HTC One max vs LG G2

Introduction

The HTC One max is a gigantic 5.9-inch phone with the signature HTC One touches - an aluminum back cover, UltraPixel camera and two large front-facing stereo speakers. Big and beautiful, we now compare it against another device that is also relatively new, but very different - the LG G2. LG’s flagship is outfitted with a fairly large 5.2-inch display, but in a much more compact body than that is made out of polycarbonate. LG has experimented with design by putting the physical controls on the back of the G2 while the HTC One max - apart from its huge size - is a more traditionally designed phone. LG also brings a 13-megapixel optical image stabilized camera as opposed to the 4-megapixel shooter on the One max.

All in all, both the HTC One max and the LG G2 are top-shelf devices that will be fighting for your attention during the Holidays and later, so it’s time to carefully examine which one is worth your hard earned dollar.

Design

If smartphones had sizes, the HTC One max would carry not the XL, but the XXL mark. It is larger than the average phablet (truth be told, it’s not the largest, that title belongs to the Sony Xperia Z Ultra) and this is a double-edged sword. There is the apparent benefit of a larger screen, but there are some considerable handling difficulties and single-handed use is severely obstructed. The LG G2 on its own is not a small device by any means, but looks midget-small when put next to the HTC One max that effectively dwarves it. Still, the difference in actual screen size is not that big as it would seem just by looking at the dimensions: there is a 5.2” display on the G2 and a 5.9” one on the One max. The stark size difference comes from the fact that the One max has much wider bezel whereas the G2 trims bezel to an absolute minimum on the sides.

Now, that we’ve got the size element out of the way, it’s worth pointing out that the HTC One max features a sturdy and durable aluminum body that just feels solid. The LG G2 in contrast is made out of polycarbonate and does not feel solidly put together. Quite the contrary, squeeze it just a bit and it starts screaking and just giving way to pressure. The glossy polycarbonate shell also smudges much easier and your phone quickly starts to look like a mess whereas the aluminum body of the one looks clean even after longer use.

The two devices also use different buttons for navigation. The One max features two capacitive keys (back and home key) below the screen, whereas the G2 comes with Android on-screen navigational keys.

In terms of physical buttons, HTC obviously realizes how big the One max is and has moved all its physical keys (the lock button and volume rocker) on its right side, within easy reach. These metal buttons are solid yet reassuringly clicky. The LG G2 in contrast might confuse you at first as it has no physical buttons on its sides. LG has moved the lock and volume keys on the back of the device which in our experience is a convenient location. It’s a pity that the buttons themselves are wobbly, but still that does not make them hard to press.

The HTC One max also has one feature no other Android phone has - a fingerprint reader located right below the camera on its back. Its rear-facing location is somewhat similar to the positioning of the G2 buttons, but the fingerprint scanner is much less pronounced and feels like a gimmick rather than a real feature. The reason for that is that it’s right below the camera and it’s hard to find, plus instead of a simple tap it requires a swipe to unlock the device.

Display

The HTC One max truly maximizes screen sizes bringing it to a tablet nearing 5.9 inches. The LG G2 features a smaller, 5.2-inch display and with on-screen buttons the actually usable space for most apps is even less. Both screens feature LCD technology, but with slight differences – the One max features a Super LCD 3 panel whereas it's IPS LCD on the G2. Both come with the same high resolution of 1080 x 1920 pixels. The larger screen on the One max means it has a slightly lower pixel density, but in reality the difference is imperceptible to the human eye in regular conditions, and both screens look stunningly sharp.

The similarities however pretty much end up here since the displays are very different in the way they show colors and images. The One max’s screen is impressive not just for its size, but also for its mostly pleasing colors (with slight yellowish tint) and excellent contrast. The LG G2 display in contrast puts out colder than usual, blueish tones that look unnatural. That distorted color balance would not be a huge issue for the regular user, but for those of you who care about photography and videography, it would be at least an annoyance.

Otherwise, both screens can get fairly bright and are usable outdoors even under direct sunlight, but we’ve seen better. Reflections get in the way particularly on the larger HTC One max screen and this mars the outdoor viewing experience. In terms of viewing angles, both are very good, but at more extreme angles some distortion in colors is noticeable.

