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HTC One M8 vs LG G3 – price, specs, design compared

• Egon Kilin
• October 24th, 2014

The HTC One M8 and LG G3 are two of the best flagships of 2014, alongside the Galaxy S5, Galaxy Note 4, iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus and underdogs Oppo Find 7 and OnePlus One. The HTC One M8 and LG G3 are most well regarded because of their design and construction, but each stands out with its own best features. The HTC One M8 BoomSound front facing speakers are its selling point, while the LG G3 sports a great screen with qHD resolution and minimal bloatware.

The LG G3 is an improved version of the LG G2 and comes as an attempt from LG to prove that they listen to their customers and implement their requests in the new flagship. While the LG G3 keeps the polycarbonate build of the LG G2, its design language has changed a bit. The LG G3 back panel has a faux metal look that looks pretty nice, isn’t as glossy as on the LG G2 and doesn’t attract as many fingerprints either. The curved back of the LG G3 makes it sit very nicely in the hand and it just feels more like a premium smartphone than the LG G2. The removable back on the LG G3 gives you access to the microSD card slot, SIM slot and the removable 3000 mAH battery. The buttons on the LG G3 are still on the back, like with the LG G2, which is still unfortunate in my opinion. The buttons do look better and are clicky, unlike on the LG G3 predecessor.

The HTC One M8 is the best example of a premium build on a premium smartphone. The HTC One M8 has a metal chassis with a rounded back, similar to the HTC One M7. The HTC One M8 is actually 90% metal, which is great. The curved back doesn’t attract fingerprints, and it feels great in the hand. the HTC One M8 has a unibody chassis, so you won’t see a removable back panel or battery on the device. Nonetheless, HTC still included a microSD card slot on the One M8, unlike the HTC One M7. One annoying feature the HTC One M8 and One M7 share is the power button, which is placed at the top of the phone. That’s pretty inconvenient, since it’s actually pretty hard to reach. The power button on the LG G3, located on the back, is actually easier to work with. Nonetheless, the HTC One M8 has a ton of gestures that can wake and turn your screen off, so you can actually avoid using the power button.

The LG G3 and HTC One M8 have one big difference in design, aside from build quality, and you can immediately see that. The HTC One M8 has thick bezels surrounding the display, housing the BoomSound front-facing speakers. The LG G3 bezels are considerably thinner and make for a more attractive design on the flagship. While we do love the BoomSound speakers on the HTC One M8, they come as a trade-off for the large bezels. The LG G3 is wider and just abit taller than the HTC One M8, but it’s a negligible difference. Even so, the LG G3 and HTC One M8 are two of most attractive smartphones on the market, regardless of the small design drawbacks.

The LG G3 is most appreciated for its display, a 5.5 inch display with a 2560*1440 resolution and 534 ppi pixel density. The LG G3 is the first qHD smartphone to be launched in the U.S., so the hype around its great display is understandable. Since the LG G3 was launched, other flagships with qHD displays have emerged in the U.S., most notably the Galaxy Note 4. While the colors on the LG G3 are a bit cold, they don’t look washed out at all. The display has a great brightness and sharpness, as well as great viewing angles. While the HTC One M8 isn’t qHD, it still has a great display to boast with. We have a 5 inch display with a 1920*1080 resolution and 441 ppi pixel density on the HTC One M8, and it looks actually great. It’s a sharp display, with viewing angles just as great as on the LG G3. Unless you put the LG G3 next to the HTC One M8, you won’t notice the difference in resolution.

The LG G3 and HTC One M8 share some internal specs, so performance and speed should be mostly the same on both devices. Both sport quad core Snapdragon 801 CPUs with Adreno 330 GPUs. The HTC One M8 offers 2 GB RAM and 32 GB internal storage, while the LG G3 has a 16 GB version with 2 GB RAM and a 32 GB version with 3 GB RAM. Both flagships come with Android 4.4 KitKat out of the box, but each have their own customs skins on top. The LG G3 has GUI from LG, while the HTC One M8 has HTC’s own Sense 6 UI on top of the Android 4.4 KitKat OS. There’s not any noticeable difference in processing power with these two, but Sense 6 UI tends to be abit snappier than GUI.

Both the LG G3 and HTC One M8 have IR blasters, which is a great addition. It seems that IR blasters are going out of fashion recently, many OEMs omitting them from their flagships. The HTC One M8 has a 2600 mAH battery, which is smaller than the one on the LG G3, but should make for just as much battery life since it has less pixels to power than the LG G3. We’ve already mentioned the high quality sound on the HTC One M8, given that it has dual front-facing speakers. The LG G3 only has a single speaker on the back, which is no match for the HTC One M8. It’s not bad, but its noticeably inferior.

The LG G3 camera can be considered pretty average, with a 13 MP sensor with LED on the rear. It does have a great laser autofocus technology implemented, though, which makes for faster focusing when you are in the camera app. The camera app on the LG G3 doesn’t allow for a lot of manual tweaking, but it does let you fumble around with the most essential settings. Actually, you don’t need a lot of manual control for the LG G3 camera because the laser autofocus as well as OIS+ do their jobs well and take great photos without you tweaking any settings. The HTC One M8 camera is more controversial, with a 4 Ultrapixel snesor and a depth sensor, which allow you to edit depth on a picture even after you’ve already taken the shot. The HTC One M8 has a more customizable camera app compared to the LG G3. Both the LG G3 and HTC One M8 take pretty good low-light photos, but the LG G3 does take more detailed pictures with better contrast and color reproduction. Sometimes, the HTC One M8 photos seem to be a bit grainy and overexposed, especially with HDR on.

The HTC One M8 price is $600, while the LG G3 price is $570, both unlocked. Prices vary from retailer to retailer, and region from region, but you get great deals on both the HTC One M8 and LG G3. As a conclusion, the LG G3 does have a better screen and a better camera, but the HTC One M8 has a more premium build, as well as superior sound quality. Nonetheless, both flagships offer great bang for buck ratio, so you won’t be disappointed by either of them in the long run. I honestly don’t like either the LG G3 design or the HTC One M8 design, but I do love the screen on the LG G3. At the same time, I appreciate the BoomSound speakers on the HTC One M8 and Sense 6 is also at its best on the flagship. If they were both free, I think I would go for the HTC One M8, because I don’t really use a phone to take photos, and a smaller footprints suits my smaller hands better. Nonetheless, choosing between these two is definitely not easy. Which would you choose?