Five reasons to choose the HTC One M8 instead of the Samsung Galaxy S5

The HTC One M8 was unveiled yesterday as the successor to last year's HTC One, giving us yet another great Android device to choose from this year. The other big name on the list would be the Samsung Galaxy S5, and while Samsung's flagship has some exclusive features of its own, here are five reasons to choose the HTC One M8 instead of the Samsung Galaxy S5.

Premium Design

HTC has always stood out among the Android manufacturers for its amazing premium design. At least a touch of exquisiteness is something that smartphone users have always wanted to see in Samsung's Android handsets, but the South Korean company has been ignoring those wishes to this day, and that includes the Galaxy S5. On the other hand, HTC has always paid attention to the appearance of its products, and the M8 is yet another wonderful example of that. The HTC One M8 stands out for its premium unibody metal design which adds to the value of the handset.


BoomSound stereo speakers

HTC made a huge impact with the BoomSound speakers on the HTC One, and they are ready to do it again with the updated front facing stereo speakers on their new M8. While the Galaxy S5 speaker is expected to be quite loud (based on its predecessor), we doubt it will compare to the depth and fullness of the sound from the HTC One M8.


"Duo" Cameras with seamless refocus functionality

While the Galaxy S5 may have the superior camera between the two, the HTC One M8 is expected to excel when it comes to shallow depth-of-filed effects, thanks to its twin rear cameras. HTC's Duo camera solution definitely stands out from the crowd. It does so because it enables such kind of cool functionality, without sacrificing speed or hampering the experience. You just take your photos quickly and easily, as you normally would, and then play with that refocus feature whenever you feel like. Meanwhile, the Galaxy S5 would require you to enter a special shooting mode, wait for a few seconds until it creates the image, and it may even fail to produce the desired effect!


More accurate display

The 5 inch LCD 1080p display found on the HTC One M8 has some clear advantages over the one found on the Galaxy S5

• Its extremely accurate
• It displays some very vibrant and lively colors.

HTC may have actually stepped a little beyond the boundaries of the traditional sRGB space, meaning that the M8's display is just a bit too vibrant, but overall, it happens to be much closer to the reference points, compared to any other AMOLED display out there. Now, all that doesn't necessarily make the One (M8)'s screen better, but if you prefer your phone to display things the way they are meant to be seen, then you sure are going to be better off with it.


A more uniform user interface (Sense (sixth-sense) UI version 6.0)

Samsung has made a sizable improvement in its UI with the latest version of TouchWiz (the one that's going to debut on the Galaxy S5), but there's obviously a lot of work to do before it achieves the level of polish and uniformity that's visible with HTC's Sense 6 UI. To be more specific, Sense 6 looks extremly polished, unlike the new TouchWiz, plus it has successfully made the transition to the new flat GUI concepts that everyone seems to be following these days. In the GS5, TouchWiz has gone mostly flat as well, but its inconsistency and old-school elements stand in the way of coherence.