Interface and Functionality

Both HTC and LG put their custom skins on top of Android to beautify it and add features, and even though both run on Android Jelly Bean (4.3 on the One max and 4.2.2 on the G2), the two interfaces look very different. The neutral charcoal color accents and flat icons on the HTC One max look calm, while the wildly cartoony and crazy colorful LG G2 could make you dizzy.

The One max is actually the first HTC phone to come with the new Sense 5.5 skin. There is little in the way of visual evolution, but functionally the new iteration of Sense adds the possibility to customize BlinkFeed with support for Google Plus and RSS feeds, and you can also disable it completely. Still, in terms of customization, LG wins hands down with its support for themes that allow it to change its appearance almost completely.



Core apps on both devices include the traditional Google suite of Chrome, Gmail, Maps and others, but LG also bundles in a ton of additional apps and features. There is the convenient double tap to wake the device from sleep, a guest mode, answer by just putting the device to your ear and advanced screen capture. The traditional LG QSlide small apps (like calculator and notebook) are here as well and you can put them on top of what you are doing for more efficient multitasking.

Basic functionality is well covered on both, but we like the LG’s skin a bit more for its easy one-touch access to toggles and brightness slider right in the notification shade. Phonebooks are rich in options, sync to the cloud and you can swipe between various tabs, which is convenient. The large displays on both make plenty of space for a well-spaced virtual keyboard and typing is quick on both. Interestingly, HTC’s large size and lack of single-handed typing optimization work to its disadvantage, and it’s almost impossible to type something on it singlehandedly, so even though we like both keyboards, the LG phone seems better suited to heavy texters.



The One max and G2 also feature infra red (IR) sensors built in. With the HTC One max you can control your TV, while the LG G2 opens even more possibilities with support for all sorts of electronics including TVs, air conditioners and so on.

Processor and Memory

The One max is the newer phone in the pair with LG G2, but surprisingly HTC has decided to equip it not with the latest silicon out there, but with the Snapdragon 600 system chip that was widely used in top devices from the first half of the year. The LG G2 in contrast uses the newest and more powerful Snapdragon 800. Both are quad-core chips and both are very fast, but even though you might not be able to tell the difference in regular use, the G2 with Snapdragon 800 is more future proof.

In terms of daily use, you can navigate around Android completely lag-free and core apps like the browser and camera work quickly on both. Digging deeper into the details, we see the new Krait 400 processor on the LG G2. This is a slightly improved version of the Krait 300 processing core on the One max, and it runs at up to 2.3GHz, faster than the 1.7GHz Krait 300. While the two handsets feature 2GB of RAM, the G2 also has the advantage of faster LPDDR3 RAM.

One area where the difference is apparent, though, is games. The HTC One max comes with an Adreno 320 graphical unit, while the G2 features the newest Adreno 330 that performs much better in graphically demanding games.

Internal storage is fixed at 32GB on the LG G2 and is not expandable whereas the HTC One max sports 16GB of internal storage, but with an easy to open back cover and a microSD card expansion slot you can bump this up by an additional up to 64 gigs.

Internet and Connectivity

Both devices feature mobile Chrome and a custom browser by the manufacturer. The LG browser features tons of customization options allowing you to tweak font size and save pages for offline reading, and the HTC one matches that even adding somewhat limited Adobe Flash support. Loading web pages on both is almost equally quick and scrolling around and zooming in and out are lag free.



Browsing is a joy on both as they support 4G LTE cellular connectivity and dual-channel Wi-Fi. Additional connectivity options include Bluetooth 4.0, A-GPS with Glonass, MHL and NFC.

Camera

The HTC One max inherits the UltraPixel technology of the original HTC One, and put simply this means we get a very similar 4-megapixel camera however this time without optical image stabilization. All this faces competition from a 13-megapixel optical image stabilized camera on the LG G2.

Firing up the camera app is a bit quicker on the HTC One max, but the LG G2 does not feel terribly slow either. The actual applications are very different. HTC gives you two large separate buttons, one for video and another for still image capture and it’s great to have one-tap access to both. LG instead relies on a switch you have to pull for going between video and stills. HTC further supports filters and allows you to manually tweak settings like ISO, white balance and exposure, but all those settings are hidden deep in hard to reach menus. The LG app in contrast features modes such as portrait and beauty shot that lack on the HTC device, plus all options are within easy reach and laid out in large buttons that are convenient to press.



