4 is a great phone, though we had no problems with email, and yet weak battery life.
Our review is here: https://gadgetguy.com.au/product/samsung-galaxy-note-4-sm-n910g/