HTC Windows Phone 8X vs Samsung Galaxy S III

Introduction

Now that we've compared the Windows Phone 8X with the iPhone 5, and came to the conclusion that there's still quite a bit of work ahead of Microsoft and its partners, let's see how one of the better Windows Phone 8 handsets fares against one of the best Android ones – the Galaxy S III.

The Galaxy S III is, without a doubt, a fearsome opponent – one that the 8X will definitely have a hard time against. Will its Live Tiles and high-quality screen be enough to somehow turn the odds in its favor? Let us see for ourselves!

Design

Although the Galaxy S III is certainly not much of a looker, we can't really give the win to the Windows Phone 8X, because of how uncomfortable it feels in the hand. If you just have to look at these devices, then yes - we'd say that HTC has achieved the more stylish appearance, but once you actually start using the handsets, it becomes evident that its sharp edges and rubber-like soft-touch materials used for its body make it somewhat unpleasant to handle. Meanwhile, although the GS III doesn't shine in any particular way, it still feels natural when held in the hand, while the smooth, glossy plastic feels fine to the touch.


The physical buttons of the HTC Windows Phone 8X aren't very responsive, especially the power/lock key, which is probably the most important. The Galaxy S III isn't much better in this respect, but we'd say it's just a tad better.


Display

It's clear that the Windows Phone 8X has the better display of the two. Its S-LCD2 panel is brighter than the Super AMOLED of the GS III, allowing it to be more visible when outdoors. The color temperature of the 8X is also better. Although it's just a little bit too warm, it's still much closer to reality than the cold image of the GS III.

Meanwhile, the smaller screen size and the RGB matrix of the 8X mean that everything will look crisper on its display, compared to the PenTile-powered GS III. However, since both handsets have very high resolutions, the differences in image clarity are almost negligible.

Interface

For us, it's impossible to say which platform UI looks better, because they are so different. On one hand, we have Windows Phone 8 and its flat tiles, and on the other – Android 4.1 with TouchWiz Nature UX, which is much closer to what we'd call a more traditional OS experience. Both user interfaces looks well, and it's entirely up to the user to decide which one they like best.

Android has the advantage of supporting widgets, but the Live Tiles of Windows Phone 8 counter this to a large extent. Still, we can get significantly more functionality out of the GS III's widgets, so we can safely say that its homescreen is a bit more functional than that of the 8X. And having in mind Android's openness and tons of applications, it's also safe to say that it's the more powerful platform overall. Microsoft is making big strides towards improving WP8's app catalog, but there's still a long way ahead of it until it reaches the comprehensiveness of Google's Play Store.




Messaging

The Galaxy S III easily wins this one. Not only because its virtual keyboards take up the full screen real estate available to them, but also because you can easily replace the stock keyboard with a third-party one that suits your needs better. Actually, we're not big fans of the stock landscape keyboards of either handets, because the one of the 8X doesn't use the full screen width, and the keys of the GS III aren't high enough, but as we said, at least you can fix that on Android. Plus, with Gmail being the primary email service of many users, it's worth noting that the Android Gmail app is probably the best one out there.




Processor and Memory

The hardware of both phones is powerful enough to guarantee a smooth platform operation. The 8X powered by a dual-core Snapdragon S4 Plus chipset, while the GS III uses Samsung's own quad-core Exynos 4412 CPU. As we said, neither device will disappoint you when it comes to performance.

There is 1 GB of RAM installed on both the Windows Phone 8X and Galaxy S III, but the U.S. versions of the GS III do come with 2 gigs of RAM for some reason.

Things become a bit more interesting when we take a look at the internal storage options for the two devices. Once again, the Galaxy S III provides more flexibility, as it's available in 16, 32 and 64 GB versions, and it also has a microSD card slot for up to 64 GB more! Meanwhile, the 8X is stuck with its 16 GB of internal memory and that's all you can get with this phone.

Internet

It's difficult to say which handset offers the better internet experience. They are about equal, as they both produce very smooth framerates when navigating around various web pages. The GS III's native browser is probably a bit glitch-freer than IE 10 on the 8X, but the difference isn't big. Still, due to the larger screen size of the Galaxy S III, we're willing to give the W to Samsung's product here, just because the large screen makes things a bit more comfortable to read. But we'd also like to congratulate Microsoft for developing such a capable browser, which also offers a very accurate double-tap to zoom option, which is barely usable on the GS III.



