Samsung Galaxy S vs HTC Incredible S

Since the first concept smartphone was unveiled in 1997, the world of mobile telecommunications has moved light years ahead, and we now have devices that can do everything but mow the lawn. The two phones we’re comparing here, the Samsung Galaxy S and the HTC Incredible S are up there with the best in terms of functionality, but which comes out on top in the battle of the smartphone?

Display - The Samsung Galaxy S features a stellar Gorilla Glass™ equipped Super AMOLED screen that ranks among the best we've ever used and, owing to it being an AMOLED, it uses less battery than many of its peers. The HTC Incredible S ranks pretty highly in the screen stakes too though, and its 4-inch Super-LCD is delivers a great experience and is both vivid and responsive, but for all its virtues it can't touch the Samsung on this one.

Winner - Samsung Galaxy S

Camera - HTC has gone the whole hog with the camera on the Incredible S, giving it an 8-megapixel snapper with autofocus, a dual-LED flash, geo-tagging, touch-focus, image stabilization, a 1.3-megapixel secondary camera and 720P video capture. Samsung hasn’t aimed quite so high, giving the Galaxy S a 5-megapixel with autofocus, geo-tagging, touch focus, face and smile detection and a VGA secondary camera. Whilst it still offers 720P video capture, it’s no match for the aptly named Incredible S.

Winner - HTC Incredible S

OS - Both the HTC Incredible S and the Samsung Galaxy S run on Google’s much-lauded operating system, Android, however it all comes down to versions. The Samsung Galaxy S comes with Android 2.1, known as Éclair and is upgradeable to 2.2, or Froyo, whilst the HTC Incredible S comes with Froyo, but is upgradeable to version 2.4, known as Honeycomb. So in terms of future-proofing, it’s a no-brainer here.

Winner - HTC Incredible S

Internals - Naturally you want your smartphone to be smart, and while neither of these devices disappoint  the HTC Incredible S noses ahead with its 768 MB RAM, 1GHz Scorpion CPU and Adreno 205 GPU. The Samsung Galaxy S features  512MB RAM, a 1 GHz ARM Cortex-A8 processor and a PowerVR SGX540 GPU and while that's a plenty powerful drive-train it doesn't quite measure up to HTC’s device which pinches this round with its newer tech.

Winner - HTC Incredible S

User Interface - Though these are both Android devices, both manufacturers have decided to overlay their own user interface, which means that you’ll have a unique experience with each phone. Sense UI is based on TouchFlo3D and offers widgets on your home screen, various aesthetic styles for your display and social network integration. Samsung’s TouchWiz 3.0 UI works in much the same way, allowing you to use widgets, news streams and various other add-ons to customise your device, and allows use of up to ten home screens, which could be useful if you need information at your fingertips. It’s hard to say which UI is better here, as it’s probably a case of horses for courses.

Winner - Draw

So it’s a win for the new kid, the HTC Incredible S, and we can see why. This device is packed with the best of the best in terms of hardware and functionality, and with HTC’s shrewd use of Android 2.4, the Incredible S is going to be going strong for a long time to come.

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