HTC One v Nokia Lumia 920 – a flagship model battle

Two flagship models compared to see if the HTC One or the Nokia Lumia 920 is the king of these smartphone flagship models. Find out below.

Both Nokia and HTC were once forces to be reckoned with- Nokia dominated the market in the days before smartphones while HTC were a major player in the early days of Android. Both have since had a slightly hard time of things, with Nokia’s failure to make any Android headway leading to them shacking up with Microsoft and only making Windows Phone handsets. HTC meanwhile let their guard down and lost a lot of ground to Samsung.

Now both companies have released their best phones yet, with both also ranking among the best on the market. But there can only be one winner, so which is it?

HTC One v Nokia Lumia 920 – Build quality and durability

The Nokia Lumia 920 is a very colourful handset, coming in bright, glossy red or yellow (or black or white, if you’d prefer a slightly more understated look). Those bright colours really help it stand out and make it obvious to everyone that you’re using a Nokia. But while it’s got a distinctive look it’s still ultimately just a plastic rectangle and as such doesn’t look as high quality as some of the competition.

With the HTC One, HTC obviously recognised the importance of a premium build, sculpting it as they did out of a single sheet of metal. It may not look quite as distinctive as the Nokia Lumia 920, but it certainly still stands out from the crowd and it looks a whole lot more expensive to boot.

HTC One v Nokia Lumia 920 – Which has the better display?

The Nokia Lumia 920 has a 4.5 inch 768 x 1280 IPS LCD capacitive touch screen with a pixel density of 332 ppi. That’s a bit of a mouthful but in short it’s a decent size and a decent resolution- though neither the biggest nor the sharpest out there. However there’s some pretty impressive stuff going on under the hood, with Nokia’s ‘PureMotion HD+’ tech ensuring that it’s both very bright and even visible in direct sunlight.

The HTC One meanwhile has a slightly bigger 4.7 inch Super LCD3 display. But it’s not just bigger it’s also much higher resolution, at 1080 x 1920. That gives it a pixel density of 468 ppi, leading to almost impossibly crisp images.

With Nokia’s PureMotion HD+ tech a case could be made for the Nokia Lumia 920 winning this category, but with both size and resolution on its side we have to give the win to the HTC One.

HTC One v Nokia Lumia 920 – Which is the most powerful?

The Nokia Lumia 920 isn’t hugely impressive in this area, with just a 1.5 GHz dual-core processor and 1 GB of RAM. Indeed Windows Phone handsets in general tend to be rather less powerful than their Android counterparts. That doesn’t mean it’s sluggish, it still performs pretty well, but it makes it an easy win for the HTC One, with its 1.7 GHz quad-core processor and 2 GB of RAM.

HTC One v Nokia Lumia 920 – Which has the best camera?

The Nokia Lumia 920 has one of the best cameras in smartphone land, because while it’s only 8 megapixels (which is good, but pretty standard for a top end phone), the lens is made by Carl Zeiss, which brings a level of quality that isn’t available on most other handsets. It also uses ‘PureView’ technology, to provide enhanced image stabilisation and capture up to ten times more light than other smartphone cameras, leading to brighter, sharper images.

The HTC One only has a 4 megapixel lens which should leave it dead in the water, but like the Nokia Lumia 920 there’s more going on here than just megapixels, with a lens that can capture up to 330% more light than most competitors for better pictures overall.

It’s impressive stuff, but Nokia’s camera is even more impressive, so this one is a win for the Nokia Lumia 920.

HTC One v Nokia Lumia 920 – Battery life, memory and connectivity

The Nokia Lumia 920 has a 2000 mAh battery, which provides up to 17 hours of talk time or 400 hours of standby time. In a world where most smartphones struggle to make it through a day that’s pretty impressive.

The HTC One on the other hand has a slightly larger 2300 mAh battery, but it’s also got a larger screen and much more power under the hood- both of which are major battery killers, so it’s another win for the Nokia Lumia 920.

The Nokia Lumia 920 has 32 GB of on-board memory and no way to expand it. The memory on the HTC One can’t be expanded either, but it comes with a choice of either 32 GB or 64 GB, potentially giving it more overall.

It’s a dead heat in the connectivity stakes, with both handsets serving up Wi-Fi, 3G, Bluetooth, NFC and- if you get them from EE- 4G.

HTC One v Nokia Lumia 920 – Conclusion

There’s no denying that the Nokia Lumia 920 is a great handset, with a distinctive design and innovative software. It’s got a stunning camera and also trumps the HTC One for battery life. But ultimately it just can’t quite stack up to the HTC One, which has a better build quality and display, more memory and a whole lot more power than the Nokia Lumia 920.

They’re such different phones that the Nokia Lumia 920 is still a good choice depending on what you want- whether you’d rather use Android or Windows Phone, whether you’d rather have a great battery life and camera or a beautiful display and tons of power, and whether a distinctive look or a premium build is most important to you.

But there can only be one winner and it’s the HTC One.