Gold HTC One announced

[ETRJ]

http://pocketnow.com/2013/11/25/gold-htc-one-announced?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook

this is not the real gold version which i know was released but was very rare, this is like the iphone 5S gold but way better and covers the whole phone (as i should do)

[LAwLz]

Buying a HTC One this late would be unwise. It will soon be 2 generations behind.

[ETRJ]

Buying a HTC One this late would be unwise. It will soon be 2 generations behind.

and... not everybody wants to update there phone everytime a better comes out and some people may not have the money to do so

[SirReallySam]

I don't get these GOLD everything.... I mean MONEY D:

[Guest]

Rather have the Navy Blue that just came out.

I am so bummed that they released Navy Blue so late.

If I could get it in place of my silver one I would be sooo happy.

Also HTC One may be behind in generations but it is also the generation that 'hit the limit in fluidity'.

So yeah, it's still an amazing (and expensive) phone.

[LAwLz]

and... not everybody wants to update there phone everytime a better comes out and some people may not have the money to do so

Ehhh.... Yes? I wasn't talking about the people who already have a HTC One. Again, I said that buying a HTC One would be unwise, since it is outdated. I didn't say owning a HTC One was unwise. If you already own one then sure keep using it, buy buying this gold one doesn't really make any sense when it's outdated (and pretty soon very outdated).

[Timmyfox]

Buying a HTC One this late would be unwise. It will soon be 2 generations behind.

It's not even 1 generation behind yet in many aspects and I would still buy it over pretty much any other model. The only phone that I might consider over it would be the Nexus 5, but at this point, phone specs are fairly irrelevant really.

 

I care about the sturdiness and build quality, and this is where the One outshines just about any other Android device on the market, also the stereo speakers! There's nothing that comes close to the sound quality of these magnificent speakers.

[LAwLz]

It's not even 1 generation behind yet in many aspects and I would still buy it over pretty much any other model. The only phone that I might consider over it would be the Nexus 5, but at this point, phone specs are fairly irrelevant really.

It is currently 1 generation behind (uses the second best Snapdragon 600 SoC, we are currently on Snapdragon 800 and Snapdragon 805 has been announced). It is outdated in several aspects and lacks a lot of modern features that have started appearing in current gen devices. The CPU is outdated, the GPU is outdated, the modem doesn't support the latest bands and uses more power than it modern ones, the RAM is not that high, no panel self-refresh, no envelope power tracking. The list goes on.

Specs might be irrelevant to you, but not to a lot of people. That's like saying you shouldn't get a dedicated graphics card, because the majority of people only need an APU to browse Facebook.

 

 

I care about the sturdiness and build quality, and this is where the One outshines just about any other Android device on the market, also the stereo speakers! There's nothing that comes close to the sound quality of these magnificent speakers.

The speakers are good for a phone, but calling them "magnificent speakers" is an insult to real speakers. If you want good quality sound from your phone then you should use headphones and not the crappy speakers. Oh and the HTC One does not have a good audio solution either. Something like the Galaxy S 3 (international version with the Exynos SoC) or Galaxy S 4 (I9500, not I9505) have much better DACs (Wolfson WM1811 and Wolfson WM5102 respectively). And for anyone wondering, the I9505 (quad core LTE model of the Galaxy S 4) uses the same DAC as the HTC One, the pretty crappy Qualcomm one.

[Timmyfox]

It is currently 1 generation behind (uses the second best Snapdragon 600 SoC, we are currently on Snapdragon 800 and Snapdragon 805 has been announced). It is outdated in several aspects and lacks a lot of modern features that have started appearing in current gen devices. The CPU is outdated, the GPU is outdated, the modem doesn't support the latest bands and uses more power than it modern ones, the RAM is not that high, no panel self-refresh, no envelope power tracking. The list goes on.

Specs might be irrelevant to you, but not to a lot of people. That's like saying you shouldn't get a dedicated graphics card, because the majority of people only need an APU to browse Facebook.

 

 

The speakers are good for a phone, but calling them "magnificent speakers" is an insult to real speakers. If you want good quality sound from your phone then you should use headphones and not the crappy speakers. Oh and the HTC One does not have a good audio solution either. Something like the Galaxy S 3 (international version with the Exynos SoC) or Galaxy S 4 (I9500, not I9505) have much better DACs (Wolfson WM1811 and Wolfson WM5102 respectively). And for anyone wondering, the I9505 (quad core LTE model of the Galaxy S 4) uses the same DAC as the HTC One, the pretty crappy Qualcomm one.

