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Samsung Galaxy Note 3 vs. HTC One Max with 2 essentials

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Two phablet type smartphones will be battling it out at some point this year, and these will be the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 and HTC One Max. We know a number of our readers have chosen a brand already, and this might be due to the love for their respected smartphone maker or thanks to an experience they’ve had previously with either brand.

Samsung Galaxy Note 3 vs. HTC One Max — the full official specs and release date for both these devices is yet to land, although we have seen a lot of leaks and rumors painting a clear picture of what to expect.

We took a look at these rumors and the expected specification for each phablet in this article, so feel free to take a look at that information if you want to see how the specs stack up in comparison.

HTC One Max needs 2 improvements to compete – today, we wanted to highlight two improvements needed with the HTC One Max to make a much better handset than the HTC One. In our opinion, the HTC One is impressive and stylish but just increasing that smartphone in size wouldn’t be enough to compete with the Samsung Galaxy Note 3.

The HTC One Max needs to include a removable battery and SD card slot in our opinion. This would be a vast improvement on the lack of removable battery and SD cards on the HTC One.

We are not the only ones thinking this change is essential, and a number of our readers have also voiced an interest in seeing these extra features on the HTC One Max. One commenter stated, “Not having a removable battery and SD card are deal breakers”. Another said, “The only thing stopping me from upgrading to HTC is the lack of SD card expansion and removable battery”.

Do you think a 5.9-inch phone in the form of a HTC One Max would be enough to compete with Samsung’s Galaxy Note 3? If not, what specs and features would you like to see on the Max?

Comments

36 thoughts on “Samsung Galaxy Note 3 vs. HTC One Max with 2 essentials”

  1. Plan C says:

    HTC will have to eat humble pie and accept the reality that people want a removable battery and sd card. Samsung did as before they tried the iPhone way and back tracked soon enough. Consumers are no longer looking for another Steve Jobs to convince them what they need and don’t need.

      1. hohopig says:

        It always amaze me how one person can assume to speak on behalf of the “majority” or the “masses” or the “average person”.

        Still, it would be interesting to see a poll about that, if any has been done.

  2. Dar says:

    I thought that a removable battery and an SD card slot was important so I got a galaxy s3 last year. But I discovered that changing battery is too much of a hassle as compared to bringing a powerbank. It takes too much time to remove the battery and casing just to plug a new battery plus there’s the need to reboot the phone. I thought I needed a SD card buy it turns out that I never went past with 32gb with an average of 5gb of songs 10gb of movies and 5gb of games and apps. So I have no qualms to upgrading to a htc with a much more beautiful unibody design. I love htc one and I am going to like the one max over the overplayed design of samsung.

    1. Nyankana says:

      And I agree that each person has different uses. For me I store tons of films on my phones for leisure purpose, so I need a large amount of capacity. Cloud storage is not an option, since the internet here is hella slow. Believe it or not, if you are the type who crave over new apps overtime, the storage will get filled up exponentially.

    2. hohopig says:

      mmm just one thing though, I can’t imagine that it is that difficult to just open up the casing to plonk in a new battery when the old one run out of juice. Especially when compared to holding a phone running around with a big battery pack connected to it with dangling USB cable.

      As for charging battery .. you do know that both the battery bank AND the replacement battery both needs to be charged?

      On the other hand you do have to make your own choices. Perhaps you stay at your desk mostly and do not move around, then it probably doesn’t matter that much to you whether if it is a replacement battery or an external battery pack.

      PS …. just that .. as an android guy who should know better, do not be taken in by the sales pitch about the “unibody” and “machined” and “aluminium body” hype that was done by none other than Old Stevie Job.

  3. Richard Yarrell says:

    For me this isn’t even a true comparison. Htc the rookie in this category made prominent by Samsung. Think about it the Galaxy Note 3 will be arriving with 4200mAh battery, android 4.3, removable battery, and a slew of Spen related new features, as well as new multitasking abilities no device will ever have. I’m definitely not worried about anything Htc brings to the table against the Galaxy Note 3. I will be purchasing the Galaxy Note 3 in October day one of launch for Tmobile period.

