Unlike most of you who have to buy phones to try them out, I am blessed to be able to try out the latest and greatest smartphones for a few weeks at a time. I have been spending a lot of time with the HTC One (M8), Samsung Galaxy S5, Sony Xperia Z2, Moto X, and Nexus 5 and wanted to summarize my major pros and cons.
Last month my top smartphones article was posted with four of these five in the top ten list. My ranking would now change after handling the Sony Xperia Z2, but all five are still excellent choices.
I purchased and kept two of these five devices so far (I bought a Nexus 5 and then returned it) and am likely buying a third for my wife. Each of us has different needs and something that is important to me may not be important to you. Some of my pros and cons are not major factors in your decision, but I still hope these thoughts are helpful to you since I have spent lots of time with these devices. continue....
HTC One (M8)
Here are my pros and cons for the One (M8):
| Pros | Cons |
| High quality construction | Longer form factor |
| Camera software | Camera hardware |
| HTC Sense 6 UI | No dust and water resistance |
| Motion Launch gestures | Very slippery back |
| BoomSound stereo speakers | |
| Extremely fast performance | |
| Excellent LCD3 display | |
| 32GB internal storage and microSD card slot | |
| Great battery life |
Samsung Galaxy S5
| Pros | Cons |
| Vivid Super AMOLED screen | Overwhelming and disorganized settings area |
| Excellent camera performance | Nearly useless fingerprint scanner |
| Dust and water resistant | Limited internal storage capacity |
| Removable battery and microSD card | Cluttered notification area |
| Lightweight for a large screen device | |
| Great battery life |
Sony Xperia Z2
| Pros | Cons |
| Beautiful IPS LCD display | Limited internal storage |
| Incredible glass and metal design | Lots of port covers |
| Excellent camera performance | No infrared remote control |
| Dust resistant and waterproof | |
| 3GB of RAM | |
| microSD expansion card | |
| Physical camera capture button | |
| Great battery life | |
| Multi-color indicator light |
Moto X
| Pros | Cons |
| Awesome, compact form factor | No memory expansion |
| Low price | Limited battery life |
| Touchless controls, Motorola Assist, and trusted Bluetooth device | Minimal camera performance |
| Quick to get Android updates | Lower resolution display |
| Twist to launch camera |
Google Nexus 5
| Pros | Cons |
| Low price with no contract | No memory expansion |
| Qi wireless charging | Limited battery life |
| Fast performance and pure Google experience | Decent camera performance |
| Quick to get Android updates |
A sixth contender will be revealed in the next couple of weeks, the LG G3. There are plenty of leaks hitting the internet as we get close to the launch date and indications are that this could indeed by the top Android smartphone so far this year. Stay tuned for the announcement in late May.
From my own analysis, the Z2 would be perfect with more internal storage, the M8 with a better camera and some water resistance, and the S5 with more internal storage, less Samsung TouchWiz, and fewer efforts on gimmicks that don't work.
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