Apple iPhone 5s vs HTC One: Two Silver Smartphones Face Off on Specs, Features, Release Date, and Price.

Apple just recently announced the iPhone 5s, the newest flagship smartphone for the Cupertino giant. With some new features and an entirely new processor, the iPhone 5s looks like it will be a good competitor against some of the top premium smartphones on the market already. So lets compare one of those, the HTC One, and see how the iPhone 5s stacks up.

Display and Size

Android smartphones have continued to get larger and larger screens over the past two years, but the Apple has decided to keep the same display it had last year for the iPhone 5S. The HTC One clocks in at 4.7-inches, which is actually conservative for a flagship Android smartphone now, dwarfing the iPhone 5S's 4-inch screen.

Similarly, the HTC One's display resolution beats the iPhone 5s Retina screen, bringing a Full HD resolution at 1080 x 1920p, which means the HTC One's 4.7-inch screen packs a ridiculous 469 pixels per inch. Compared to the HTC One, the iPhone 5s has a weak 1136 x 640p resolution, with 326 pixels per inch.

However, with a larger screen, comes a bigger device, and the HTC One has dimensions of 137.4 x 68.2 x 9.3mm, and weighs 143 grams. The iPhone 5s is super portable, compared to that with 123.8 x 58.6 x 7.6mm dimensions and 112 grams, making it over 20 percent lighter than the HTC One.

Camera

The HTC One has a 4-megapixel rear camera. If that doesn't sound like much, you're right - many Android smartphones come with a 13-megapixel shooter standard - but don't let the megapixel count fool you. HTC tweaked the sensor on the HTC One, calling the camera an "Ultrapixel" camera, which can outperform many 13-megapixel cameras, especially in low-light scenarios.

Meanwhile, the 8-megapixel camera on the iPhone 5s is also touted to fight above its megapixel class, giving you a F2.2 aperture and a larger pixel sensor as well, though we'll have to wait for side-by-side comparisons to be sure how much improved the iPhone 5s's camera is.

Storage

Both the HTC One and the iPhone 5s eschew microSD card slots, which usually give other smartphones a 64GB-expandable storage edge. Both the HTC One and the iPhone 5s make up for it by giving you up to 64GB of internal storage on their top models, if you want to pay for it. The iPhone 5s, in its cheapest incarnation however, only offers 16GB as opposed to the cheapest HTC One's 32GB model.

Look and Feel

This is where the two smartphones get difficult to compare. Apple's obsessive attention to the iPhone's design usually means that an iPhone will look more distinctive and just plain prettier than an Android competitor. Not true with the HTC One, which took a page from the iPhone book and offers a solid, premium-feeling, unibody aluminum chassis, just like the iPhone 5s.

The iPhone 5s comes in Space Gray, Gold, and Silver, while the HTC One is Silver or Black, along with a red version that is available at Sprint and a blue version that you can pick up from Best Buy. One might argue that the iPhone 5s, with its edging accents and brushed metal back looks better than the HTC One, but both are winners compared to the boring black slabs put out by others.

Processor

The HTC One comes with a quad core Snapdragon 600, clocked at 1.7GHz (with 2GB of RAM), which is no longer the fastest core in town. Latecomers to this year's smartphone market like the LG G2 or the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 come with a quad core Snapdragon 800, clocked above 2GHz.

The Apple iPhone 5s, of course, doesn't come with a Snapdragon at all. But what can be said for the new A7 processor is that it is the first 64-bit processor for a smartphone, and big companies like Samsung are heading that way too. Apple says its new processor can run intensive graphics programs like top games and is twice as fast as the iPhone 5. Also, Apple has included a separate processor for motion tracking, which can work independently of the A7 being engaged or not, meaning more processing power to the whole system.

We'll wait until benchmarks to be sure, but in the end, the iPhone 5s is probably more future-proof. That said, both phones are likely to be so satisfyingly fast and fluid that for everyday smartphone use, you'd probably never be able to tell a difference.

Others

The HTC One comes with NFC for transferring files from smartphone to smartphone, while the iPhone 5s does not. The HTC One comes with an IR Blaster, so you can turn your phone into a remote control for the TV. The iPhone 5s does not.The iPhone 5s comes with a fingerprint scanner. The HTC One does not (though it looks like the upcoming phablet HTC One Max will). 

The HTC One comes with Android, however, which, of course, the iPhone 5s does not. That may be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on which side of the smartphone wars you are entrenched on.

However, for those who are not obsessed with Android vs iOS wars, both smartphones offer state-of-the-art software that can either click for you or not (the iPhone 5s, being released with the most recent version of iOS, iOS 7, is a little more state-of-the-art than the HTC One's Android 4.2). Blinkfeed is a streaming content aggregator that can bring up all of the news and social feeds you want to a big widget with constantly updating live tiles. Some find that great, and some hate it.

The same goes with iOS 7. Jony Ive, Apple's chief designer, completely redesigned the look of iOS, sprinkling in a rainbow of colors and flattening the icons. (iOS 7 also represents great improvements in multi-tasking and window management for the Apple mobile OS.) But some love it, and some don't. Try out both operating systems and choose what you like the best.

Release Date and Price 

It will be a tough choice, in the end, because both devices cost about the same. Do you like iOS 7 and don't care about larger screens (or even find them awkward, as some do)? About $200 will get you the iPhone 5s on any major carrier on Sept. 20. Do you want a super-brilliant screen and love the live-updating Blinkfeed? The HTC One costs about $200 on all major carriers (though because it was released months ago, some sales have discounted $100 here and there). Bear in mind, the iPhone 5s you're getting will only have 16GB of internal storage, with no expansion, while for the same price, you get a 32GB HTC One.

However, I bet when it comes to the iPhone 5s vs HTC One, most people have made up their minds ahead of time. It's the iPhone 5c, Apple's new entry-level phone, which may bring smartphone novices into the Apple fold.