I'd call that being ignorant.

Snapdragon S600 and S800 were announced at the same time and are, afaik, part of the same generation. The difference here I'd say is like comparing an Intel Core i5 and Core i7 rather than comparing Ivy Bridge to Haswell. Yes the Newer S800 phones are marginally faster and took longer to hit the market, but I wouldn't say they are an entire generation newer.

 

Aside from maybe a select few games, you won't notice the difference most likely in terms of real-world performance. I don't really play any games anyway because it's a phone. For games I have my PC. Sure the GPU isn't the top of the line model, but your logic is basically saying everything that isn't a 780TI is outdated because the 780TI has now been released and a 770 or 780 non-TI is not worth buying.

 

As for the speakers, I'm speaking in relative terms. The HTC One obviously doesn't match any decent pair of headphones or dedicated external speakers, but the stereo speakers still blows away -every- other phone I've compared it to. Now I don't disagree with you that the Qualcomm DAC is fairly crap, but if you were to ask the Audio board on this forum I'm sure most people would agree that the DAC still matters fairly little and the difference in quality of the speakers compared to say the Galaxy S4 with its "much better DAC" is much greater. It's not the DAC that matters but the way it's implemented.

[LAwLz]

Snapdragon S600 and S800 were announced at the same time and are, afaik, part of the same generation. The difference here I'd say is like comparing an Intel Core i5 and Core i7 rather than comparing Ivy Bridge to Haswell. Yes the Newer S800 phones are marginally faster and took longer to hit the market, but I wouldn't say they are an entire generation newer.

No, because while they were announced at the same time, Snapdragon 800 was released later and used an updated architecture, not only on the CPU but also the GPU. i5 and i7 uses the same architecture. Ivy and Haswell does not. Snapdragon 600 and Snapdragon 800 does not use the same architecture. Hell, they don't even use the same manufacturing process. Snapdragon 800 uses 28nm HPM which is why it can run at 2.3GHz at 1V, while Snapdraon 600 uses 28nm LP.

So it was released later, uses a newer manufacturing process and uses a different architecture. Not sure what your criteria for "new generation" are, but time of release and architecture differences are what I use (and so does for example Intel).

 

They are not "marginally faster" either, they are a lot faster. If you compare the highest end Snapdragon 600 part vs the MSM8974 (second best Snapdragon 800 part, MSM8974AB is faster) then you get a something like a 30% difference in CPU performance. When it comes to GPU performance there is a ~70% increase. If you don't call a ~30% CPU performance increase and a ~70% GPU performance increase more than a "marginally faster" then I have no idea what kind of performance increases you want.

 

 

 

Aside from maybe a select few games, you won't notice the difference most likely in terms of real-world performance. I don't really play any games anyway because it's a phone. For games I have my PC. Sure the GPU isn't the top of the line model, but your logic is basically saying everything that isn't a 780TI is outdated because the 780TI has now been released and a 770 or 780 non-TI is not worth buying.

Again, not everyone has the exact same use case scenario as you do. Just because you don't play any games does not mean nobody does. Just because you don't need more performance does not mean nobody does. Again, it's like saying nobody should have a dedicated GPU because you might not do anything other than browse Facebook. It's a very egocentric world view. I have no idea how you came to that conclusion about the 780Ti because that's not what I said. What I said was that not everyone has the exact same hardware needs. Just because you don't need more than X doesn't mean nobody does. Outdated does not mean unusable. My i5-2500K is outdated but it is still more than enough for my needs.

 

Oh and that's without going into the benefits of a faster SoC that's not just "moar FPS in muh games!". For example faster race-to-idle, or future potential. People said the exact same thing as you do now for 10 and 20 years ago, but instead of smartphones they were talking about desktops, and how we didn't need more than a single core CPU at 500MHz, and more than 128MB of RAM. You should never, every say something is "fast enough" because when you start accepting that, all progression would halt. Oh and I do often run into instances where I want more performance in my phone and tablet. For example a lot of the videos I watch uses codecs and settings that can't be decoded in hardware on consumer devices, so I have to decode them in software which is very demanding. So much that 1080p is a slideshow and 720p sometimes drops and/or delay frames.

