LONDON: Samsung and HTC are going face to face on Sunday with launches of new flagship smartphones. Both companies have a lot to prove, but for different reasons.
Samsung is fighting for its credibility and HTC for its survival,” said Neil Mawston , executive director at market research company Strategy Analytics, speaking of the duelling events ahead of Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
The Galaxy S5 Mini and the HTC One Mini 2 are evidently smaller versions of their bigger flagship siblings, the Galaxy S5 and the HTC One (M8), respectively. They are undeniably great budget smartphones.
Design
The Galaxy S5 Mini has plastic frame and back panel. The latter has a soft touch finish which makes the phone easy to hold. Dimples are neatly arranged in rows. The HTC One Mini 2 has a beautiful aluminium build with a brushed finish, giving it a premium look. The phone has a polycarbonate band running around its edge. The metal on the HTC One Mini 2 results makes it heavier than the Galaxy S5 Mini, which feels very light and cheap.
Display
The Galaxy S5 Mini has a super AMOLED screen measuring 4.5 inches with a resolution of 720 x 1280 pixels and a density of 326 pixels per inch, while the HTC One Mini 2 comes with a super LCD2 capacitive display measuring 4.5 inches with a resolution of 720 x 1280 pixels and a density of 326 pixels per inch.
Specs
The chipset on the Galaxy S5 Mini is an Exynos 3 Quad 3470 and it is coupled with a quad-core 1.4 GHz Cortex-A7 CPU and Mali-400MP4 GPU. As for the HTC One Mini 2, it comes with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 chipset, quad-core 1.2 GHz Cortex-A7 CPU and Adreno 305 GPU.
Memory
In terms of RAM, the Galaxy S5 Mini has 1.5 GB while the HTC One Mini 2 has 1 GB. Both devices come with memory slots. The version on the HTC One Mini can be used to add up to 128 GB of external storage while the Galaxy S5 Mini supports up to 64 GB of external storage.
Price
The HTC One Mini 2 costs $409 with a contract, while the Galaxy S5 Mini costs $354 at full retail.
