[One (M8) Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Zorachus:
Hello, would like some honest advice and opinions please, on whether to keep my new ATT HTC One M8 or get the ATT Galaxy S5 ?

I am no fanboy, I have owned like 11 or 12 different Android phones over the past four years, HTC, Samsung, LG, Motorola, etc... To me the company brand doesn't really matter whatsoever. In this order is my opinion on most important features; #1 = Best battery life, #2 = Best screen, #3 = Pocketable and good feel in hand, and weight in pants / shorts, #4 = Root option, to debloat the phone, and install apps like AdAway, and Greenify, and Xposed Framework, #4 = Smoothness of the OS and UI, no lag, and good looking UI.

Little recent phone history the past year, I have had the ATT S4 since the Fall, and before that the Nexus 4. Got rid of the Nexus due to average battery life, and dropped it and cracked the screen. Got the ATT S4, and liked it, but didn't know about the lock bootloader before I bought it, so Root was my only option, but I was cool with that, root allowed me to all I wanted, like delete apps, install root apps, and also Xposed framework with Wanam, and I turned my S4 into a cool phone, but the S4 screen always seemed too dim for outdoors, and battery life was ok, not bad, not great, and it did lag a little here and there. So...time for an upgrade.

Reading every review out there between the new HTC One M8 and Samsung Galaxy S5, made them seem like such a tie, it was more personal features that separated them, but hardware wise, both phones share very similar components, and pretty close battery life.

After owning the One M8 for a week now, only noticeable drawbacks coming form an S4, is the weight of the M8 feels much heavier, especially when in the pockets of my pants or coat, it weighs it down noticeably more than the S4 did, and with gym shorts on the M8 feels like a brick, where the S4 was very feather light in comparison. And turning it on, the S4 with the bottom home button, I was so used to pressing then and then swiping hand to turn on the screen. The M8 has knock on, which is ok, but I don't like it that much, and then the power button on top to turn screen on, is a little pain.

But the M8 has a very beautiful LCD screen, and looks great outdoors. The speed of the M8 is crazy fast. And Sense 6 looks really good, almost like stock Android, but lightly improved or touched up. Where as Touchwiz on my S4 was an ugly mess. The settings on the Galaxy S4 was a cluster**** design, where as the Sense 6 settings menu is smart and clean looking.

But I did see a coworker with a new S5, and I did get a little jealous of it, the screen looked pretty dang sweet and his all black S5 phone in a black case, looked stealth bad ass cool :cool: The M8 in dark gray, doesn't really have an exact color matching case, so with a case on the M8 it really loose the coolness big time, this M8 looks best naked, as soon as a case it put on it, the great design disappears.

Only thing keeping me back from the S5, is ATT, and no Root, and I know for sure no bootloader unlock coming ever, but at least basic Root I need on a phone. How do you use a phone with all that crapwear installed without removing it ? And I can't afford the $700 to buy an off contract S5, plus I think that's outrageous to pay, I'd just wait for the One+ or Nexus 6 for $399.

So bottom line, is the ATT S5 worth it over the M8, if I like the lighter weight, the home button to turn it on, the gorgeous screen, and stealth look of the black design ? But with no Root, not sure I can live with that ? But then I do love Sense 6, and the ROM'ing I can do on the M8, and battery life has been off the charts good on this M8 with my rooted settings, which battery life is extremely important to me.

So ... ?