HTC One X vs Sony Xperia S

Introduction:

The HTC One X arrived after the Sony Xperia S, so it should be better, right? Moreover, it sports either a quad-core Tegra 3 processor, or a dual-core Snapdragon S4, compared to last year's S3 in the Xperia S.

Still, what looked from the onset a battle between the camera modules, since both phones have multicore processors and HD displays – necessary prerequisites for any high-end smartphone these days – turned out to be a bit more than just that when we ran the phones through their paces.

Well, we are not going to tell you right away who wins – we upgraded the phones to their latest firmware versions and charged ahead, so read on for the full picture...

Design:

Both phones come in black or white, and are made of light and durable plastic, which is polycarbonate in the case of the One X - uniformly colored inside and out. There's no arguing that the HTC One X is a large 4.7” device, but the thickness of the Sony Xperia S also makes it feel that way, despite the smaller 4.3” screen. The Xperia S, however, is more narrow, so it is easier to operate it with one hand, whereas with the One X you often resort to your other palm for holding the phone while typing or navigating the interface.


The Xperia S has a more boxy, rugged good looks, enhanced by the illuminated strip at the bottom – a signature mark of Sony's NXT design line. The HTC One X, on the other hand, has a slightly curved, while amazingly slim and light chassis for a phone of this size. In the end, the handsets look very distinct and you'll be able to immediately recognize them in a crowd of smartphones, which means the design studios have reached their goal with both devices.

The Xperia S has an advantage in the camera department (no, it's not the 12MP resolution vs 8MP) with a dedicated shutter key, allowing you to immediately go from sleep mode to focus and shoot in two seconds or so, whereas you'd have to unlock the screen on the One X first. Speaking of buttons, the capacitive “dots” for navigation underneath the screen of the Xperia S are not very responsive and are hard to spot, whereas those on the One X are pretty sensitive, and the phone also integrates well the on-screen button navigation that comes with Android ICS in the default apps.

Both handsets sport non-removable batteries and 32GB of internal memory, with no way to add extra via a microSD card slot.

Displays:

The 4.7-incher on the HTC One X is one of the most gorgeous displays we've seen on a smartphone to date. It is way brighter than average, and with 1280x720 pixels of resolution on a regular RGB matrix, the pixel density is more than enough for well-defined text and polished small interface elements.

The 4.3” Reality Display on the Sony Xperia S gives way to the quality of the screen on the One X in brightness, contrast and viewing angles, which are better on HTC's phone. Sony's display is able to show quite vivid colors straight-on, too, but they get rather washed out with the viewing angle increase. Its black levels look more greyish than the blacks on the One X, making for a poorer contrast ratio, but the most important advantage of the One X's screen is its higher brightness, contributing to better sunlight visibility. Sony's handset sports extremely high 342ppi pixel density, though, since the same 1280x720 pixels are distributed across a smaller footprint, but with 312ppi the One X is no slouch either, so you are unlikely to notice the margin from a normal viewing distance.