Counted among the best smartphones of 2013, both Sony Xperia Z and the HTC One are excellent buys. For readers who are considering one between the two, here is a comparison they may find useful.

Design and Display

In terms of display and the body design, both the phones are very similar; the Sony Xperia Z comes with 139 x 71 x 7.9 mm dimensions and weighs 146 grams. It comes with a 5 inch TFT capacitive touch screen rendering 1080 x 1920 pixel resolution.

The HTC One comes with 137.4 x 68.2 x 9.3 mm dimensions and weighs 143 grams. It comes with 4.7 inch Super LCD3 capacitive touch screen rendering 1080 x 1920 pixel resolution.

Hardware and Operating System

The Sony Xperia Z comes with a Quad-core 1.5 GHz Krait processor and Qualcomm MDM9215M or APQ8064 chipset. It runs on the Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean operating system, which can be upgraded.

The HTC One comes with a Quad-core 1.7 GHz Krait 300 processor and a Qualcomm APQ8064T Snapdragon 600 chipset. It runs on the Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean operating system, which can be upgraded.

Both the phones come with 2 GB RAM.

Colours

The Sony Xperia Z comes in three colours - Black, White and Purple. The HTC One comes in Black, Silver, Red, Blue and those who have some spare change can also go for a 24 carat Gold version of the phone.

Camera

This is perhaps the biggest differentiator between the two smartphones. The Sony Xperia comes with a 13.1 MP camera with 4128x3096 pixels, autofocus and LED flash. The secondary camera is 2.2 MP.

HTC One has taken a big risk in terms of camera, according to analysts. It comes with a 4 MP with 2688 x 1520 pixels, autofocus and LED flash. There have been problems reported by a few users with the camera, while taking pictures in low light. The secondary camera is 2.1 MP.

Price

The Sony Xperia Z 4G LTE with 16 GB internal memory is available for about AU$799.95. The HTC One 4G LTE with 32 GB internal memory is available for about AU$659.95.

Users should however consider that the Sony Xperia Z is a waterproof smartphone that can be submerged in depths of up to 1.5 meters for 30 minutes. The company will soon be launching the Xperia Z2, click here to read the latest rumours and leaked specs of the phone.