Nokia Lumia 925 vs HTC One vs Samsung Galaxy S4 vs iPhone 5

Lumia 925
Can the Lumia 925 sit at the top table?

With the advent of the Nokia Lumia 925, it's time to pit it against the big phones of the last few months.

With the exception of the iPhone 6 or iPhone 5S release date some time in 2013, we now have our mitts on the best that Android, iOS and Windows Phone have to offer us this year.

Because the HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S4 are the best phones around and because they both run Android, that means we've dropped a third Android handset from this roundup (the Sony Xperia Z).

So now we have room for the Windows Phone 8-powered 925 and the iOS-based iPhone 5.

Not so long ago, if you weren't on an iPhone or a BlackBerry, chances are you were rocking an HTC Android device with a big clock on the homescreen.

But times change – and Samsung got busy with its Galaxy line, ultimately stealing the top Android spot from HTC and making HTC wince. But while iOS continues to have a big share, Nokia also wants to have a bigger say in the market - hence the metallic look to the Lumia 925.

Let's see how the handsets compare head-to-head on the core specification - now obviously doing this doesn't take into account user experience, which we can tell you is excellent on all four of these handsets now we've published our Hands on: Nokia Lumia 925 review.

Lumia 925 vs HTC One vs Galaxy S4 vs iPhone 5: design and dimensions

Like the HTC One, the Lumia 925 goes heavy on the metal, though it still has a polycarbonate back available in black and white. The HTC One looks a little like the white iPhone 5, but it remains a stunning design and is a really excellently crafted unibody device.

The HTC One feels very solid in the hand, with dimensions of 137.4 x 68.2 x 9.3mm, with a weight of 143g compared to the Lumia 925's thinner, narrower and shorter 129 x 70.6 x 8.5 mm and lesser 139g weight.

The HTC One is our favourite handset around at the moment, narrowly pushing out the Samsung Galaxy S4. This is definitely true of the design, where the Galaxy is second-best. It's similar to the all-conquering Samsung Galaxy S3 from last year, with a plastic design. Although thinner than the HTC One at 7.9mm, the Galaxy S4 comes in at 136.6 x 69.8 footprint. Indeed, despite the larger screen, the 130g S4 isn't much bigger than the S3.

iPhone 5

The iPhone 5 beats the others on weight

The slate or white-grey metallic iPhone 5 is amazingly light. it's 20 per cent lighter than the iPhone 4S, as well as beating all the opposition at 112g. Compared to that, you definitely notice the extra heft of the HTC One especially.

Lumia 925 vs HTC One vs Galaxy S4 vs iPhone 5: processor

A beautiful phone can end up as a beautiful paperweight if the processor isn't up to task. This used to happen a lot – but has not been as much of an issue in the last year or two since smartphones started becoming seriously powerful.

HTC is right up at the top of the specification tree with the HTC One offering a quad-core 1.7GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 processor. That's an excellent chip from the latest generation of ARM SoC silicon. Sadly the Lumia 925 doesn't quite live up to these heights with a 1.5GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 MSM8960.

That's a quick chip, used in numerous handsets such as the Lumia 820 and 920 as well as some versions of the HTC One X. It's perfectly good enough for pretty much all uses.

S4

The S4 is a seriously powerful handset

Apple's iPhone 5 only gives us a dual-core 1.2 GHz Apple A6, but you won't find many who complain of slowdown simply because it runs on such a sold OS.

The S4 features the Exynos 5 Octa 5410 (GT-I9500) in many territories, but for countries like the UK and US where 4G is around, there's a quad-core 1.9 GHz Snapdragon 600 version (GT-I9505). This remains the best in class.

Contributor

Dan (Twitter, Google+) is TechRadar's Former Deputy Editor and is now in charge at our sister site T3.com. Covering all things computing, internet and mobile he's a seasoned regular at major tech shows such as CES, IFA and Mobile World Congress. Dan has also been a tech expert for many outlets including BBC Radio 4, 5Live and the World Service, The Sun and ITV News.