Samsung Galaxy S5 vs. HTC One (2013)

The 2014 edition of the HTC One has to be one of the worst-kept secrets in the history of smartphones. But before HTC pulls back the curtain on its well-leaked new flagship next week, maybe you're wondering how last year's One stacks up to the Galaxy S5? Read on, as Gizmag compares the two phones' features and specs.

The Galaxy S5 is the bigger phone, but not by too big a margin. It's about four percent longer and seven percent wider than the 2013 HTC One. The One is bigger in one aspect, though, as it's 15 percent thicker than the GS5.


Both phones have sharp 1080p displays. And though some pre-announcement rumors had the GS5 launching with an insane 2K display, I don't think the 432 PPI screen that it actually has is any cause for concern.

The 2013 One gives you 85 percent as much screen real estate as the GS5. Both phones have navigation buttons below their screens, so none of that real estate gets used up by on-screen keys.

With the GS5, Samsung stuck with the same 2 GB of RAM from the Galaxy S4. That's also what you'll find in the OG One.

No surprise that Samsung's big 2014 flagship has a faster processor than HTC's 2013 flagship. Leaks are pointing to the 2014 One also packing a Snapdragon 801.


Just like with other recent Samsung phones, non-LTE regions will get a version of the GS5 with an octa-core Exynos processor inside.

On paper, the 2013 One's camera looks terrible. In experience, though, its UltraPixel camera is actually pretty damn good – and one of the best arguments yet that megapixels are overrated when it comes to camera quality.


We're probably going to see this spec pop up in a lot of 2014 flagships. The GS5, like the Galaxy Note 3 and LG G Pro 2 before it, can record 4K video.

Okay, so maybe it isn't fair to use an HTC marketing term as a "feature" in this comparison. Of course the GS5 won't have it. But the three-second video clips that the One's shooter takes with every tap of the shutter make for some cool gallery highlight reels.


Slow-mo is another camera feature we've been seeing a lot of lately, but last year's One was actually one of the first prominent phones with the functionality built-in.

The GS5 holds more juice, but we still don't know much about its actual uptimes. Stay tuned on that front.


Not every carrier has pushed the KitKat update for the One just yet, but HTC has a lot of those bases covered already. The GS5 launches with Google's latest. Of course both phones are wrapped in thick layers of custom UI: TouchWiz on the GS5 and Sense on the One.