 

 

As for the speakers, I'm speaking in relative terms. The HTC One obviously doesn't match any decent pair of headphones or dedicated external speakers, but the stereo speakers still blows away -every- other phone I've compared it to. Now I don't disagree with you that the Qualcomm DAC is fairly crap, but if you were to ask the Audio board on this forum I'm sure most people would agree that the DAC still matters fairly little and the difference in quality of the speakers compared to say the Galaxy S4 with its "much better DAC" is much greater. It's not the DAC that matters but the way it's implemented.

My point was that if you care about sound quality then you shouldn't use the speakers at all. Plug in a pair of headphones instead. Yes, the speakers on the HTC One are the best of any phone I have tried, but they are still terrible compared to real speakers or even plugging in decent headphones. Why choose between a rock and a hard place when you don't have to? Oh and there isn't much they can change as far as the implementation of the DAC goes in Snapdragon devices. The DAC the HTC One, Galaxy S 4 (I9505) and lots of other devices use is integrated into the Snapdragon SoC, it's not even its own chip.

[Timmyfox]

No, because while they were announced at the same time, Snapdragon 800 was released later and used an updated architecture, not only on the CPU but also the GPU. i5 and i7 uses the same architecture. Ivy and Haswell does not. Snapdragon 600 and Snapdragon 800 does not use the same architecture. Hell, they don't even use the same manufacturing process. Snapdragon 800 uses 28nm HPM which is why it can run at 2.3GHz at 1V, while Snapdraon 600 uses 28nm LP.

So it was released later, uses a newer manufacturing process and uses a different architecture. Not sure what your criteria for "new generation" are, but time of release and architecture differences are what I use (and so does for example Intel).

 

They are not "marginally faster" either, they are a lot faster. If you compare the highest end Snapdragon 600 part vs the MSM8974 (second best Snapdragon 800 part, MSM8974AB is faster) then you get a something like a 30% difference in CPU performance. When it comes to GPU performance there is a ~70% increase. If you don't call a ~30% CPU performance increase and a ~70% GPU performance increase more than a "marginally faster" then I have no idea what kind of performance increases you want.

 

 

 

Again, not everyone has the exact same use case scenario as you do. Just because you don't play any games does not mean nobody does. Just because you don't need more performance does not mean nobody does. Again, it's like saying nobody should have a dedicated GPU because you might not do anything other than browse Facebook. It's a very egocentric world view. I have no idea how you came to that conclusion about the 780Ti because that's not what I said. What I said was that not everyone has the exact same hardware needs. Just because you don't need more than X doesn't mean nobody does. Outdated does not mean unusable. My i5-2500K is outdated but it is still more than enough for my needs.

 

Oh and that's without going into the benefits of a faster SoC that's not just "moar FPS in muh games!". For example faster race-to-idle, or future potential. People said the exact same thing as you do now for 10 and 20 years ago, but instead of smartphones they were talking about desktops, and how we didn't need more than a single core CPU at 500MHz, and more than 128MB of RAM. You should never, every say something is "fast enough" because when you start accepting that, all progression would halt. Oh and I do often run into instances where I want more performance in my phone and tablet. For example a lot of the videos I watch uses codecs and settings that can't be decoded in hardware on consumer devices, so I have to decode them in software which is very demanding. So much that 1080p is a slideshow and 720p sometimes drops and/or delay frames.

Well, the One isn't even a year old and you're saying it's already almost 2 generations old. Clearly something is wrong with that statement because it's still a current flagship device.

Now I don't care at all for the estimated "up to"-differences in benchmarks, I care about real world performance and there really is more to that than just comparing the specs on paper; The HTC One is shown to run smoother and better overall than the Galaxy S4 due to the work HTC has done with kernel and firmware optimizations whereas the S4 is fairly bottlenecked by less optimizations in this respect.

 

In things like games this isn't really as much of a factor, but when it comes to UI smoothness and the speed of launching apps and loading things the difference surely is there.

That's always been something the Nexus 4 did well also. See, the Nexus 4 at the time of launch and still quite a bit to this day, competed extremely well with the current devices due to software and firmware optimizations despite running the slightly dated Quallcomm S4 Pro.