Plus, another advantage of the GS III is its support for Flash Player (though you'll first have to download it from somewhere), which gives you access to almost all content found on the web, while the 8X is left waiting for web devs to start adopting HTML5 more heavily.

Both the Windows Phone 8X and Galaxy S III support LTE, but if you are an international user, you'll usually have to stick to HSPA+. Theoretically, the 8X should be able to reach download speeds of 42.2 Mbit/s, while the GS III should max out at 21.1 Mbit/s. In reality, though, we don't think that there will be that much of a difference.

Camera

It's a very close competition when it comes to their cameras, but in the end we think that the Galaxy S III managed to out-shoot the HTC 8X because its images tend to be closer to reality. Detail-wise, neither seems to be better than the other, but the colors of the GS III remain closer to the real deal, whereas those of the 8X's images are a bit too warm. All in all, the 8X's photos are also very enjoyable, but the GS III performs slightly better.



Indoors, the 8X actually bested the Galaxy S III as it captured substantially more detail. When the light is extremely low, though, the Galaxy S III does a better job when it comes to color representation.

We prefer the video recording of the Galaxy S III for pretty much the same reason as with the images – colors are more realistic, although there's slight overexposure seen with the brightly-lit objects. The 8X keeps things a bit more reasonable as far as exposure goes, but it's not enough to make us prefer its video recording.

HTC Windows Phone 8X Sample Video:



Samsung Galaxy S III Sample Video:



HTC Windows Phone 8X Indoor Sample Video:



Samsung Galaxy S III Indoor Sample Video:



Multimedia

The Samsung Galaxy S III is the obvious choice is one enjoys watching video on their phone, because of its large, 4.8” screen. In addition, the large number of multimedia apps available for Samsung's handset mean that you can view pretty much anything with it. The Windows Phone 8X is also pretty good, especially now that WP8 has support for mass storage mode, but the smaller screen makes the movie-watching experience a bit less fun.

However, we do prefer the earphones of the HTC Windows Phone 8X, since they are more comfortable to wear. The ones of the GS III require you to push them deeply into your ear (if you want to hear any bass, that is), which isn't the most pleasant thing to do. Sound quality-wise, the 8X is a bit too heavy on high frequencies, which can be irritating if you're listening on high volumes. At the end of the day, we'd recommend getting a better pair of earphones for whichever handset you plan to listen to music on.

Call quality

Both handsets are very good in terms of call quality. You'll be enjoying loud and clear calls with both of them, even when you happen to be in noisy locations, due to their great noise-cancellation technologies.

Unfortunately for HTC, the loudspeaker of the 8X is inferior to the one of the Galaxy S III, because of its lower volume and somewhat muffled sounding.

Battery

There aren't any particular flaws when it comes to the battery lives of the HTC Windows Phone 8X and Samsung Galaxy S III, quite the contrary. During our testing, we've noticed that the 8X, probably thanks to its Windows Phone 8 OS, managed to hold up quite well. We'd give the 8X up to three days of battery life, provided that you don't use it too much, that is. Meanwhile, the GS III should be able to last at least 2 days on a single charge.

Conclusion

We believe that the Samsung Galaxy S III is the better package of the two. The handset feels better when in the hand, compared to the 8X, and offers all kinds of features, which aren't really available on the Windows Phone 8X, like a larger screen, great personalization capabilities, better QWERTY keyboard, slightly better camera, Flash Player support, and, of course, a vast application catalog.

Meanwhile, the HTC's Windows Phone 8X is by no means a bad smartphone, especially considering its awesome screen, neither its design, nor the software platform are currently good enough to help it trump a fearsome opponent like the Galaxy S III.

Software versions of the reviewed units:
Windows Phone 8X: OS 9.0.9903.10, Firmware 1532.20.10001.401
Galaxy S III: OS 4.1.1, Build JRO03C.I9300XXDLJ4

HTC Windows Phone 8X vs Samsung Galaxy S III Video Comparison: