The new trend to buy the latest flagship devices from renowned smartphone manufacturers is growing day by day in the Pakistani market. However, it is rather disappointing that many of the leading companies like Apple, HTC, Google and Sony have no official stores in Pakistan.
Many of the smartphones are either being smuggled or brought from other countries like Dubai at higher rates.
We also see many online stores which are offering these smartphones at competitive prices, which is good and many smartphone lovers are always ready to opt for a newer model with more high-end specs and killer looks.
Today I will be talking about three of the leading flagship devices from Samsung, HTC and Sony, which are currently the top dogs in the smartphone industry and are easily available in the Pakistani market too.
Samsung recently released its latest flagship device Galaxy S 4 while HTC and Sony stepped in with HTC One and Sony Xperia Z respectively. Now if you are willing to buy a flagship device and if you are still confused, I hope my article will help you choose the right choice for you.
Display:
Display has always been the main attraction for any flagship device. Many users want a large screen to enjoy multimedia, gaming and everything they do as the bigger the screen, the better is the user experience.
Samsung decided to go with a 5.0 inches Super AMOLED 1080p display with 441ppi while HTC One features a 4.7 inches Super LCD3 1080p display with whooping 469ppi and Sony Xperia Z shows off its 5.0 inches 1080p display with 441ppi.
Practically anything beyond 400ppi is same but yes the size does matter. While using three of these devices I found that I was able to use HTC One with one hand easily. This is a smart move by HTC to go with a 4.7 inches screen instead of 5 inches. I was able to write text messages easily and I am sure many people will be able to reach every part of the screen easily with one hand.
Coming to Xperia Z and Galaxy S 4, it does become difficult to type with one hand on these phones. Talking about the screen quality Samsung used Super AMOLED display in Galaxy S4 which is always criticized about its inaccurate colors. Again HTC with its Super LCD3 has better color accuracy so I think HTC One is the winner here.
Design and Built Quality:
If I am spending more than 50k on a device, I will surely need a device with exceptional built quality and killer looks. Samsung again used the plastic body for Galaxy S4 while Xperia Z used plastic and glass combo which looks great.
HTC has really raised the game with the Aluminum unibody design used in HTC One which makes it a premium device and built quality compared to Apple iPhone 5.
HTC One feels so great in your hands and the detail used in this phone is outstanding.
Xperia Z also looks good but its glass back is a fingerprint magnet which is a drawback. Not to forget that Xperia Z is water and dust proof so some users might keep this in mind while buying Xpria Z. In the end HTC One wins this department too.
Hardware:
The internals used in these phones are equally good when it comes to daily life performance but on the paper they do differ in many ways.
Samsung Galaxy S4 is powered by Qualcomm Quad-core Snapdragon 600 processor clocked at 1.9 GHz while HTC One uses the same chip but is clocked at a lower 1.7 GHz. Xperia Z on the other hand uses a Qualcomm Quad-core MDM9215M chipset which is slightly outdated as compare to the other two.
So the fight is mainly between Galaxy S4 and HTC One and S4 surely has an edge keeping in mind the higher clocked processor but in daily use this difference is hardly observed. Gaming performance is smooth in both of these phones and apps open really fast.
Galaxy S4 wins in terms of hardware.
Camera:
More pixels means better picture quality that is what most people in Pakistan think before buying a new smartphone. It is true to some extent but this is not always the case. Samsung and Sony used 13 Megapixel camera sensors in their flagship devices but HTC has come up with Ultra-pixel technology and I am really impressed with it. Actually the Ultra-pixel technology captures 300% more light than any other typical camera sensors used in other phones and the result is better low-light picture quality. HTC One uses 4 Megapixel sensor but the picture quality is comparable to 13 Megapixel camera used in S4 and Xperia Z. If you ask me I will go for the HTC One but I have heard many people in Pakistan when asked about HTC One “ Yaar sirf 4 Megapixel camera hai,” so I think S4 will take the lead here.
Storage:
Samsung Galaxy S4 comes with 16/32/64 GB of internal memory and that too with the support of microSD card while Xperia Z also comes with microSD card slot and 16GB of internal memory. HTC One on the other hand comes with 32 and 64 GB of internal memory but without microSD card slot and with this much memory I do not think there is the need of extra memory.
Battery Life:
To be very frank, most of the smartphones just manage to last one day with moderate to heavy use. According to me Galaxy S4 do last longer than the other two but again this depends on the usage by the user. I must mention here that Galaxy Note 2 was the only smartphone I used which did last more than a day with heavy use but keeping in mind its big size and much bigger battery, this was expected. So Galaxy S4 wins the battery race!
Price:
Coming to the most important part the price, Samsung has officially launched Galaxy S4 in Pakistan at Rs72000 with official warranty. It is also available at Rs64000 in the local market without warranty. Sony Xperia Z now costs about Rs55000 in the local market while the price for the HTC One is on a higher side with
Rs78000 because of the shortage of supplies from HTC.
The huge price difference between these three flagship phones makes it very difficult for the buyer to select the best for them. But I would always go for HTC One as HTC has doubled the production of HTC One and soon the price will decrease.
Xperia Z seems to be the best choice with the lowest price tag while Galaxy S4 will be the choice for those who prefer to buy smartphone with official warranty.
Visa Inc., a global payments technology provider, has decided to launch its own Mobile Financial Services (MFS) in Pakistan in the next year. The product, using VisaNet’s technology and working on the “interoperability” model will enable users to send and receive payments through their mobile phones.
