This year, two flagship phones, the Galaxy S4 and the HTC One, represent the pinnacle of Android hardware. After months of rumors and speculation , Google announced at the Google I/O last month that the major flagships from Samsung and later HTC will be receiving the nexus treatment.
They seem to have everything you could ask for: fast processors, gigantic and beautiful screens, LTE, and (mostly) great hardware design. But like their predecessors, they also come with a lot of extra
software you probably didn’t ask for.
By extra software we are talking about HTC’s Sense and Samsung’s TouchWiz skins on top of Android, and if you think thats bad we have some carriers especially in US and Europe who add on junk software which is just an overload. Well seems Google has other plans altogether they have striped clean these Android Flagships and given us a pure Android experience.
Both the Samsung Galaxy S4 and the HTC One can now be purchased without their respective manufacturer customizations for $649 and $599, respectively.
One big sacrifice you will make is in the camera as HTC and Samsung have taken time to improve their camera experience and this will just take then a step backwards.Google has a lot of catching up to do. The stock camera does offer some
basic settings, but they’re hidden behind its poorly-thought-out radial
menu. On the bright-side you will still keep the boom sound and Beast Audio features on the HTC one but IR blaster wont work. Not forgetting the lack of a menu button.
The Galaxy s4 will remain with its usual set backs of cheap-feeling design, only 16GB of storage on top of the sub-par camera performance.
