[One (M7) General] Haplok:
Choices, choices....

Well, it's time for me to upgrade (coming from the first Samsung Galaxy, which still is a pretty good phone with the CM, but it's time for a change) and I'm a bit torn.

So far I've been considering the Galaxy Note 2... it has some great unique features like the stylus, the Wacom digitizer for different pressure levels and possibly opening contextual menus before touching the screen, the HUGE vibrant AMOLED HD screen plus all the other Samsung goodies, like the split-screen, smart-stay, smart dial, great codec support, etc. And, perhaps most importantly, THAT BATTERY! The specs are more then enough really, 2 GB of RAM for lots of multitasking in particular.

On the other hand, it IS kinda on the big side and, well, I'm getting fed up with the all-plastic build. Kinda miss the very solid metal feel my original Sony Ericsson Xperia gave me.... Last but not least, I've been reading about Developers being somewhat fed up with the Exynos chipsets and the cooperation with Samsung in general. And I'm definately not a fan of TouchWiz - it's visual style in particular (it does bring good codec support to the table). Would be painful to go back to it, after using CM for over a year. Then again, if I move to a custom rom, I might loose a lot of the unique functionality of the Note 2... tough choice.

But now that Sony Xperia Z is out... and the new HTC One is just behind the corner, I'm torn even more. I'm very tempted to buy one of those... but which?

Both look gorgeous, although are very different: each of these handsets has a very unique style. Xperia Z is water and dust-proof!... but the plugs can get a bit annoying I guess and, more importantly, the gorgeous glass panels are real fingerprint magnets, which can be covered by smoodges very fast. The silver HTC One shouldn't have such problems, except for the screen, of course. Perhaps more importantly, the monolitic block build of Xperia Z means that the grip on it isn't very solid, it doesn't sit very well in the hand . HTC One should have a great feeling in the hand, perfectly resting in one's grip.

HTC One also scores a few points in the hardware department. Loud stereo speakers with good sound quality!!, a notably better screen and a newer, more powerful chipset. Potentially a better battery backup, given that it uses a Li-Poly vs Xperia's Li-Ion... but that remains to be seen really... HTC's recent battery backup history is quite horrible really. I'm quite sure that, despite all the marketing voodoo HTC's been serving us, the Xperia Z has a vastly better camera, but that's negligable for me. I've got a very good compact camera which covers all my photography needs and blows all phones out of the water. I can still take an occasional party snapshot with the HTC One (possibly better, if it really has better low-light then the competition).

So far so good and HTC One seems to be winning. But I do have two major concerns. First: the all aluminium build is great.... but I'm worried if it won't interfere with the radios. Coming from the Galaxy S, I'd like to finally have a phone with a somewhat decent GPS... And, of course, good mobile network and wi-fi reception is a must!

And lastly Sony has a much better software policy as of late. HTC has locked bootloaders, where unlocks void the warranty, problems with S-off, is not sharing the sources from I hear.... Well, I kinda like Sense, but I'm not sold on the new Blink homescreen yet. Plus I like a change from time to time. And I'm worried how the development for this phone will be....

So, like I wrote, I'm really torn now. 3 great phones to choose from... each very different, each with unique strenghts and weaknesses (perhaps only potential, like One's radio and development concerns). If I were certain there won't be any problems with the One's radio, wireless and GPS

reception and had resons to think it would get good Dev support, I think it's almost my dream phone... but as things are, I'm really not sure.

If anyone can give any advice, I'd very much appreciate it! :)