Battle of the flagships: iPhone 6 vs major flagships of 2014

Finally, all the flagships from leading mobile giants for the year 2014 are out and hopefully these will carry on the mantle of flagship devices into 2015. While Samsung kick started the year with its Galaxy S5, HTC soon followed with its newest  One M8 . We also saw LG unfurl the G3 and Sony quickly churned out its second iteration of flagship for the year with the Z3. As all the companies try to fight it out in the premium range, let’s see which one is possibly the best pick for you. We’ve put all five flagships in the ring for a quick comparison, at least on paper.

Here’s a comparison of specifications between the iPhone 6, Samsung Galaxy S5, HTC One M8, LG G3 and the Sony Xperia Z3 :

iPhone 6

While the larger iPhone 6 Plus phablet competes with the likes of the Note 4 , the smaller 4.7-inch iPhone 6  is likely to take on the rest. The iPhone 6 is slim at 6.9mm and comes with rounded edges and glass front curves. The display features 750 x 1334 pixels of resolution and is the claimed by Apple to be the most powerful smartphone with the all-new A8 processor. Apple claims that it comes with 2 billion transistors, making it 25 percent faster for any ordinary computing task and 50 percent faster for graphics. This boost in power won’t take a toll on the battery life either, claims the company. While iPhone 5s offered 10 hours of battery life over Wi-Fi, the iPhone 6 increases it by an hour to 11 hours and iPhone 6 Plus to 12 hours. On the camera front (8MP), these devices come with a plethora of improvements. Firstly, they are fitted with a new sensor for faster auto-focus to avoid blurry shots. You will also find a new slow-motion video feature. One of the interesting features is Burst selfies. This means take several quick selfies and select the best among them. It runs the latest iOS 8 operating system unveiled at WWDC earlier this year. Some of the highlights of the iOS 8  include integration of Mac and iPhone allowing easy switching between one device to another, Swype-like QuickType onscreen keyboard, support for third-party keyboards, iCloud Drive service and more.

Sony Xperia Z3

Sony continues with its trend of quickly churning out flagships. The company has yet again, come up with the newest iteration of its flagship dubbed Xperia z3. The Sony Xperia Z3 runs on the same quad-core 2.5GHz MSM8974AC Snapdragon 801 chip that is featured in the HTC One M8 , LG G3 and the Galaxy S5 . The powerful SoC with 3GB of RAM and Adreno 330 graphics means Android 4.4 KitKat should have no issues running on the Z3 even with Sony’s customisations. The display though is not a late 2014 flagship-like 2K panel, but instead Sony has opted for a 5.2inch 1080p display with the Triluminos and X-Reality mobile engine for enhancing colours and image quality. In terms of build, the Z3 is smaller than the Z2 by about 1mm on each side, while bezels have been trimmed down to less than 2mm on the sides. The Z3 is 11g lighter than the Xperia Z2. As before, the Xperia Z3 is a waterproof and dust-proof device with an IP65/68 rating. Battery life should be great thanks to the 3100 mAh battery, which Sony claims offers up to 2 days of usage. It comes with either 16 or 32GB of storage which can be further expanded to up to 128GB thanks to the microSD card support. Connectivity options are top-end too, with Wi-Fi ac, USB on-the-go, GLONASS and NFC all packed in.

Samsung Galaxy S5

The Samsung Galaxy S5 is a 5.1-inch upgrade to the year older Galaxy S4 and sports a full HD screen with the same Super AMOLED panel. The dust-proof and water-proof device follows the latest trends by embedding a fingerprint scanner. The Galaxy S5 is the only flagship with a 16MP camera; up front there is a 2.1MP camera. Samsung Galaxy S5 supports the fifth generation 802.11ac Wi-Fi and it uses LTE Category 4 standard. The Samsung Galaxy S5 runs on a 2.5GHz Snapdragon 800 SoC with 2GB of RAM. It will ship with Android 4.4.2. It comes in the 16GB and 32GB variant with microSD slot for adding in a microSD card up to 64GB. It packs in a 2800mAh battery. Check out the  Galaxy S5 review .

LG G3

The  LG G3  sports a 5.5-inch QuadHD display, with a 2560×1440 pixel resolution. That results in a pixel density of 538PPI, the highest seen on any smartphone so far. It’s powered by a top-of-the-line Snapdragon 801 SoC, which is clocked at 2.5 GHz. Curiously, LG has gone with two configurations for the RAM and internal memory. The 16GB version gets 2GB of RAM, while the 32GB version gets a full 3GB. LG promises that both versions run the software equally well. Both versions get a microSD card slot, which is good to take in cards up to 128 GB in size.  Also on the back is the 13MP camera with OIS+ and the laser autofocus to go along with its two-tone dual LED flash. LG has chosen to please selfie lovers with a 2.1MP camera on the front, that can take pictures by seeing your off-screen gesture, allowing you time to pose for the shot. The G3 has support for 4G LTE, HSPA+ and Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac for data. It comes with Bluetooth 4.0 LE and NFC chips along with  SlimPort compatibility, A-GPS/Glonass, and micro USB 2.0.

HTC One M8

The new HTC One M8 gets rid of any polycarbonate or cheap plastic as the chassis is almost completely metal. The phone also introduced its latest version of Sense which features an enhanced BlinkFeed experience. It is believed to be  selling faster than its predecessor  and could help claw back market share in developed markets such as the US. The  One M8 gets a 5-inch full HD Super LCD 3 display  that’s just as good as last year’s One. HTC has retained the front-facing BoomSound speakers, so you get a rich audio experience, but at the cost of handling, as the device is quite a bit taller than the One released last year. Internally, the One M8 gets Snapdragon 801, the top-of-the-line SoC from Qualcomm, with the quad-core CPU clocked at 2.5 GHz. It also gets 2GB of RAM. Software-wise, the One M8 runs Android 4.4 KitKat, with Sense 6 UI and gets some nifty gesture-based controls. Even though the One M8 gets a new Duo Camera setup, it’s still the same lackluster UltraPixel camera. Check out the  HTC One M8 review .

So, which one these would you pick? Do let us know in the comments section.