The actual image quality is also vastly different. The HTC One max did not impress us in anyway as pictures on it turn bluish, cold and with low levels of detail. The LG G2 in contrast offers us outstanding image quality. Pictures on it turn out sharp, with excellent color fidelity and plentiful detail.

Indoors, the G2 has the edge as well since pictures on the HTC One max come up with lifeless cold colors. The flashlight on the G2 also lights up scenes more evenly and just works better.




Both devices are capable of recording 1080p video at 30 frames per second which will be what most users will shoot in. However, LG has the sizeable advantage of optical image stabilization that results in much smoother recordings. The G2 can also record videos at 60 frames per second, which makes them smoother, especially in motion shots. Most importantly, the LG G2 preserves its vivid, lively colors in video and adds smoothness to the recording. The HTC One max looks out of the G2’s league as it records cold-looking footage and lacks OIS.

Both phones also feature 2-megapixel front-facing cameras capable of 1080p video that come useful for selfies and video conferencing. The one on the LG G2 performs slightly better capturing sharper still whereas images on the front shooter of the One max appear a bit blurry.

Multimedia

Music lovers will definitely enjoy the HTC One max and the extra oomph its speakers deliver. These two front facing speakers are among the loudest we’ve ever heard on a smartphone and we’re seriously impressed with how well they sound. It’s worth mentioning that the One max is the first high-end HTC device in quite a while to ship without the Beats Audio logo and bass enhancing preset. The LG G2 sound output pales in comparison with its rival, but the built in LG music application has plentiful options and options that we appreciate like a full-blown equalizer and presets.



Having a large screen best plays out if you like watching a lot of videos, and coupled with not only a large but also a good screen, the HTC One max is the perfect companion for movie buffs on the go. The pleasing colors, wide movie codec support (the only codec we could not play back was DivX) and the impressively loud and clean sounding front speakers, make the One max a true multimedia powerhouse. The LG G2 also fares well with a spacious 5.2” display, but we mentioned its slightly colder than we like screen and with its tinny sounding speaker, watching videos is a bit less gratifying experience.

The image gallery on the HTC One max features the entertaining automatic highlights reels that combine all your daily photos and videos into a cinematic sequence with music. Neat! The LG G2 lacks that flare but also features a versatile gallery app with plenty of sharing options.

Call Quality

We are glad to hear clean and distortion-free performance of both the microphones and earpieces on the LG G2 and HTC One max. On our end of the line, we easily recognized the voices of our callers as they sounded full and natural, but a bit better on the LG device. Our callers reported the LG’s mic sounding clean and good with noise cancellation on the other end of the line as well, while the One max is a bit tinny and picks up side noises a bit more.

Battery

The LG G2 holds one of the top spots in our battery rankings and we’ve been continuously amazed by the longevity of its 3000mAh battery, but the HTC One max even tops that. The 5.9” HTC phablet comes with a 3300mAh juicer that would last most users two days, and if use the device rarely we could see it going into three-day territory. Neither device supports wireless charging out of the gate.

Conclusion

The HTC One max and LG G2 both run on Android, but that’s pretty much where the similarities end - these are two vastly different phones. The One max offers the bigger, 5.9” screen and while that might seem like a clear advantage, it works out like a double-edged sword since the device is so large and not comfortable to handle and carry. The LG G2 in contrast has a smaller, 5.2” display, but is surprisingly compact and easy to operate.

We have to admit that we like the nice vivid screen of the One max, its sturdy aluminum design and outstanding loud and clear front speakers, but in almost all else it’s a bit of underwhelming device. We are disappointed to see the Snapdragon 600 system chip instead of the latest Snapdragon 800, and we are particularly unhappy with the underperforming camera.

The LG G2 is not a perfect device (if we had to nit-pic, we'd say we are not perfectly happy with its bluish screen and the loudspeaker is a bit tinny), but it has the future-proof Snapdragon 800, a great 13-megapixel camera with optical image stabilization, and it’s compact and easy to handle. Plus, it costs less. The HTC One max is priced at $249 on Sprint and expected to cost a whopping $299 on Verizon (with a contract), and comparing this to the LG G2 cost varying from $50 to $150 on major carriers, it’s hard to see any justification for the One max price. If you plan on buying one of these off-contract, the difference is still big: the One max costs a whopping $700, compared to $530 for an unlocked LG G2. With all this in mind, the LG G2 easily wins our recommendation here.