[AT&T HTC One (M7)] cpufrost:
I've had a few weeks experience with the S4 and almost a week's experience with HTC's One.

Here's my thoughts.

First the S4. I like the feel. It's almost too thin to be honest. In a TPU case it has a good feel. If you hold the phone in your hands and try to bend it there is flex, it's kind of scary, and I would not trust this in a pocket without a case. Have not stripped it down to discrete parts to see how much flexing is designed but AMOLED displays are easily broken without warning. Carrying this phone naked is fine if you're careful and know the possible drawbacks.

The display itself is quite nice. Best looking AMOLED I've used. You just can't beat the blacks. If you like to watch movies this is going to be the display you will want, especially if you watch at night. First thing you will want to do though is turn the color down all the way to the bottom setting. Forget using dynamic, it's plain awful!

The sound is good meaning it gets quite loud. No phone is going to be hifi. If you hold it and cover up the speaker it's going to be a problem of course!

In call quality using Motorola Elite Sliver bt is very good. With noise cancelling engaged people can't even tell I'm driving. Volume over bt is quite loud, mid range on the slider is almost too loud if the person on the other end talks loud.

There is bloat, and I did tweak this as much as possible without a custom rom. Of course in the future there will be many roms addressing this issue, it's really too early to discuss this. Just look how mature the roms have gotten with the Note 2!

The camera. What a love/hate relationship there! Outdoors in full sun the pictures are stunning, both when viewed on the LCD and a high end PC/Mac with 2560x1600 displays. When the lights go down there is a serious challenge to hold it still to avoid blur. The processing also adds considerable "oil painting" effect overall as expected for such a tiny sensor with 13MP! One cannot sidestep the immutable laws of physics here. The compromises seem to be engineered well but one expecting miracles will travel down the rocky road of disappointment in most typical shooting scenarios and be quick to blame the camera! Like learning to use any *tool* patience is key and once you learn a few tricks your shots will improve. That's true with *any* camera but to quickly dismiss it as having a tall list of inadequacy is going to score high on hardware prejudice. ;)

The video feature. 1080P mode is sharp but when you start moving there are other shortcomings. First the audio. The audio is quite sensitive, perhaps too sensitive overall. The compression used leaves nothing to be desired, actually sounds quite harsh when auditioned in a studio environment with a playback system capable of 20KHz response. It's quite metallic and "zingy" reminiscent of the WMP audio in TV streams a few years ago. I don't like this at all! If I were to record something where fidelity is important I'd have to carry another digital recording device with me. I've also discovered due to the sensitivity of the mics and their location (stereo recording is possible with both mics engaged) one must keep their hands absolutely positively still while recording! Otherwise you will hear pops in your video. If the phone is held in a case/grip and there is any kind of hard plastic to plastic contact any kind of movement (like in a car, for example) is going to be quite noticeable in your videos so be forewarned.

The actual video itself looks decent but is far from perfect. Sometimes there is a glitch in the recorded output that results in tearing, tiling (yes, serious!), and dropped frames. I've tested both the 16GB and 32GB (both made in Korea) devices and they exhibited this issue. It was completely random. Sometimes it never happens in videos and other times a short 10 second video had it. Very frustrating. Again, I understand this is a phone, not a studio camera but it's annoying nonetheless and my Note2 never did this! Also beware if you store your videos on an external microSD card be sure to use a good one! I was using a cheap PNY 32GB card that's a few years old and sometimes the camera would not be "freed" for 5 seconds after pressing stop due to its slow write speed. Replacing it with a Samsung 64GB (70MB/S Read, 20MB/S Write, $65 MSRP) fixed that.

I really like the S4 and within a few months when the big hitters bring their ROMs to the table, it's going to be a beast for sure! It's hard going back to any phone that does not have an IR blaster as well. The S4s IR blaster is well executed however its aperture is small and the LED used is has questionable coverage. At length it must be pointed directly at the TV/device to work.

