Sony Xperia P vs HTC One S

A mid-range Android fight this time as Sony's Xperia P challenges the HTC One S.

Form
Sony Xperia P - 122x59.5x10.5mm, 120g
HTC One S - 130.9x65x7.8mm, 119.5g

Sony's Xperia P is the mid-level model from its latest Xperia line. The Xperia range started with Sony Ericsson but this is the first set of Xperia phones since Sony bought out its partner and re-established the brand under its own name.

Consequently, things are both familiar and different. Looking at the handset you can immediately deduce that it's an Xperia model thanks to the distinctive curvature and a ‘D-shaped' cross section, but Sony has also brought things more in line with the characteristic styling of Sony's other electronics - so it's all bold shapes, broad edges and, for the most part, dark colours.

That ‘broad edges' point is particularly pertinent as previous Xperia offerings have been very thin and with sharp, angular edges and this certainly isn't the case with the new line-up. Although the Xperia P and its stable-mates are more chunky than their cousins they do sit more solidly in the hand. Not only that but the plastic used has a higher quality feel to it and the whole device has a high degree of sturdiness to it, which is reassuring.

The One S is a brave leap away from HTC's formerly generic and uninspired designs. The boringly plain rectangular shape with rounded corners is gone and has been replaced with a gently curved ‘pebble-like' form factor made from materials with a high quality feel. It uses a unibody design and feels very sturdy despite also being light in the hand.

We think the Xperia P has a lot of style, but the One S is a much more sophisticated piece of kit and it has a greater aesthetic appeal.

Winner - HTC One S

Display
Sony's Xperia P uses a 4-inch LED-backlit LCD capacitive display with four-finger multi-touch support. It also features Sony's ‘WhiteMagic' display technology along with Sony Mobile BRAVIA engine integration and scratch-resistant glass. The resolution clocks 960x540 pixels giving a pixel density of 275 pixels-per-inch (ppi), which is not too shabby at all.

HTC's One S comes with Samsung's Super AMOLED screen technology. It has a slightly larger 4.3-inch multi-touch display which uses Corning's Gorilla Glass reinforce against knocks and bumps. The resolution is the same as its rival, but being a larger screen this means the pixel density is slightly lower at 256ppi. This should present a barely noticeable difference in clarity, however, and both are extremely competent screen setups.

Winner - Draw 

Storage
HTC has equipped the One S with 16GB of onboard storage and 1GB of RAM for the processor to play with. There's no micro SD capability, though thanks to a deal with cloud storage provider DropBox, the One S comes with 25GB of free cloud storage.  Of course, you'll need a data or Wi-Fi connection to access it so it's not useful in all situations, but it's a nice addition nonetheless.

Sony's offering has pretty much the same setup, minus the integrated DropBox storage.

We're calling this one a draw.

Winner - Draw