  4. Most consumers don’t care about a removeable battery and neither do I. Although an SD card slot is definitely something I want. Either way I’ll be going with the HTC phablet. Samsung just makes ugly phones.

  5. Ron Jonson says:

    I will be going with the note 3… I prefer their materials to most. Contrary to common opinion. The durability of the plastic is desirable. Plus I can’t say no to the s pen.

      1. J. Mike Rosner says:

        I’m still an iPhone user but cannot wait to exit AAPL’s device stronghold.

        Note 3 or One Max is what I’m currently debating, heavy web user and haven’t gotten to experience what else the Android world hold’s in store, specifically as far as potentially being able to RDP

  6. Sachin Gopalkrishnan says:

    Different people have different opinions, but i would always want an option to have the battery replaced in case i see it dying early. Investing on a 40k+ (INR) device which dies on me before an year will be painful My sister-in-law got a htc one x and battery conked on the 13 month. I love HTC devices and held a HTC desire for 3 years until it had a fall and stopped responding, but now without a replaceable battery no way.

    1. Hitesh Dhawan says:

      I’d agree with you here.. the batteries don’t last long in one x or one x + for that matter. Although I love the brand, I certainly want to see this to be improved in HTC high end phones. i have had to sell off one x, then one x+ and now with the One.

  7. John says:

    I wouldn’t buy another HTC anyway after my first and last HTC phone, a Desire, broke down 3 times in 2 years and after the third time I was told they had no spares left to repair it. Surely I should expect a £500+ phone to last longer than that?
    Your loss HTC and Samsungs gain. No wonder you’re struggling for market share.

    1. Mattclegg88 says:

      No company jumps on the scene without hiccups to start with, htc started the ball rolling with the G1..whata phone eh!? The desire popped out not long after, in a rush, like many manufacturers to try beat the competition which was only just finding its foot holds…. But look what htc are achieving now, they’re pioneering in as many ways possible… Different construction techniques, different materials, a whole different camara and look and feel of the overall product. O and just wow, excellent front facing speakers… Pioneering new ideas again. Btw, i could go on for a while.
      Im guessing your a sh*tsung fan, how are them plastic bendy phones doing anyway. Still in 1 peice?

      Im not bashing samsung, just the idiots that jump on they’re band wagon and pretend they’re like crapple fan boys. Rant over

      1. hohopig says:

        😛 While you have your point, your attempt at an insult using the material of a phone is wrong though. You do know that Aluminium is one of the weaker, softer and cheaper metal around? It is not as if the manufacturer is actually using top grade steel for the phone cover. Aluminium is in fact cheaper than many mid range plastic and does not perform that well when it is mere fraction of a millimetre thick. (Its strength mainly lies in its strength to weight ratio … meaning that it is weaker but compensate by being light, so a lot of it can be used to achieve the strength .. especially for bending .. but that hardly applies when it is mere .5 of a millimetre thick, does it?)

        Stevie Job tried to pull a fast one over the iSheep crowd and succeeded but it is a sad day when the android geeks (who should know better)are taken in as well.

  8. billev says:

    Just give me a screen that I can read in sunlight and I wil buy it. Even if you can put a boost button on the phone for short term brightness.

    1. Justin McNairy says:

      It called 4 ULTRA pixel, not mega pixel. Let just say 1up is equal to about probably around 3mp. My cousin have HTC One and the picture quality look a lot better than my Galaxy Note 2. More megapixel does not mean better picture quality.

        1. faaaaq says:

          My sister has the SGS4, I have the One. we were at a bar and took a picture of eachother. My picture blew hers out of the water. In the most common situations where you would use a cellphone camera, the One wins hands down. Even oldskool cellphones took great pictures in nice lighting…to congrats Samsung for keeping with tradition?

          1. hohopig says:

            Well, I think your statement rings true only if you “commonly” take pictures in dimly lit places. What I think is not that common for everyone else.

      1. hohopig says:

        well, not really. Not when the sensor size remains more or less the same. What happens here is just a different way of reaching a compromise between details and sensitivity. With Ultra pixel (what a … name), it is definitely more sensitive and performs much better in low light or poorly lit places (at least, after the software update it seems). But when it comes to big wide space that are brightly lit and with lots of details, it does not do so well.