I buy my own phones at full cost here, so no drop tests, running over with a tractor, microwaving, etc. There are plenty of those already on youtube if you have a fetish for that sort of thing! ;)

Now on to the HTC One.

Out of the box, I'd say this reminds me of an iphone. I've owned iphones since the first 8GB I bought back in 2007. My last iphone that I actually bought for me was the 4. Never bothered with the 4S and higher as I really tired of itunes and prefer the more "open" feeling of Android. But I've rambled way too much here so I won't bore you with that...

Yes it feels weird not having a battery door, place to stuff an SD Card, etc. Using a tool to pull the SIM, does that bring back memories! But anyways, it's a phone and works. Oh that UGLY sticker on the back! My first One was silver. I exchanged it for a black after it died. Apparently you're not supposed to run it down until the battery is 1% and the phone shuts off because it never worked again after that. That's what I was told by a Best Buy employee. Total hogwash. OT note: Try to avoid BB if you can! ;)

Battery life on the S4 falls somewhere between the S3 and Note2. I have not had the pleasure of using the LG Optimus G Pro at length (yet) but for now in my usage the Note2 with Skynote 8.2 (I have to upgrade to 9.0 but the wife is reluctant to let me have the phone for an hour or so!) battery life champion is the Note 2 hands down. Time between charges is measured in days, not hours, with lighter use! The S4 may get there eventually but it's a more power hungry device with a smaller battery so don't expect miracles. ;)

So my black one is working fine and at 100% after a power zapping plunge to zip. Works fine, no problems. Right away all my devices get unlocked. As many users attest I simply cannot run a unrooted, stock device. I'd rather use a piece of string and two cups than run unrooted. Most of my favorite stuff (most importantly Titanium Backup) requires it!

So I'm kind of lost without ODIN but the tutorial here to unlock worked without a hitch. The first time I did it I was half asleep and swear only one eye was open! But it worked without a hitch. My only gripe is that dreaded orange text that comes up on the boot screen telling everyone the phone is running development software. Oh and there's basically no way (yet) to return it perfectly to stock, removing TAMPERED from the recovery screen. Whatever, no big deal, I'm not looking at boot screens and stuff every day but I kind of have OCD with that crap, it's a very minor nitpick here.

On to build quality. Yes the Samsung has the plastic-y feel of say a Dell laptop where the HTC feels like a macbook pro. I get that. With a phone that you completely hold in your hand there is a different interface as your digits surround the device and bear its entire mass while in use. It cannot be denied, the GS4 feels cheap in hand compared to the One.

My silver did have some gap issues. These aren't glaringly apparent unless you look at them. Like comparing a 1985 Chevy Cavalier to a Nissan Stanza (owned both!) the former had different sized gaps on the trunks. Camaros and Firebirds were even worse. Some people found this quite bothersome and others that never noticed complained when it was pointed out after the fact because they couldn't stop looking for it! Point is if you watch some of the youtube videos pointing out these subtle things with build quality and difference between product samples, you will go absolutely nuts! Don't do this! In this regard the S4 wins. There was no difference in mechanical quality between samples I handled. But prying that back cover off makes a noise that makes you wince, it just makes noises that you don't want to hear. Like driving in the South in the spring if toads could scream out as they were flattened on the highway. It's something you try not to think about! If you had a misbehaving program on your S4 while at a bar and you, in haste, pulled the door off quickly to do a battery pull. Someone might think you're about to perform phone homicide! :laugh:

I did mention the first (silver) One did die. Not sure what happened. I returned it and got a black One.

It's harder to find flaws with this one. The screen glass is a touch above the top speaker grille and a finger scrolling down to get the menu can feel this sub millimeter protrusion. Some may find this disappointing. It does not bother me in the least.

Both of my samples issues no LCD backlight bleeding or dead pixels. Sorry, but either one of those warrants an immediate exchange. The display is the most important part of the phone! It's the main interface, you're looking at it any time you're using the phone, it has to be *perfect*.