 

 

My point was that if you care about sound quality then you shouldn't use the speakers at all. Plug in a pair of headphones instead. Yes, the speakers on the HTC One are the best of any phone I have tried, but they are still terrible compared to real speakers or even plugging in decent headphones. Why choose between a rock and a hard place when you don't have to? Oh and there isn't much they can change as far as the implementation of the DAC goes in Snapdragon devices. The DAC the HTC One, Galaxy S 4 (I9505) and lots of other devices use is integrated into the Snapdragon SoC, it's not even its own chip.

Simple, it's something called convenience.

I don't always carry a pair of headphones with me 24/7 and sometimes I like to just lay in bed and watch a few youtube videos.

 

There's also the times where I've just put my phone down on the table and me and some friends have grouped up to watch something or just sat down next to it to listen to a song. Good luck getting 3 or 4 pairs of headphones to the same phone just to watch a video together,

 

But why don't I just connect it to a TV or use phone X or Y with a dock or some portable speakers?

1. I don't own an MHL or other form or HDMI cable to connect it in the first place

2. You expect someone to carry a TV outside of their house or into a different room? To school? To the coffee room at work?

3. Portable speakers and docks, sure, but that's just one more thing to care about. Why bother when you have built in ones that gets the job done decently enough?

 

As for the DAC.. So, you tell me that the difference is so massive between these devices. Have you actually done a blind test or are you just believing the marketing because if you're gonna suggest I use headphones rather than built in speakers, why do you even bother with the DAC inside a phone when your laptop probably has even better sound quality than any mobile device.

 

I'd be interested in what @MayflowerElectronics would have to say about this.

[ericlee30]

Next step for HTC...... Getting sued by Apple for having a gold phone.

 

 

 

I hear Apple already, "Ah, you have aluminum phone! You also have round corners AND you added gold! We can not be having that now, It's time for us to sue you!"

[ivhyn]

Why not release a HTC Two instead of that ugly gold version of a very old smartphone?

[criso8]

It looks better than the 24k version that came out a couple months ago, in pictures at least.

[Guest]

 

 

My point was that if you care about sound quality then you shouldn't use the speakers at all. Plug in a pair of headphones instead. Yes, the speakers on the HTC One are the best of any phone I have tried, but they are still terrible compared to real speakers or even plugging in decent headphones. Why choose between a rock and a hard place when you don't have to? Oh and there isn't much they can change as far as the implementation of the DAC goes in Snapdragon devices. The DAC the HTC One, Galaxy S 4 (I9505) and lots of other devices use is integrated into the Snapdragon SoC, it's not even its own chip.

I am not as educated on sound quality as you are but why are you rambling on and on when of all the phone speakers this one is the best and you just compare them to normal speakers over and over when yes you are right, but you wouldn't compare phone speakers with normal speakers anyway.

[Tall Gora]

i love my HTC one, and it doesnt feel a generation behind compared to any real world testing between mine and my friends phones. Its so much smoother than my brothers S4, HTC made a killer product. I just hope they can survive these financial and company struggles.

[MayflowerElectronics]

Well, the One isn't even a year old and you're saying it's already almost 2 generations old. Clearly something is wrong with that statement because it's still a current flagship device.

Now I don't care at all for the estimated "up to"-differences in benchmarks, I care about real world performance and there really is more to that than just comparing the specs on paper; The HTC One is shown to run smoother and better overall than the Galaxy S4 due to the work HTC has done with kernel and firmware optimizations whereas the S4 is fairly bottlenecked by less optimizations in this respect.

 

In things like games this isn't really as much of a factor, but when it comes to UI smoothness and the speed of launching apps and loading things the difference surely is there.

That's always been something the Nexus 4 did well also. See, the Nexus 4 at the time of launch and still quite a bit to this day, competed extremely well with the current devices due to software and firmware optimizations despite running the slightly dated Quallcomm S4 Pro.

 

 

Simple, it's something called convenience.

I don't always carry a pair of headphones with me 24/7 and sometimes I like to just lay in bed and watch a few youtube videos.

 

There's also the times where I've just put my phone down on the table and me and some friends have grouped up to watch something or just sat down next to it to listen to a song. Good luck getting 3 or 4 pairs of headphones to the same phone just to watch a video together,

 

But why don't I just connect it to a TV or use phone X or Y with a dock or some portable speakers?

1. I don't own an MHL or other form or HDMI cable to connect it in the first place

2. You expect someone to carry a TV outside of their house or into a different room? To school? To the coffee room at work?

