Gadgetory

glass against plastic easy comparison metal against plastic easy again premium materials have a huge effect on a smartphone's day to day look and feel but what happens when you're called on to compare glass against metal and more broadly products specifically engineered to catch your eye with their designs and catch your ear with their front facing speakers well things get tough and tough tasks take a ton of time so let's get to talking I'm Michael Fisher this is PocketNow and this is Sony Xperia z2 versus HTC One m8 right up front we would not have an expiry is a - were it not for the good folks at GSM nation one of the first US retailers to stock this device if you want one of your own click the link to GSM nation in the description below and tell them PocketNow sent you now assumptions are dangerous things but will go out on a limb and say that if you're a fan of one of these brands it probably has something to do with their precision hardware these are both gorgeous devices made of premium materials brushed aluminum in the case of our HTC One m8 and shatter resistant glass with a metallic frame on the Xperia z2 that means they're not as adventure proof as their polycarbonate competition in from a durability standpoint they're both rather susceptible to scratching from even minor incidents but they sure are pleasing to the eye neither is particularly easy to hold the One m8 is rounded but slippery while the Xperia is squared off and slippery their mass is about equal but the sony product is over a millimeter thinner and while its sheer sided construction isn't as soothing to the palm as the m8 s gentle curve that does mean the xperia doesn't wiggle on a tabletop when tapped and by the way you can double tap to unlock it in a stationary state the One m8 needs to be jostled or picked up first before that gesture works waking them up brings those big 1080p screens to life Sony's triluminos LCD is slightly larger than HTC's s LCD 3 and there's a very slight dip in pixel density as a result but nothing you'd notice while Sony's come along and screen technology it's still beat just slightly by HTC here the m8 whites are cleaner its backlight is brighter and its side visibility is better if those differences are tough to see looking under the hood gets even more hazy at least at first Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 provides the power for each of these devices with microSD expansion to 128 gigs if you're a media pack rat and each phones got a sealed in battery as well look a little deeper and the variations start to show Sony's battery is significantly larger and the Xperia also packs 50% more ram while in onboard storage HTC offers a 32 gig option while Sony is stuck at 16 and while the One m8 has been shown to survive an underwater trip or two the Xperia z2 is actually rated for it as well as for dust exposure so if you're the type who likes to swim with your phone or walk around with pockets full of sawdust the z2 is your better option let's talk software for a second Android 4.4.2 underpins each of these but it's pretty far down buried underneath Sense 6 on the One m8 and Sony's custom UI on the Xperia in some ways these skins are quite similar each is predominantly dark and minimalistic in tone each offers a distilled social feed and an array of manufacturer specific features for HTC these tend to be enhancements to stock features like the gallery while Sony tends to go the route of lots of pre-installed apps Sony's approach is definitely the less subtle of the two and offerings like small apps and the what's new hub are far too visible for the amount of functionality they return sony skin also feels dated in places like the unnecessary badges on homescreen folders and the oddly clunky settings panel in the notification shape changing screen brightness for example takes twice as many taps on the Xperia as it does on the One m8 on the flipside the Xperia offers more customizability drill down into the settings menu and you'll find a wealth of options to fine tune almost every part of the experience also the media suite is very polished from the Walkman music player to the pictures album to the movies hub and beyond and it all looks quite nice plus you're not subjected to the bizarre pseudo pastels of HTC's Sense palette we like what each of these companies has done to try to simplify the shooting experience in the camera app but it's Sony that goes the extra mile here HTC's volume key shortcut to launch the camera is a clever idea but it's inconsistent Sony's simpler dedicated key is far more reliable and it allows for half press to focus as well Sony's also kept a feature pioneered by HTC the persistent camcorder button as you might expect that superiority carries through to the photos produced some of Sony's victory is predictable a 20 megapixel camera going up against a 4 megapixel shooter well you've got all the obvious benefits of added sharpness and zoom ability but that being said keeping them to the same size as we've done here most folks would be fine with either cameras photos as we said in our One m8 review yes the camera is low on resolution but it's far from the worst camera on the market the surprise comes in low-light shots a category HTC has done very well in since the m7 launch while the Xperia does it better it's typically able to pull much more light from a scene with its superior auto mode which adjusts automatically you don't have to toggle a night shooting mode as you do on the One m8 and the results here well speak for themselves and how about the duo camera that added sensor that gives the one I made it's fancy you focus feature well the Xperia z2 is able to use multiple shots to achieve basically the same effect without that weird second eyeball factor in the added dynamic range of Sony's camera the superior HDR results the better stabilization and the easier to grasp viewfinder along with 4k recording and video and it's basically a runaway win for the Xperia in the camera department it's not every day you get two smartphones with front firing speakers in the house in every significant sense this has been HTC's playground for over a year the company's oversized grills and headline-grabbing brand name have served it well but with the z2 sony's competing by going to the other extreme with probably the most unobtrusive speakers ever seriously you have to squint to see them this is a good implementation considered by itself in a quiet room but against the one m8 there's no contest HTC is the hands-down winner yes even when using Sony's software enhancements like clear Audio plus X loud and even manually boosting the bass and it's not necessarily amplitude we're talking about here we only see a decibel or two difference in peak levels it's the fullness the richness of the sound there's almost no base to the Xperia Z output so it's 10 EUR and more shallow than the throaty tones of the One m8 we tested it in YouTube in Netflix and in local audio there's a baseline here that's totally lost on the Xperia but obvious on the One m8 and all that goes for speaker phone calls as well which are much louder and just better on the one I made but on regular voice calls over 18 T's Network callers said they either couldn't tell the difference in audio quality between these two or that they preferred the Sony device which they said made us sound cleaner and which also better muffled background noise and once you break out Sony's fancy noise cancelling earbuds which came in the box with our unit here well the effect of the noise cancellation is stunning it's almost like magic wiping out everything from a loud subway car to a loud subway musician it's amazing that Sony packs these in the box for no charge and combined with the robust customizations available in the software it makes listening to music on the z2 substantially more enjoyable than on the HTC One even if you spring for the fancy harman kardon edition of the latter the Walkman brand continues to do Sony proud after only a few days testing we don't have all the data we need for some points in this comparison like battery life and hard core performance testing hold out for our full review of the Xperia z2 for more on all that as always a pocket now picking an overall winner in this contest is beside the point if you think that's a cop-out well you're in the wrong place because the HTC One m8 is one of our best reviewed devices ever and spoiler alert the Xperia z2 is destined not to fall far behind finally True Excellence is showing its face in the Android world and these handsets are but two sides of that excellence so if you want the best camera experience you can find on Android you're a fan of listening to your media in private and the only time you drop your phone is in the swimming pool get the Xperia z2 if on the other hand you frequently share media or don't like headphones and you favor a modern fun useful interface and a more polished feel overall go for the One m8 stick to those guidelines and we've got a feeling you're going to be quite happy either way once again our special thanks to GSM nation selling the Xperia z2 unlocked right now at GSM nation.com stay tuned for our full z2 review at pocketnow.com and check out our Xperia z2 vs. galaxy s5 comparison available right here on YouTube until next time this has been michael fisher with pocket now thank you for watching tough times take a ton of a ton of time and tough oh and tough things and tough times and tough tasks and tough times take a ton of time so talking to text and tough times take a ton of talking tough - hmm - links