Samsung Galaxy Note 3 vs the competition - Clash of the Titans

Samsung has raised the bar once more for their Galaxy devices and smartphones in general. The Galaxy Note 3 is every geeks wet dream as it packs in more features and gestures than you can shake a stick at. However, it’s not all sugar and spice for Samsung as the high-end segment is extremely cut-throat. Their Note 3 will be launching sometime this month and will immediately get down to defending its title against the likes of HTC, Sony and LG. HTC’s Butterfly S has already hit the market with a whopping Rs 53,000 price tag. We expect Sony and LG to launch the Xperia Z1 and the G2 around the end of this month or early next month at the latest. Let’s recap some of the highlights from each handset to see what their key strengths are.

Samsung Galaxy Note 3 - Dot-Circle-Box

The Galaxy Note 3 may have enough power to launch a nuclear warhead but that’s not its most attractive quality. The advances in their new S Pen and gesture support is what really caught our attention. Samsung has added new shortcuts for the S Pen in the form of Dot-Circle-Box. You make a dot anywhere on the screen to bring up a carousel with more functions. Drawing a circle on the screen lets you archive whatever you are viewing for reading or viewing at your leisure. Finally, you can draw a box that brings up a window of pop-up apps which can be used without having to exit your current app.

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The new multi-tasking mode

Another cool feature is the ability to create multiple instances of the same app. Samsung demoed this with their ChatOn app and you can now actually drag and drop conversations from one window to the other. Our guess is this feature will only work with selected apps at launch but we really hope they expand it to other apps as well. Ohh and there’s also 4K video recording support. Finally, that Octa-core SoC is put to some good use.

Sony Xperia Z1 – Triluminos goodness

The Honami is finally out of hiding and will be arriving very soon. The Z1 is Sony’s new flagship and its stand out features are undoubtedly the Triluminos display and the 20.2MP snapper. The new display technology fixes the Xperia Z’s issues and we’re hoping that Sony’s G lens finally manages to deliver good low-light imagery.

If looks could kill

LG G2 – Redefining button placement

The G2 may come across as a rather bland looking phone when compared to the aluminium Z1 or the faux-leather clad Note 3. Don’t be mistaken though as it’s easily a huge leap forward from, what LG has been producing so far. The G2 is also the first phone to drop the Optimus moniker which signifies a shift in their product strategy. Some of the features that make it worth the wait includes Optical Image Stabilisation (OIS) without the ugly bump (*cough* Lumia 920 *cough*), a more power efficient display, Guest mode and high bit-rate audio up to 192KHz at 24bit.

You'd almost think its waterproof

HTC Butterfly S – The S stands for “Stupidly expensive”

The Butterfly S seems a little drab in front of the other three but it’s no slouch. Compared to its predecessor, it doesn’t seem like a massive update, certainly not enough to warrant a sky high price tag. Some notable changes include the inclusion of NFC, the Ultrapixel camera from the HTC One and a slightly faster SoC.

The second coming

All boils down to brand preference

We think the comparison chart highlights one key fact that no matter which phone you pick, it should easily stay relevant for the next two years at the very least. It’s clearly not a specifications war any more when you’re playing in this price range but value for money still holds a key factor. Between the four, we feel the real fight is between the Note 3, Z1 and the G2 and it’s really hard to say which is best. Samsung’s gestures and S Pen features sound intriguing, Sony’s 20.2MP sensor is tough to ignore and finally LG has OIS for the camera which is great for action shots. However, given the kind of brand value Samsung and Sony has in India with respect to phones, we wouldn’t be surprised if LG and HTC are left playing catch up.