3. Portable speakers and docks, sure, but that's just one more thing to care about. Why bother when you have built in ones that gets the job done decently enough?

 

As for the DAC.. So, you tell me that the difference is so massive between these devices. Have you actually done a blind test or are you just believing the marketing because if you're gonna suggest I use headphones rather than built in speakers, why do you even bother with the DAC inside a phone when your laptop probably has even better sound quality than any mobile device.

 

I'd be interested in what @MayflowerElectronics would have to say about this.

 

My opinion on what? DAC's and amps in phones? Most DAC's in phones, especially iPhones are actually really good. Like, better then most desktop grade stuff.

 

Amps and software is what's bad. For instance, the iPhone 4 has a very very good amp/DAC combo in there, with no crappy software. They had to use some of the headphone amplifier circuitry in the iPhone 5 to boost 4G connectivity (or something like that). HTC one has high output impedance and crappy beats software. That's why it sounds bad.

[LAwLz]

Well, the One isn't even a year old and you're saying it's already almost 2 generations old. Clearly something is wrong with that statement because it's still a current flagship device.

Now I don't care at all for the estimated "up to"-differences in benchmarks, I care about real world performance and there really is more to that than just comparing the specs on paper; The HTC One is shown to run smoother and better overall than the Galaxy S4 due to the work HTC has done with kernel and firmware optimizations whereas the S4 is fairly bottlenecked by less optimizations in this respect.

No idea why you're bringing up the Galaxy S 4, since that's the same generation as the HTC One, and just as outdated. Just because HTC hasn't released any new flagship device since the One does not mean the generations stay the same though. Other manufacturers continues to release new devices.

 

In things like games this isn't really as much of a factor, but when it comes to UI smoothness and the speed of launching apps and loading things the difference surely is there.

That's always been something the Nexus 4 did well also. See, the Nexus 4 at the time of launch and still quite a bit to this day, competed extremely well with the current devices due to software and firmware optimizations despite running the slightly dated Quallcomm S4 Pro.

Sigh... I hate when people use "UI smoothness" as a performance metric. Why? Because it's very hard to test, depends on a lot of variables and is very easy to cheat in. Wanna know how the iPhone is so smooth? Must be hardware optimization, right? No, it uses a ton of speed tricks. Animations are intentionally drawn out so that the CPU has enough time to do everything it needs. Scrolling speed is limited and doesn't build momentum to ensure that you don't scroll faster than the CPU can handle. When you load an app it actually displays a screenshot of the app. That's not high performance, that's cheating, yet people think it is very high end since it doesn't lag or drop frames in the GUI.

 

 

About the speakers, I don't think I made myself clear enough since multiple people missed my point. My points were:

1) The HTC One has good speakers for a phone, don't get me wrong. The thing though is that they are only good for a phone. It's not that they are good, it's that other phones are very bad.

2) If you care about sound quality, plug in some headphones. It will sound much better if you got a decent pair.

3) The HTC One isn't anything special when it comes to audio quality with headphones plugged in. There are a lot of phones that are better in this regard.

 

 

Simple, it's something called convenience.

I don't always carry a pair of headphones with me 24/7 and sometimes I like to just lay in bed and watch a few youtube videos.

 

There's also the times where I've just put my phone down on the table and me and some friends have grouped up to watch something or just sat down next to it to listen to a song. Good luck getting 3 or 4 pairs of headphones to the same phone just to watch a video together,

You don't even carry IEMs with you?

About the scenario where you got 4 friends watching a video on your phone, how do you do that? The screen is really small so people would have to sit on each other and it would still be hard to see. I am a bit of an oddball with this though, since I carry around a 10" tablet, as well as an external DAC/AMP with multiple 3.5mm jacks on it so for me it wouldn't be an issue. Anyway, sound quality wouldn't be your biggest issue in that situation if you ask me, that's my point. Of course it has some value to have good speakers. I'd love if all smartphones were as good as the HTC when it comes to speakers, but if you are really serious about audio quality you should just plug in some headphones or IEMs since those will be much better than the speakers.

 

 

But why don't I just connect it to a TV or use phone X or Y with a dock or some portable speakers?

1. I don't own an MHL or other form or HDMI cable to connect it in the first place

2. You expect someone to carry a TV outside of their house or into a different room? To school? To the coffee room at work?

