Gadgetory

this week HTC and Verizon announced their biggest beefiest droid yet the Droid DNA from HTC almost immediately folks out in the blogosphere started drawing comparisons between it and Samsung's largest handheld the Galaxy Note 2 well we're still getting to know the droid DNA and a full review is forthcoming but right now even though they're in completely different device categories we're going to do a quick face-off to show you what's the same and what's different between these two goliaths in three categories feel screen and performance I'm Michael Fisher this is PocketNow and this is the HTC Droid DNA versus the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 ok so first like they say in the song let's get physical one of HTC's big points at the unveiling was that the Droid DNA is not a phablet and while it may be tough to illustrate on camera that's certainly evident if you hold one in your hand in brief the Galaxy Note 2 feels like a convergence device that is to say it feels like a phablet it's very tall at 151 millimeters and very wide at 80 millimeters it also tips the scales at 182 grams the Droid DNA is smaller in almost every dimension 141 millimeters tall by 70 point 5 millimeters wide and in those dimensions where it's not smaller it feels smaller the DNA is three-quarters of a millimeter thicker than the note 2 but it tapers on the sides to just four millimeters thin that coupled with the crescent shaped body design and very manageable 138 gram weight in the hand makes it feel wonderfully petite in short the DNA looks and feels much more like a smartphone than the note 2 because that's the unvarnished truth the note 2 with its s-pen added bulk and wider display feels much more like the phablet it is whether one of the other is better in this respect is up to you but one thing is indisputable the Droid DNA is not a phablet moving on to the screen the huge selling point of the droid DNA HTC's product packs a 5-inch 1080p Super LCD 3 at 440 PPI while the Galaxy Note 2 offers a 5.5 inch 720p Super AMOLED at 265 PPI the note 2 screen of course also packs that Wacom digitizer that enables the s-pen but what most people are really concerned with in this case is the resolution they want to know does the added resolution of the 1080p display actually add to the experience on the DNA and the answer is yes I personally didn't see the point of 1080p displays on smartphones for a long time I argued screen sizes were too small to be able to see the differences but and this won't read on the camera I'm using I'm sorry I was wrong the icons and text on the Droid DNA are substantially sharper and clearer than on the galaxy note 2 in person I'll go ahead and swipe to an almost empty screen here you won't be able to see the difference but there is substantially more detail on the space shuttle on the right that's the Droid DNA then there is on the galaxy note 2 on the left even though the screen size on the galaxy note 2 is substantially larger you do have to get close to see it but the difference is there the Droid DNA's panel is truly remarkable another thing you can hopefully see is the color difference here with the note twos Super AMOLED screen really amping up that saturation and this is even in standard display mode while the DNA keeps things much more even much more true to life on its s LCD 3 that as I assume drew to life I have not been to space yet the Galaxy Note 2 is powered by an EXO nose 4412 quad-core cpu running at 1.6 gigahertz based on the cortex a9 architecture the Droid DNA includes a crate based Qualcomm Snapdragon s4 pro running at 1.5 gigahertz also quad-core what does this mean for performance well here's how the benchmarks turned out in quadrant standard the Droid DNA got a 7 8:44 while the galaxy note2 got a 6186 in antutu benchmark the Droid DNA scored 14 at 5:14 where the Galaxy Note 2 scored 13 5 to 9 in Linpack single thread the Droid DNA scored a 191 point eight three eight galaxy note 2 64 point four three eight Linpack multi thread droid DNA for 64 point six four six galaxy note 2 one fifty two point nine sixteen in smart bench twenty twelve the Droid DNA scored 46 77 the galaxy note 2 46 44 and finally in SunSpider where lower is better the Droid DNA scored 11 forty eight point three galaxy note 2 10 forty one point eight so the Droid DNA beats the note2 pretty handily on most of these stats possibly because of the crate versus cortex architecture but listen before you go gloating or moping in the comments in everyday benign usage there's really not much difference in fluidity between these two devices and that's actually quite significant in this case I mean of course swiping on a launcher or pulling down a notification shade isn't a challenging activity for a processor as powerful as either of these but listen here the Samsung's TouchWiz has been fast for a long time but HTC Sense has historically been a very heavy Android skin while we've always liked its aesthetics we don't usually like the performance cost it demands in return but so far on the Droid DNA that hasn't been an issue at all and that's a great thing pardon our Nokia wireless charging dock propping up the devices to fight the glare a little bit here we're not going to get into gaming in this quick faceoff but just like we did in our DNA vs lg optimus G video which you should watch if you haven't yet we're going to do just a couple app launches to see if we can spot a difference in load time I kind of doubt it first off is camera we would like to make sure we can take that special shot when the opportunity arises one two three boom Wow basically an ident buuut time on on each of those right around one second let's go ahead and jump into email the stock email app on each one two three very nice there that is clear that before we see anything interesting and just to make things a little spice here let's go to a third-party app like Instagram one two three once again substantially the same on each and finally let's go ahead and do the web browser one two three stock browser on each there should be a fresh load we're not testing loading speed one of these is on LTE one of them is on Wi-Fi just checking to see how well the browser renders things boom well both pages loaded very quickly on each of their respective connections now if we have a look on the note two we can kind of double tap here to zoom in and we get that really fast responsiveness it clears up in a little less than a second so you double tap to zoom and boom there that is and see ya in less than a second after zooming and we get the pixelization is gone the text is clear it's not going to be as clear as that 1080p text was we'll see in a second but really really solid performance there nothing nothing to scream about and our site isn't the smallest I mean look at all that we got a lot of graphics we got a lot of columns here there's a lot going on on some animated elements up here etc the note 2 handles it with a plumb hop on into the droid DNA same thing same kind of one-to-one responsiveness on the finger do a little double tap there we get text reflow in the stock HTC browser which is a little bit different that's been removed from the Samsung stock browser not really sure why we go ahead and zoom in there really really solid of recomposes the browser page once again and a little less than a second really really excellent responsiveness really beautiful text tough to see from your point of view but in person really really sharp performance there and finally just to load a third-party app that does require a little bit more thinking on the processors part though admittedly not much because it's a very old game Duke Nukem 3d one two three boom there's startup animations on each we're not gonna play the game this is just a blue test look at that neck-and-neck there we go the Droid DNA just a little bit behind we'll go ahead and leave both what do you know comparable performance the game load times were within one second of each other not going to call that a solid victory or loss for either of these devices there's a lot more to these devices like the camera and the battery life and so on and so forth but we really won't know more about the Droid DNA until we've done our full review so watch for that now I know a lot of you folks like spec comparisons and peeing matches and seeing who's better than whom so forth and these are both really really high and really well performing devices from two completely different product categories and we have yet to form a full opinion on the Droid DNA but it's safe to say at this point that people choosing between a note 2 and a DNA are going to be looking at usability factors and how each meets their own specific needs and whether they need a phablet or a smartphone not at which one is better quote-unquote that's gonna do it for this quick comparison of the Galaxy Note 2 to the HTC Droid DNA make sure and stay tuned to pocket now so you don't miss our full review of the Droid DNA coming very soon follow us on Twitter so you don't miss that pocket now tweets is the official account if you want to follow me I'm at captain 2 phones it's captain the number two phones but make sure you throw us a thumbs up here on YouTube if you like what you saw if you want to leave a comment leave it on the post at pocketnow.com so we can get back to you in the meantime thanks very much for watching we'll see you again soon