Apple iPhone 5 and HTC One are two of the trendiest, most powerful smartphones available on the market today. Metal phones are in fashion, and it’s largely down to the popularity of two of the year’s best mobiles – Apple iPhone 5 and HTC One.

However, aside from being made of the cold, hard, shiny stuff, these are completely different phones. But which is right for you? In this HTC One vs Apple iPhone 5 comparison review we will be comparing the two smartphone’s overall design, screens, processors, storage options, cameras, connectivity and software/operating systems.

We’ve compared their vital statistics to help you find out, from what they look like and how they sound to what they're like to use and how fast they can go.

Design and build

These two smartphones have a similar look with the HTC One sharing the straight sides and rounded corners of the Apple iPhone 5. It looks rather like the back of Apple iPhone 5 but with a screen in between the top and bottom strips.

The HTC One is a larger and heavier smartphone at 68 x 137 x 9.3mm and 143g. Apple's iPhone 5 remains one of the smallest flagship devices at 59 x 124 x 7.6mm and 112g. This is mostly due to the fact it has a smaller screen.

In terms of build quality, these are two of the best smartphones around. Both are put together beautifully with a combination of aluminium and glass. If we're going to nit-pick then Apple iPhone 5 wins narrowly since the HTC One does use a small plastic band and got a bit too hot during our benchmarks.

Apple iPhone 5, in general, always had one strong ace up its sleeve, premium build quality and materials. However, these characteristics make little-to-no difference whenever the Apple iPhone 5 is compared with the HTC One. The reason for this is because the Taiwanese manufacturer has built an outstanding device, featuring an all-aluminum unibody design that would make any other smartphone manufacturer jealous. This may be a new thing for the Android market, but at least in terms of build quality, the HTC One is right up there with Apple’s finest.

Screen

Screen size is an important thing to consider when buying a smartphone. The Apple iPhone 5 has a small 4in display compared to top-end rivals. Although the HTC One has a 4.7in screen, the handset doesn't feel too large in the hand.

We're comparing two of the best smartphones on the market here so it's no surprise they offer great displays. However, the bragging rights go to the HTC One thanks to its Full HD (1080 x 1920) resolution outpacing the iPhone 5's Retina (640 x 1136) display.

HTC's device has the highest pixel density of a smartphone we've ever seen at 469pp. The Apple iPhone 5 offers 326ppi.

Internal Speakers

Speakers are an often-neglected part of mobile gadgets – even though they’re used pretty frequently. The Apple iPhone 5 has a decent-quality speaker for its size, offering reasonable treble fidelity for a phone. In standard Apple fashion, there’s a decent baseline experience on offer here.

However, the speaker is still pretty limited. The sound fires from the bottom of the phone, through two grilles that sit to either side of the Lightning port, but the sound comes from a simple mono driver.

Why two grilles for a single speaker? It makes the sound much harder to muffle, which becomes particularly important if you’re playing games or watching a movie – holding the phone in landscape orientation.

Processor and Memory

When you’re so damn fine, it’s only fitting to be graced with some spiffy internals – and that’s exactly what we get here! Specifically, the Apple iPhone 5 jumps the trend by offering us with a one-of-a-kind dual-core 1.3GHz Apple A7 processor that’s based on 64-bit architecture, which is something we haven’t seen before in the mobile space.

Meanwhile, even though it’s considered aged nowadays, the quad-core 1.7GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 SoC with 2GB of RAM in the HTC One continues to be a formidable contender. Overall, we can’t complain about the performances, seeing that they’re responsive and quick with all operations, but we find the Apple iPhone 5 to be snappier. It’s still pretty good with the HTC One, but it’s more prone to the occasional stutter every now and then.

Neither offers expandable storage, so we’re left to carefully make use of their internal capacities. With the Apple iPhone 5, it’s available in 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB capacities – while the HTC One if offered in 32GB and 64GB.

Hardware

If Apple iPhone 5′s build quality isn’t going to make a difference in this comparison, Apple’s device needs to showcase more than just a pretty face. It needs some serious hardware firepower. Does it deliver? Well, there’s only one way to find out.

The HTC One packs a 4.7 inch Super LCD3 display supporting a resolution of 1080 x 1920 and a pixel density of 469 pixels per inch, a Snapdragon 600 quad-core processor clocked at 1.7 GHz, an Adreno 320 GPU, 2 GB of RAM, 32 / 64 GB of storage and a 4 MP Ultrapixel camera boasting optical image stabilization, LED flash and simultaneous HD video and image recording, just to name a few. There’s also a 2.1 MP front-facing camera with HDR capabilities, a 2,300 mAh battery under the hood and Android 4.1.2 featuring HTC’s latest Sense 5 user interface.

On the other hand, Apple iPhone 5 delivers a 4 inch LED-backlit IPS LCD display with a resolution of 640 x 1136 and a pixel density of 326 ppi, a dual-core Apple A6 processor running at 1.2 GHz, a PowerVR SGX 543MP3 graphics chip and 1 GB of RAM. In addition, the handset arrives with 16, 32 or 64 GB of internal storage, an 8 MP main camera boasting HDR and simultaneous HD video and image recording, and a complementary 1.2 MP front-facing sensor. The gadget is backed up by a 1,440 mAh battery and iOS 6 (upgradable to iOS 6.1.3).

Clearly, there are some similarities between these two smartphones. Both of them feature non-removable batteries and both lack a miroSD card slot. Nevertheless, beyond these similarities, the HTC One takes the lead. The aforementioned device features more processing power with double the CPU cores, double the RAM and a display resolution that is two generations ahead (non-HD versus Full HD). The main camera is also quite impressive, so don’t let the lower amount of 4 megapixels fool you.

The HTC One is a cut above. It uses a pair of user-facing speakers mounted to the front of the phone. They fire through the little dotty grille cut into the area above and below the screen.

This combo offers much better bass, more meaty sound and higher volume than almost any other phone out there at the moment. If anything, we found that the lowest volume was a little too high at times, rather than there not being enough on tap.

The HTC One also has a Beats mode, which tailors the sound for the small speaker, making it sound richer and more refined. It does this (in part) by cutting the mid frequencies, which give small speakers like this an 'ugly' edge.

Of course, it’s still nowhere near good enough to consider a ‘mini hi-fi’ if you want to use your phone as a music source – let’s not get carried away here, folks. For kitchen listening though – especially for podcasts or the radio – it’s great.

Internet and Connectivity

Giving us all the necessary amenities with the web browsing experience, like speedy 4G LTE speeds and buttery smooth navigational controls, we can’t complain about the experience offered by both. However, with its larger and higher resolution display, the HTC One just seems more ideal for the occasion.

Being flagships and all, these two giants are made available in a variety of options – CDMA and GSM flavors with LTE support to be exact. Additionally, they’re outfitted with all the usual suspect of connectivity features. They include aGPS, Bluetooth 4.0, and dual-band 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi. Nevertheless, the HTC One packs on other things, like NFC and an IR blaster, that extends its features set.