3. Portable speakers and docks, sure, but that's just one more thing to care about. Why bother when you have built in ones that gets the job done decently enough?

Why did I say you should carry around a TV? No idea why you're even arguing about this since I didn't even imply those things are good solutions. If anything, I'd discourage everyone to use any kind of speakers in public because it pisses everyone else off. I hate when people on for example the bus play their crappy music through crappy phone speakers. Just plug in some headphones or IEMs dammit.

 

 

As for the DAC.. So, you tell me that the difference is so massive between these devices. Have you actually done a blind test or are you just believing the marketing because if you're gonna suggest I use headphones rather than built in speakers, why do you even bother with the DAC inside a phone when your laptop probably has even better sound quality than any mobile device.

Never said there is a massive difference, but yes there is a difference. There are lots of phones (mentioned in my previous posts as well as the iPhone 4 like Mayflower mentioned) with better audio solutions than the HTC One.

Why I even bother with the DAC inside my phone? Well I don't, which is why I own the I9505 which has the same DAC as the HTC One. You're the one that talked about sound quality being important, so I countered with "if you really care about sound quality then you shouldn't use the speakers because they are pretty bad and in those situations the HTC One is nothing special as far as sound quality goes".

 

Again to clarify.

I think the HTC One has good speakers for being a phone, but if you want good sound you should use headphones or IEMs and the HTC One isn't anything special in that regard. That's not to say I don't think phone manufacturers should make an effort to make the speakers in phones better by the way. I would love to see that happen, but there are a ton of things I think they should focus on before that.

[thirdworldking]

It is currently 1 generation behind (uses the second best Snapdragon 600 SoC, we are currently on Snapdragon 800 and Snapdragon 805 has been announced). It is outdated in several aspects and lacks a lot of modern features that have started appearing in current gen devices. The CPU is outdated, the GPU is outdated, the modem doesn't support the latest bands and uses more power than it modern ones, the RAM is not that high, no panel self-refresh, no envelope power tracking. The list goes on.

Specs might be irrelevant to you, but not to a lot of people. That's like saying you shouldn't get a dedicated graphics card, because the majority of people only need an APU to browse Facebook.

 

 

The speakers are good for a phone, but calling them "magnificent speakers" is an insult to real speakers. If you want good quality sound from your phone then you should use headphones and not the crappy speakers. Oh and the HTC One does not have a good audio solution either. Something like the Galaxy S 3 (international version with the Exynos SoC) or Galaxy S 4 (I9500, not I9505) have much better DACs (Wolfson WM1811 and Wolfson WM5102 respectively). And for anyone wondering, the I9505 (quad core LTE model of the Galaxy S 4) uses the same DAC as the HTC One, the pretty crappy Qualcomm one.

actually specs are irrelavant to a lot of people the only people that care about gpu and cpu specs are extreme power users most people just care if it runs smooth how fast things load and gaming performance

[adiobe]

Buying a HTC One this late would be unwise. It will soon be 2 generations behind.

Have you ever used a HTC One? It's not that it has a bit slower CPU that therefor it's a slow phone... au contraire my friend!

[LAwLz]

Have you ever used a HTC One? It's not that it has a bit slower CPU that therefor it's a slow phone... au contraire my friend!

I have used the HTC One, yes. Several of my friends has one. I didn't say it was slow. what I said is that it's outdated, but in terms of performance as well as features. Slow is a relative term by the way. The HTC One is very slow compared to a lot of devices, and it's also very fast compared to a lot of devices. Is it fast compared to devices released a year or two ago? Yes. Is it fast compared to the current highest end smartphones? Not really (there is a 30% difference as far as CPU goes, and a ~70% difference as far as GPU goes). For comparison, the difference between an R7 260X and an R9 270X is ~54% in TechPowerUp's tests at 1920x1200.

 

actually specs are irrelavant to a lot of people the only people that care about gpu and cpu specs are extreme power users most people just care if it runs smooth how fast things load and gaming performance

Specs still matters to people, a lot. The first thing my sister said when I updated her computer (added an SSD among other things) was "wow it's so fast". Even Apple brags about specs these days. Didn't you see the iPhone 5S announcement? They went on and on about their new SoC, and even went as far as to say how many transistors they used, what performance increases they achieved and so on. Oh and caring about CPU and GPUs does not make you an "extreme power user". It just makes you slightly above the average Joe.

