Samsung has finally announced its flagship smartphone – Galaxy S III smartphone yesterday with much fanfare. Samsung’s first flagship quad-core smartphone does feature a fresh set of features and functions. While it was just announced and other details being made public, HTC One X can’t stay aloof.
Here is our account of comparison between Samsung Galaxy S III and HTC One X purely on the specifications and features offered.
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Display and Body
Samsung has used a plastic-like glossy back-panel which might be finger print magnet. Otherwise the construction of the Galaxy S III is quite similar to that of One X and Galaxy Nexus, except for the Home button part. The Galaxy S III measures 8.6 mm thick which is 0.35 mm less than the HTC One X that has 8.9 mm thickness.
At 129 grams, HTC One X is couple of grams lighter compared to the 133 grams weighing Galaxy S III. HTC One X gives a better feel due to the matte finish at the back panel and has a stain-resistant coating that helps the user to wipe out the dirt or stains easily.
In terms of display, Samsung wins hands down with a 4.8-inch HD Super AMOLED (Active Matrix Organic Light Emitting Diode) display as opposed to the second generation and better looking Super-LCD display of the One X. Both smartphones support 1280×720 pixel Resolution natively. Colour production on the Galaxy S III is expected to be better unless there is some specific colour tinting found.
Both smartphones’ display have been constructed using Corning Gorilla Glass technology process for strength but Samsung’s Galaxy S III uses the second generation Gorilla Glass for more strength with little less thickness.
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Processor and graphics
Both Samsung and HTC have introduced their flagship devices in two different versions – quad-core and dual-core (Qualcomm Snapdragon S4). Since we are comparing mostly the quad-core aspect of the devices, we shall consider those models only.
HTC One X house quad-core Nvidia Tegra 3 mobile Processor with ultra-low power GeForce graphics chip while the Galaxy S III uses Samsung’s own Exynos 4412 mobile processor with Mali-400MP4 graphics which is said to be the fastest in the business so far. On top of that, Samsung has tweaked the GPU a bit to make it perform faster with the native browser.
When it comes to graphics and processing muscle, Samsung certainly scores away the brownies in the benchmarks game. But not to forget that Nvidia has horde of games optimised specifically for the Tegra’s GeForce GPU.
Camera
Both smartphones feature an 8 megapixel Autofocus camera with LED flash. Rear camera on both the smartphones is capable enough to record 1080p HD videos are 30 frames per second. When it comes to optics, HTC One X scores with f/2.0 Aperture while the Galaxy S III has f/2.6 aperture. That means the camera in One X can capture relative more light for better quality images compared to the camera in Galaxy S III.
Samsung has used the latest and the best 8 megapixel BSI (backside illumination) sensor and also offered native HDR mode for the camera along with 3FPS continuous capture mode. However, the camera App has been tweaked to offer zero lag and faster capture times. The Galaxy S III’s camera can capture 20 pictures in the burst mode. When it comes to the front facing camera, the Galaxy S III has a 1.9 megapixel camera which is capable of recording 720p HD video. Whereas the One X has 1.3 megapixel front facing camera. Even One X has a tweaked camera application that can record large number of photos using the burst mode and one can also click photos while recording a studio.
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Multimedia and special features
When it comes to multimedia, both HTC and Samsung have ample number of features in their pockets. HTC offers Beats audio support with active noise cancellation implemented through dedicated mic. When it comes to multimedia format support, Samsung takes home all the candies with native support DivX, Xvid, FLAC, WAV kind of high quality video as well as audio formats. HTC One X features HTC Sense 4.0 with Android 4.0 ICS and looks much zippier as well as lighter than its predecessors. Whereas the Galaxy S III features Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich with new Nature UX which reduces amount of TouchWiz in the software.
Apart from that, Samsung features new Smart Stay technology which basically tracks the user eye and keeps the screen on till the sensor can detect the human eye. Apart from that, Samsung has added bunch of sharing and DLNA improvements which include the new S Beam. Basically a marriage of WiFi Direct and NFC, the S Beam will let the users transfer about 1 GB worth of video file, photos and other documents in less than three minutes.
Both smartphones bring free Dropbox storage but Galaxy S III users will be lucky to have 50 GB free storage for two years. Samsung also managed to bring the popular magazine reader Flipboard app of iOS platform to the SIII. Both phones have LED and we believe there would be enough optimisations for app specific notifications.
While both smartphones feature GPS with Assisted-GPS support, Galaxy S III scores with GLONASS satellite network mesh for more accurate location locking on the device. Just like that on the Galaxy Note.
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Battery
Since we are yet to experience the real-world battery life usage of Galaxy S III, we are only citing the specifications here again. The Galaxy S III has a 2100 mAh (7.77 Whr) removable battery which obviously should offer greater run time since the TouchWiz user interface has been optimised with Nature UX and it looks more Android 4.0 ICS like.
On the other hand, the HTC One X offers 1800 mAh (5.3whr) fixed battery and the only improvement possible would be on software side. Recently, HTC pushed out to updates that reportedly improved the battery life. Though Galaxy S III has an additional world advantage, the winning cake will go only after some real world usage tests.
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Price
Currently, the HTC One X retails in India at a best price of Rs 37,500 or lower in select regions. Being the only quad-core smartphone here in India, the HTC One X has delivered its promises. 
Samsung is expected to launch the Samsung Galaxy S III in first week of June for Rs 34,000 approximately. Even if Samsung has to charge a grand extra, it still wins over the One X with total package of features offered. It is certainly arguable that the HTC One X provides the complete package including a better physical finish with slightly extra cost. Only time can tell whether HTC will slash the One X price by couple of grands to compete with Galaxy S III.