Motorola Moto X 2014 vs Sony Xperia Z3 vs HTC One M8 Detailed Comparison: The Flagship Face-off!

By Adelyn Torralba Oct 10, 2014 08:03 AM EDT

Battle of the Androids — (Photo : YouTube)

Motorola Moto X 2014 vs Sony Xperia Z3 vs HTC One M8 Detailed Comparison: The Flagship Face-off!

Three of the biggest phone manufacturers: Motorola, Sony and HTC, have released their best phones that they can offer, but which phone will be crowned king of Android smartphones for this year, 2014? Let's check them out.

First off, we'll start with the telecommunications veteran Motorola, with their brand new Motorola Moto X 2014. Moto X was announced and released on September, and may be regarded as the last Android phone that Motorola will make before its future acquisition by Lenovo - but nevertheless, let's take a look at its features.

According to GSM Arena, the phone is offered in 16 and 32 GB variants, and has the latest Snapdragon 801 2.5GhZ Krait 400 processor, in which the best Qualcomm chipset has to offer. It also has a 5.2-inch AMOLED display protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 3, and a 13-megapixel camera, with Ultra-HD video recording. It also features gesture controls via its built-in IR sensors, a customizable back cover, and a non-removable 2,300 mAh battery.

However, some disadvantages of the Moto X include a lack of an SD card expansion slot, a rather low battery capacity, a mono loudspeaker, and a slightly lower 2GB RAM compared to the next two phones that we will evaluate.

Next up on our list is the phone of the Taiwanese smartphone giant, HTC One M8. The company has released several of their devices that won design and functionality awards, and this one is no exception.

The One M8 also features a Snapdragon 801 processor, according to a different review from GSM Arena, clocked at 2.3GhZ, and has 3GB of RAM. Its smaller 5-inch screen is more one-hand friendly and has a higher pixel density, so you'll be getting crispier images and text. It also has a high-quality dual 4-megapixel camera, NFC, and arguably the best audio output among all smartphones, with the help of its BoomSound speakers. Design-wise, it's one of the best smartphones with its beautiful metal unibody with superb finish and tactile feel.

On the other side, it has a few drawbacks, like its 4-megapixel camera which may turn off people who like large prints, no Ultra HD video recording unlike the Moto X, and the non user-replaceable battery.

Last on our comparison is Sony's Xperia Z3. Sony likes to surprise the smartphone audience, and it definitely is one of the more anticipated phones in its batch, because of some cool features other smartphones doesn't have. Here's our take on it.

The Sony Xperia Z3 is powered by the Snapdragon 801 2.5 GhZ processor, has 3GB of RAM, and features a generous 5.2-inch display, made from shatter-proof glass. According to GSM Arena's review, it has a remarkably large 20.7-megapixel camera, capable of taking videos in 4K resolution. Its 16 or 32GB of storage can be expanded to 128GB via an SD card slot. It also has a long-lasting 3,100mAh battery and a cool feature only Sony can offer - an IP68 certification, in which the phone is dustproof and water-resistant over 1 meter of water for 30 minutes.

This behemoth of a phone has some weaknesses, however - the battery is again, non-removable, and it's the biggest of the three phones we featured - most of the time you will need your two hands in using this new Xperia.

Of course, all of the phones have 1920x1080 display resolution, LTE connectivity, Android KitKat 4.4, and front cameras for taking selfies and other photos. Although the battle looks very tight, it's hard to decide who won; it's up to you who stood up the most.