Oh and you're contradicting yourself. First you say people don't care about specs, then you say they do care about things like load times and gaming performance, which are all directly related to specs. Want high gaming performance? Then you need high end specs. They might not know the names of each component, but they do care about getting the best hardware for the money.

[thirdworldking]

I have used the HTC One, yes. Several of my friends has one. I didn't say it was slow. what I said is that it's outdated, but in terms of performance as well as features. Slow is a relative term by the way. The HTC One is very slow compared to a lot of devices, and it's also very fast compared to a lot of devices. Is it fast compared to devices released a year or two ago? Yes. Is it fast compared to the current highest end smartphones? Not really (there is a 30% difference as far as CPU goes, and a ~70% difference as far as GPU goes). For comparison, the difference between an R7 260X and an R9 270X is ~54% in TechPowerUp's tests at 1920x1200.

 

Specs still matters to people, a lot. The first thing my sister said when I updated her computer (added an SSD among other things) was "wow it's so fast". Even Apple brags about specs these days. Didn't you see the iPhone 5S announcement? They went on and on about their new SoC, and even went as far as to say how many transistors they used, what performance increases they achieved and so on. Oh and caring about CPU and GPUs does not make you an "extreme power user". It just makes you slightly above the average Joe.

Oh and you're contradicting yourself. First you say people don't care about specs, then you say they do care about things like load times and gaming performance, which are all directly related to specs. Want high gaming performance? Then you need high end specs. They might not know the names of each component, but they do care about getting the best hardware for the money.

the average user will not know the load times and gaming performance etc by just looking at the specs. computer specs matter a lot but thats a different story while phone specs all the flagship phone are that same pretty much they all run the same it doesnt matter

[Timmyfox]

Basically my impression from this debate;

 

My nearly 6 year old 128GB Crucial C300 SSD and 1TB WD Caviar Black drive are still going strong together with my almost 2 year old P8Z68-V motherboard and i7 2600K (Sandy Bridge) CPU. I have no plans on upgrading until' something dies or someone actually releases something that's worth upgrading to for my machine which I use for hobbyist-level photography work in Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom.

 

At the same time @LAwLz is arguing that my 6 months old HTC One is outdated and would be a bad option if you're looking for a phone at this time.

Now I understand that it isn't the best SOC or whatever on the market or the latest X or Y, but outdated? Please...

 

To me, outdated means that the hardware or software has passed its "expiration date". And clearly the HTC One is still a flagship device and by all means not "outdated". It's slightly aged, but most certainly not outdated. The One still holds the crown for the most excellent build quality (due to the very sturdy and "premium feeling" aluminum construction) of any Android phone to date as far as I am aware and it also holds the crown of having the best built in speakers of any phone I've ever used.

 

AND BEFORE YOU TELL ME ONCE AGAIN TO USE HEADPHONES OR IEMs.... There are several occassions where the speakers built into the phone are more converient and the only option. Stating that I should use headphones of earbuds because it sounds better is just as ignorant as saying that a built-in camera is pointless because any compact camera or DSLR will take much better photos and yes, yes they do. I'm a photographer so yes my $2000 24MP DSLR will indeed take a better photo than the 4MP camera on the HTC One but it's just the fact that sometimes, quickly tapping the camera app and snapping a picture is indeed faster and gets the job done as compared to spending a minute getting a bulky camera out of your pocket or backpack.

 

Back to the point, yes, when I listen to music I do usually indeed use my headphones, when I watch a good movie I use my 5.1 Home Theatre setup at home. But what about being able to hear your ringtone loud and clear in a very loud and stressy environment? What about listening to a new song you discovered or whatever with your friends at school during recess or coworkers at during the coffee break? I'm sure everyone has had use for their phone speakers at some point when reaching for a pair of headphones just isn't an option.

 

I strongly remember one time when I sat with my family at the table after having had dinner and I got my phone, put on a comedy video on youtube (audio only) and put it down in the middle of the table. Everyone was able to enjoy all the funny jokes and it was a really fun evening. My old Galaxy Nexus in contrast doesn't come close either in loudness or clarity to be able to make that experience as good as it was.