  9. Robin Hopkins says:

    Def a removable battery for me, the SD card is not that important IF it shipped with 32 GB’s. Another deal breaker is the S-Pen, it would have to come out with a dedicated tool for handwriting.

    1. Justin McNairy says:

      Yeah, but still need SD card if I’m going to add a lot amount of files which might total more than 32gb. Perhaps a 64gb might be enough.

  10. blaine says:

    Who cares about removable batteries?? If you’re going to carry around another giant battery in your pocket or bag then you might as well just bring a charger.
    I would say an SD card slot is more essential than the removable battery, but even that isnt a big deal if there is a 64gb version to be released.

    The single most important thing the HTC One Max needs to introduce is a more powerful camera. The HTC one was only 4MP or 2UP. We need to double that to at least 8MP or 4UP for the phone to compete with the other phablets. Come on the Note 3 is rumored to have 13MP, thats going to crap all over some 4MP camera even if it does take good low light pics. The only drawback on this phone is that sub par camera. It even has an infrared remote hidden under the power button allowing you to change channels on a tv, hilarious!

    1. faaaaq says:

      It was 4 Ultra Pixels, not 2. I own the One, and the pictures it takes are excellent. The only time the SGS4 beats the camera is if you are using the shots for editing, which any self respecting editor/publisher would only use a real camera for anyways.

      1. hohopig says:

        😛 it takes an inferior picture when it involves scenes in brightly lit places with a busy scenes with lots of details. The lose in details are especially obvious when you have letters/wordings in the pics.

    2. xdapao3 says:

      “Who cares about removable batteries?? If you’re going to carry around another giant battery in your pocket or bag then you might as well just bring a charger. ”

      right, because they are perfectly equivalent things which work in the same way and which provide similar benefits… dumb users

    3. hohopig says:

      😛 a small battery (do you know that size of a battery?) is a fraction of a big ass charger. And moreover, it is not just to replace the battery on the phone (that is useful as well, especially if you can charge up one at home/in the office and just plonk it in when the other one run out of jiuce)

      What is even more important is that it will allow you to extend the lifespan of your phone without having to PAY through your nose and be held to ransom by the retailer/manufacturer.

      You do know that battery life being what it is, it will deteriorate after one year and you usually have to replace the battery to get a semblance of usability after one and a half year? (especially if you charge your phone everyday) So unless you are someone who changes your phone every year, having a removable battery that you can replace easily by yourself is a must.

  11. Allan says:

    How the hell is an SD slot on the priority list? Even the best Class 10 SD card, which most people would not shell out the money for, cannot compete with even an average NAND when it comes to every kind of speed. Why would anyone settle for 64 GB of crappy, slow storage that’s useless for anything when you can have 32GB built-in? I cannot understand all the complaining nowadays about phones with no SD.

    1. rudeboy says:

      Nowhere in the discussion is speed. No one is doing I/O intensive tasks that would require NAND level speed. What people do want is to be able to offload media such as movies, TV, music, etc. that doesn’t require high I/O rates to slower media like microsd. I’m not along in the crowd that have a 64GB class10 card absolutely full of media so I don’t have to worry about running out of space on my device. Also, should the NAND fail, I can retain the vast majority of my data by simply moving the external storage to a new phone. So yeah, external storage is important to some people.

  12. Roger Stenning says:

    The ability to replace a ram card means that if the phone dies for *any* reason, I have a chance at retaining my data, songs, etc, without having to rely on net access; I found this one out the hard way a few years back, and have never had cause to look back from using ram cards since then. Further, a replaceable battery is a lot smaller – and lighter – than the average battery bank / emergency charger, so that’s rather important to me as well, given that I tend to be out and about a lot, in places nowhere near a three-pin socket or car charger.

  13. Naturgirl says:

    If u need mor than 64G on a phone get a laptop, download more often or simplify your life. Hmmm, the expert @ the camera shop says apeture/sensor is far more important than pixel number. Seems like someone @htc has been studying cameras. I started w an htc G1 then htc G2 (nearly 3 years awesome service) now goimg to One. I want a phone that sounds like my zune. I cannot fathom using a one size fits all apple device that requires suicide nets to make.

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