As a phone, reading web pages, and using outdoors, this display is better than the S4. However watching movies where blacks tend to get noticed, I did prefer the S4. I have bigger screens and a rockin' HT so fortunately my movie time is not spent on a phone. One thing that did annoy me about the S4 was at lower brightness levels scrolling in Tapatalk (using the dark theme) resulted in considerable dimming of the white text on a jet black background. That's something I have not seen in a while and reminds me of the slow LCDs of over a decade ago.

I won't really go into launchers/interfaces because that is more of a personal preference. I wish there were more settings available on the One, however.

The camera. First pictures. They look really good, on the phone. If you edit on your PC and have a high res display be forewarned. This is a 4MP device and it shows. However I've always said the best camera is the one you have with you! This camera is versatile and *fast*. What matters most is where the rubber meets the road. To be honest here my line of work (consulting) means most of the pictures I take are of hardware and status screens. Even with my Note2 I'd sometimes have to slow down to get a good snap. This camera is great for doing drive bys. What good is 13MP if you miss that action shot or it's super blurry, etc? So that is really what you must look at here. If I'm going somewhere where I know I'm going to take pictures and quality is paramount, I have a bag full of DSLRs and high end glass. No smart phone will replace that, ever. Unless we figure out a way to change the laws of physics. ;)

Video camera. Very good here. None of the real issues that I had with the S4. Video also appears to be stabilized as there is far less judder in use. It would be nice to add a low cut filter to reduce the rolling thunder sound of wind noise. This is completely unavoidable with any device, however. The flash LED does a nice job when you need it and don't have enough light up close.

The sound. Yes the speakers sound good. Tip: If you want them to go louder, disable beats. This is an eq setting that boosts the lows considerable. This, of course is at the expense of amplifier power and transducer excursion capability. The circuitry does a good job at keeping distortion at bay. For maximum volume for voice range disabling beats will allow the phone to go louder than the S4. With beats enabled watching movies, playing games, etc. the speakers sound better than most tablets, let alone smart phones!

Battery life on the One. Not sure what it is out of the box as before my first cycle I was unlocked and rooted, running Clean Rom 2.5 currently. It seems OK but I have not had a day yet where I was on screen for a few hours in LTE. That's almost as bad as playing a game, a real battery killer!

I'm a little concerned about not being able to swap batteries as it goes back to the days of the iphone. Be careful, don't leave it out in the car in the summer! A black One left on the dashboard in the middle of June can reach near 200 degrees. Temps north of 140F can permanently harm the battery and you can't swap it out! So watch it!

That said, I love my Anker 10Ah bank! I do miss Galaxy current and not sure of any apps (yet) that will tell me charging current.

The same charger and cable that gets me 1900mA on my S4/Note2 seem to charge up the One pretty quickly. It doesn't get warm or anything like that. Perhaps a tad warm near the bottom. I'm going to eventually interface a USB cable to my bench supplies so I can actually read the current though. Much as software on a PC often isn't accurate to motherboard readings where a real bench DVM shows the goods, I'd have an idea what the charger is actually feeding the phone! Only then could software be calibrated and developed later, etc.

Oh and one last thing (if you've actually read this far, congratulations!)...

The black finish on the One. There is concern that it will scratch easily revealing the silver color of the aluminum below. I take care of my phones since I buy the with my money so I'm not going to attack it with a rat tail file. But it appears to be a fairly decent coating. No, not type 3 anodizing (that would be cool, as tossing it in a pocket with keys it would laugh at you!) but should still stay decent. Just use a case! If you drop the phone and it falls on a corner it's going to look awful. Like jellied toast that always falls jelly side down, Mister Murphy says when you unholster a naked phone at night while strolling over pavement, it WILL fall screen down! Ouch.

Well if you like cats and don't like cases you could always strap your one on the back of a cat...

(bluetooth has adequate range, allergy sufferers bedamned!