Gadgetory

it's probably the most important Android comparison of the year and we're giving you a hands-on preview from MWC 2015 i'm michael fisher with pocket now and this is a short show floor showdown from barcelona samsung galaxy s6 vs. HTC one m9 the key thing about the first glance impression here is that HTC basically repeated its design from last year while samsung really didn't the HTC One m9 features an aluminum chassis dotted with front firing speakers flanking a full HD display with a new double anodization process and precision fit and finish making it stand out from other metal smartphones the Samsung Galaxy s6 incorporates metal too but here it's accented and augmented by Gorilla Glass 4 a newer stronger material than HTC's Gorilla Glass 3 while it's much more fingerprint prone the s6 is also the more rounded of the two the one less likely to rough up your skin with a sharp edge and it's much thinner and a bit lighter as well they're both beautiful just in very different ways below the skin in the world of processing and pixels Samsung gets a chance to pull ahead a little the processors are each 64-bit but Samsung's does better in some benchmarks the screens are both excellent but Samsung's quad HD Super AMOLED is by far the more pixel packed and vibrant the One m-9s battery is 11% larger but the Galaxy s6 has integrated wireless charging HTC beats Samsung in-camera resolution but the galaxy brings optical stabilization and a better lens ty in the usual Samsung extras like the improved fingerprint scanner and heart rate sensor and the galaxy s6 emerges as the more densely packed device more features doesn't always mean a better experience something Samsung has proved time and time again with its bloated and bogged down software this year the company swears up and down its banish'd interface lag to a distant memory and our experience on the demo units bears that out for now also animations have been accelerated typeface and color selections have been updated to reflect the new Samsung aesthetic and shortcuts like double tapping the home button to launch the camera show just how fast this software can be but HTC's Sense skin hasn't been sitting still version 7 maintains the already blazing speed of previous versions despite the intricacy and deep reaching hooks of sense it still feels like a very light UI features like blinkfeed still offer more customization and a more personalized experience compared to their Samsung equivalents and nice touches like the lockscreen mealtime suggestions and occasional contextual bits of information might make the one m9 feel more homey to some people more like a fun sidekick than a bland instrument just awaiting input maybe we're just giving HTC more points here because of how much better sense looks Samsung's software may no longer officially be called TouchWiz but those cartoony icons and settings toggles continue to evoke bad memories of yesteryear fortunately whichever look you like better each phone offers prominent theming options to change and customize the experience finally we'd be remiss not to mention the biggest difference here which is something I'll call the quantum leap effect after years of stubbornly sticking to a stale formula Samsung finally dared to give us something different something world's better than its predecessor HTC didn't have as far to go with the m9 last year's m8 was one of our favorite smartphones of 2014 but it itself was a redo of the earlier m7 the result is that HTC seems to be spinning its wheels a bit its long-standing sheen dulling slightly under the withering glare of its reinvented super reflective rival how the shine on each one will stand up to a full battery of tests remains to be seen there are always umpteen differences between HTC and Samsung flagships from color selection to browsing to sound tests to camera shootouts we're gonna cover them all when we do our full review and comparison coverage in the weeks ahead and yes we'll even have both phones in the same room for those videos if you have an opinion a preference or some incontrovertible fact that puts one over the other in your mind share it with us in the comments below and be sure to catch our existing coverage on both of these flagships including full hands-on videos feature tours and first impressions from MWC 2015 till next time this has been michael fisher captain two phones on twitter backed up by anton and hi mate from barcelona for pocket now thanks for watching