 

Another example, 3 people in the back seat of a fairly long car trip: Me, my brother and a mutual friend of ours. We couldn't wait to get home to see the new episode of a TV-show we like very much, so we used my phone and streamed it using a service similar to Netflix. Because of the very wide viewing angle of the One this was possible without any issues watching it from the side and the speakers, whilst not perfect, were good enough to allow us to hear what everyone was saying and what was going on.

 

----

 

So yeah... if you call my 6 months old HTC One outdated, what do you think about my aforementioned 6 years old SSD that despite its age still boots Windows in about 10-15 seconds which is indeed still faster than any non-hybrid mechanical drive I have ever encountered.

[LAwLz]

the average user will not know the load times and gaming performance etc by just looking at the specs. computer specs matter a lot but thats a different story while phone specs all the flagship phone are that same pretty much they all run the same it doesnt matter

Why would the average user need to know the performance by looking at the specs? If they want to know the performance they will ask the person selling the computer to him/her. "Hi, I want a computer that will do X and Y, is this computer good for those things or should I get this more expensive one?". Something like that. I still think it's ridiculous that you say specs doesn't matter. I think Linus will agree with me when I say his iPhone 4 would have been a lot better if it for example had a better CPU and GPU (remember how much that lagged?). When my sister upgrade her iPhone 4 to an iPhone 5 she thought it was a lot faster and better as well.

Of course a customer will not care if their phone has an APQ8064T or an 8974 in it, but they will care if someone tells them "the latter has up to 80% better performance". Customers do care about performance, if you put it in numbers they understand. That's why Apple has started spending lots of time during their keynotes talking about how much faster their new device is compared to their previous generation one.

 

Saying that they all run the same and that it doesn't matter is not only very short sighted but also a pretty ignorant thing to say. Samsung for example have started leveraging the extra performance of newer SoCs to do things such as multitasking (with actual windows floating on top of other windows). Again, as soon as we start going "well this is good enough" progress will stop, and no innovation will be made. I am not sure about you, but I didn't buy the OUYA because the hardware was not powerful enough, and that was a quad core Cortex A9 CPU at 1.7GHz. The more powerful devices are released, the more things we can do with them.

 

Saying that specs doesn't matter because all flagships are smooth is like saying we didn't need more than a Core 2 Duo, because that's all you need for Windows 7 to be smooth in Explorer. Something tells me that you haven't followed hardware for that long... In a few years you'll probably look back at the THC One and think "wow, those specs are God awful. I can't believe we actually used to use that". You know, just how you might look back at the Voodoo 5 series of graphics card and think like that now.

[ETRJ]

Why would the average user need to know the performance by looking at the specs? If they want to know the performance they will ask the person selling the computer to him/her. "Hi, I want a computer that will do X and Y, is this computer good for those things or should I get this more expensive one?". Something like that. I still think it's ridiculous that you say specs doesn't matter. I think Linus will agree with me when I say his iPhone 4 would have been a lot better if it for example had a better CPU and GPU (remember how much that lagged?). When my sister upgrade her iPhone 4 to an iPhone 5 she thought it was a lot faster and better as well.

Of course a customer will not care if their phone has an APQ8064T or an 8974 in it, but they will care if someone tells them "the latter has up to 80% better performance". Customers do care about performance, if you put it in numbers they understand. That's why Apple has started spending lots of time during their keynotes talking about how much faster their new device is compared to their previous generation one.

 

Saying that they all run the same and that it doesn't matter is not only very short sighted but also a pretty ignorant thing to say. Samsung for example have started leveraging the extra performance of newer SoCs to do things such as multitasking (with actual windows floating on top of other windows). Again, as soon as we start going "well this is good enough" progress will stop, and no innovation will be made. I am not sure about you, but I didn't buy the OUYA because the hardware was not powerful enough, and that was a quad core Cortex A9 CPU at 1.7GHz. The more powerful devices are released, the more things we can do with them.

 

Saying that specs doesn't matter because all flagships are smooth is like saying we didn't need more than a Core 2 Duo, because that's all you need for Windows 7 to be smooth in Explorer. Something tells me that you haven't followed hardware for that long... In a few years you'll probably look back at the THC One and think "wow, those specs are God awful. I can't believe we actually used to use that". You know, just how you might look back at the Voodoo 5 series of graphics card and think like that now.

most people don't care about specs on mobile phones because they simple don't care as much as long as the mobile phone works and does what it's supposed to do which are making calls and texts which what they were intended for.