HTC M7 vs Samsung Galaxy S3

The Samsung Galaxy S3 is the company’s current flagship smartphone and features a powerful quad-core processor, a large 4.8-inch Super AMOLED display and Google’s Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean operating system.

The much-rumoured HTC M7, which reportedly may be called the HTC One, is the Taiwanese manufacturer’s forthcoming flagship and is expected to sport cutting-edge spec, including a large Full HD display, Android 4.2 Jelly Bean and a brand new Sense UI overlay.

Samsung Galaxy S3: Key spec and what’s hot

One of the main things to like about Samsung’s Galaxy S3 is the power behind it.

It runs the company’s own Exynos (Cortex-A9) 4412 quad-core chipset clocked at 1.4GHz with 1GB of dual-channel RAM and a Mali-400MP quad-core graphics processing unit (GPU).

This setup works extraordinarily well with the Android operating system and Samsung’s TouchWiz interface overlay. It’s fast and smooth with no stuttering regardless of whether you’re multitasking, running a graphically intensive game or viewing high-end multimedia.

The operating system itself is also a highlight. In its current iteration there’s a lot to recommend about Android Jelly Bean, including the clean and tidy menu layout, silky smooth touch responsiveness and the overall reliability of the platform.

You’ve also got a wide range of apps and games to choose from with over 700,000 on Google Play at last count.

TouchWiz is not exactly our favourite overlay, in fact we prefer there to be none at all, but this can easily be remedied with a launcher app. If you don’t want the hassle it’s not the worst UI to deal with.

The Galaxy S3 has both 16GB and 32GB storage variants. There used to be a 64GB model but it has since been discontinued. All variants come with microSD capability for cards up to 64GB.

You no longer get as much onboard as the top-level HTC M7, but microSD lends some welcome flexibility if that's a priority for you.

HTC M7: Key specs and what’s hot

The M7 is said to have a fantastic edge-to-edge 4.7-inch display with a 1920x1080 Full HD pixel resolution clocking in at a staggering 469 pixels-per-inch (ppi). This should make it the sharpest mobile display to date.

While we can’t say for certain, we expect that the HTC M7’s build quality will be excellent. The company’s previous top-tier Android offerings have been made from polycarbonate or ceramic unibodies with stylish contoured shapes and we reckon this will continue with the new hero model.

In terms of power it’s rumoured to be on a slightly higher level than the Galaxy S3 with a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro APQ8064 (Cortex-A9) chip clocked at 1.7GHz with 2GB of dual-channel RAM and an Adreno 320 GPU.

Not only should this be a bit faster, but also will run cooler, with greater efficiency and with less battery drain.

For storage it's believed there will be both 32GB and 64GB variants but, as with previous HTC flagships, no microSD capability. This means it's a trade-off as it has more top-end internal storage than the Galaxy S3 but lacks card flexibility.

The M7 will have an unusual camera setup, technically rated at 4-megapixels but one which uses larger pixels than most other camera-phones in order to allow more light in. This will allegedly produce a higher quality but lower resolution image with more detail and better depth of field. How well this works in practice remains to be seen.

On the software front, the M7 will have all the same advantages as its rival as it uses the same 4.1 Android Jelly Bean build. However, it will have a very different interface owing to the use of HTC Sense 5, which appears to be a much cleaner and more polished iteration than we’ve seen before and, frankly, looks far more stylish than TouchWiz.

Direct spec comparison: Shootout