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Released around the time when Samsung was building up the hype for their Samsung Galaxy S4 flagship smartphone, the Samsung Galaxy Grand is an entry-level to mid-range smartphone with a relatively large 5-inch screen. Designed for those on a budget, the smartphone has less features than some of the other Samsung models but offers some good basic performance with a large screen. For some people this is more than enough. Read on to see if one of these people is you.

Design

Since it was released around the time when the Samsung Galaxy SIII was still relevant, the Samsung Galaxy Grand looks just like a larger version of the former flagship smartphone. While it does pack a larger 5-inch screen the resolution is just 480 x 800 pixels for a rather low 187 ppi pixel density. You can still watch HD videos on it with reasonable viewing angles, but details are definitely less sharp compared to similarly sized screens with higher resolution. Build quality is good, if a bit plastic and a little slippery, as the backplate doesn't have the same patterned look and feel as the Samsung Galaxy SIII. Due to the larger screen size, it does weigh in a bit heavier at 162g but it should fit well for those with larger hands. The buttons are also larger while the icons on the interface are about tablet sized.

In many ways, the HTC One is a pioneer, innovating upon features that most Android smartphones lack. It was the first premium Android smartphone to offer more than just a plastic casing and paid much more focus to design (almost like the Apple iPhone). It offers features like Full 1080p HD on a 4.7-inch screen, an UltraPixel camera and software features which you won't find on any other smartphone. Is this the smartphone for you though? Read on and find out.

Design / Appearance

Before the HTC One, most Android smartphones all looked the same, were basically made out of plastic and looked downright boring. The HTC One shook things up by taking the same design approach as the Apple iPhone, giving much thought and focus to a new tough metal unibody chassis with a rounded brushed metal back. In making the overall smartphone, HTC designers decided to stick to a zero-gap construction, which makes for a beautiful smartphone with no gaps in between the components. The result is a nearly sealed case apart from the earphone jack and micro-USB port. In short, the HTC One is one of the most beautiful smartphones in the market, even after so many other Android smartphones have followed or tried to follow what it did.

We've always felt that the HTC Butterfly and by extension the HTC Butterfly S never really got the attention and hype that they deserved. During the HTC Butterfly's time this was because HTC was pinning it's hopes of salvation on the HTC One but now that that time has passed the stigma seems to have overshadowed the HTC Butterfly S. Regardless, some people have gone and proven that the HTC Butterfly S for one is worthy of more than just a second glance as it manages to beat the flagship HTC One in performance benchmarks despite having the same Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 processor and chipset. This is probably because the HTC One is clocked at 1.7GHz while the HTC Butterfly S is clocked at 1.9GHz.

Ever wondered which smartphone would last the longest or have the longest battery life? Well, it isn't just you as some testers from UK have put the Samsung Galaxy S4, Sony Xperia Z, HTC One, Apple iPhone 5, Google Nexus 4, BlackBerry Z10 and Nokia Lumia 920 through a number of battery tests for call time, internet usage and charging time. The results may shock you but do check out the results:

Last time we got a peek at Samsung's internal testing for their smartphones, so this time around we have some internal testing and quality control from Nokia. Like all the other smartphone makers Nokia does tumbler testing, heat testing, water testing and other forms of endurance testing. Check it out for yourself below but do note that the testing is only for Nokia Asha phones so if you're hoping for a Lumia torture test you're out of luck.

We've already seen how powerful the Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 chipset and processor is from benchmarks done with the Samsung Galaxy S4 LTE-A but it won't be very useful if it doesn't have good energy efficiency. Testing this out, it was recently put through some synthetic battery tests for 3D rendering, Video Playback and Browsing. According to the testers, the other Samsung Galaxy S4 version in the bunch is the Exynos 5 Octa powered I9500. From the benchmark results it shows that the Samsung Galaxy S4 LTE-A gets more or less the same performance with the Samsung Galaxy S4 I9500 in Browsing and Video Playback but beats the Samsung Galaxy S4 I9500 in 3D rendering (probably due to the better Adreno 330 GPU the Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 chipset has).

The new Samsung Galaxy S4 LTE-A packs in Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon 800 chipset which among others includes a 2.3Ghz Quad-core processor and Adreno 330 Graphics. There are two other earlier versions with the Samsung Galaxy S4 I9500 powered by Samsung's Exynos 5 Octa and the Samsung Galaxy S4 I9505 powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 600 chipset. While we'd love to see the battery performance, we have seen the overall performance benchmarks in both AnTuTu and Quadrant.

Imagine an x86 tablet doing a benchmark for Android devices like AnTuTu and you'll get some pretty high scores. Imagine that with the Samsung ATIV Q, one of the most powerful x86 based tablets in existance and you'll get AnTuTu scores that beat out everything else in the market. Thanks to the dual nature of the Samsung ATIV Q it was able to run the AnTuTu Benchmark and got an AnTuTu score of 54861. So far, the highest AnTuTu score was previously Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 devices with AnTuTu scores of around 33000 points.

Of course, this is by no means a fair apples vs oranges comparison since the Samsung ATIV Q is packing a very fast Intel Core i5 and 4GB of RAM while even the fastest smartphone is still limited to 2GB of RAM and a much more energy efficient processor and chipset. Will we ever see Intel Core i5's in Smartphones or smaller sized tablets? Probably not, as for that market, Intel is using the Atom based Silvermont range which have so far still not beaten the Qualcomm Snapdragon 800. It does point towards a more promising future for Intel in mobile (and more powerful devices for us) if they manage to pull off the same sort of performance for the processors meant for the mobile market.

In a recent set of benchmark tests, Qualcomm showed off their latest Snapdragon 800 chipset, which will appear in premium smartphones later in 2013. Already, there are rumours of a Snapdragon 800 powered Samsung Galaxy S4 Plus smartphone. The benchmarks carried out by Qualcomm are impressive to say the least. According to Qualcomm, the Snapdragon 800 series will be Quad-core processors called the Krait 400 fabricated a 28nm. Each core will run at 2.3 GHz and the processor will use a new Adreno 330 GPU. The chip will also integrate a 4G LTE modem that can go up to 150 Mbps and support 802.11ac WiFi.

While we've seen any number of drop tests between the Samsung Galaxy S4 and the Apple iPhone 5, we've never seen how much punishment each device can actually take. The video below shows just that, putting both smartphones through total destruction tests to see just how tough and durable each smartphone is. The results may surprise you, especially considering that one is made from a supposedly tougher aluminum unibody, while another is mostly premium plastic. Granted, the Samsung Galaxy S4 does have Gorilla Glass 3 but this is only good for screen related tests.