One awesome extra feature
Outside of the performance, connectivity, battery, and camera, each phone has their star features that make them excellent, and while our reviews list them in greater detail, we’re also going to cover our favourite extra feature of each here, because they’re worth knowing about even in short (we’re doing this in alphabetical order, not in preference, so don’t go confusing that).
HTC One M8
Aside for the build and camera, the feature you need to know about is the BoomSound speakers, which are two very loud front-facing speakers.
These were present in last year’s One, and this year they’re louder and better, making them ideal for music, movies and the spot of YouTube you love when you’re doing nothing.
We wish all phone speakers were this good.
LG G3
LG seems to pack more extra pizzazz in its phone than anyone else, and in this handset, our favourite is support for high-res audio.
If you’re sick of streaming music services and prefer high-end sound, LG’s G3 is the only smartphone of this bunch to support 192kHz 24-bit FLAC, playing back the high-end format in severaly impressive quality if you have some equally impressive headphones nearby.
With credit to LG, this existed on the LG G2, but that phone had fixed memory, making this mostly useless, especially since an hour of audio can be over a gigabyte in size. Now with expandable memory, this is a serious reason to use this phone, and really makes you wonder why you’d bother with Sony’s dedicated portable high-res audio player.
Samsung Galaxy S5
We’re going to cheat a little with Samsung and include two features here, because one is useful and the other is useless, but both are missing in action on the other handsets and are both based on the human body. Confused yet?
The useful one is the fingerprint reader, which is built into the home button and allows you to tie your fingerprint to unlocking your phone and paying for things with PayPal. That last one is especially important, and we’re keen to see it used in more apps later on down the track, as it will be harder to break than your regular PIN code.
Over in the useless category is the heart rate checker, which is a neat gimmick to tell you how elevated your heart is, but we’ll probably never use it, and honestly, it doesn’t seem overly accurate, anyway.
Sony Xperia Z2
Sony seems to pack in less “wow” features than anyone else, but the one we really like is the inclusion of a camera button.
It seems so minor, but that camera button on the side lets you go from standby to the camera mode in no time at all, making it more useful as a quick shooter than any of the smartphone cameras it competes against. Pair this with the abundance of camera modes and you have a fantastic little extra.
Value
With all of this technology inside these devices, you have to wonder how much they cost, and being flagship products, the natural assumption is that they’re not cheap.
Oh sure, they’re all available on plans, and when you pay for something over the course of a year or two, that helps to spread that value, but if you decide to do it in one lump — which is how we judge value — which one is worth it most of all?
From our tests, LG’s G3 may turn out the best value altogether, packing in more technology across the board and strong performance for a recommended retail price of $799, just forty bucks more than what Sony asks for, with the Xperia Z2 fetching $759 for what it includes, while HTC makes you pay almost $900 for the privilege, fetching an RRP of $899.
Samsung does manage to push over that $900 price, and if you want to grab one of these outright, expect to pay $929. Ouch.
Cases
If you can’t accessorise your phone, what’s the point?
We’re not huge fans of cases, but lots of people are, as they protect your purchase from the traumas of your pocket, handbag, backpack, and anything else, especially if the worst happens — heaven forbid — and they take a tumble.
In this department, Samsung seems to have the most push, with companies such as Belkin, Incipio, Otterbox, and Samsung providing a few options out there, and other brands no doubt chiming in that we’ve missed (apologies there).
The other manufacturers don’t quite have as much to work with, as LG’s G3 can be cased up thanks to LG’s own windowed cases, HTC’s One M8 has a really neat pixelating case you can use the phone through, while the Sony cases that we’ve seen are your basic wraparound or edge protectors.
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/