I am not suggesting which one to buy, as that's upto you. So I'll just point out a few things about the Xperia Z and why someone should get it over the other two
* Superior Design, Build & Durability
* Water & Dust Resistance, for people with an outdoor lifestyle
* Faster Updates and least intrusive Android skin of all 3. Higher Quality software
* More RAM compared to HTC One, 1.8GB vs 1.5GB
And the most important one ( Not for all) XDA developer support. Let me not say anything but just quote Entropy512, who needs no introduction. Any GS2/3 owner will be well aware of him. He is one of the TOP and most respected developers for Galaxy line of devices. Here's what he says about Sony Xperia T/Z - (he is now developing for XZ)
I've had an Xperia T since late December -
it's a great device to work with, although in some aspects it (just like a Nexus) has an aspect of difficulty to it - the original firmware is of such high quality that you've got to be REALLY careful not to accidentally cause a regression.
Yes CM10.1 on the T has had some issues lately, but mostly that's due to failed experiments... Rebasing the kernel onto the Mako kernel proved to not be workable in the long run and switching back is taking longer than hoped. None of that is Sony's fault though, so even though things seem like a behind-schedule mess, the critical difference is: The more I worked with Samsungs the less hope I felt that I'd ever be able to reach completion. With the Sony, it's different - yeah there are some challenging roadblocks, but never such a mountain of broken **** you lose hope. See CM10 on the T - I think that's incredibly well polished at this point.
On Z specifically:
Still on just rooted stock... I'll probably switch to CM this weekend, more out of "I should be doing more work on this device than using it to kick ass at Ingress" than out of any dislike for the stock firmware... Stock on this device is NICE.
Here's what he said about Galaxy S4's OCTA CPU vs Z
It's sad how many sheep are falling for Samsung's misleading "Octa" marketing which (falsely) implies that the device has 8 cores of equal capability.
IT DOES NOT.
It is a quad core device, with four additional low-power cores. More proper marketing would be 4+4 (kind of like Nvidia's 4+1 marketing).
There's also no benefit to having four low-power cores... In any situation where you'd drop to the lowpower cores, you'll also be hotplugging out all of the extra cores. A single low-power core will provide nearly all of the power reduction benefits of a full set of low-power cores. Yes, it'll be easier to handle migration in software - but it's throwing a pile of hardware resources (hardware cost) at a software problem to make up for Samsung's utterly ****ty track record with regards to software integration and quality control. Heck, look at ICS on the I9100 - they couldn't even get basic cpufreq policy limit implementation right with that release!
Samsung's architecture doesn't handle asymmetric core loading well at all. If you have one core maxed out, and want to run some light tasks on a second core - guess what, you have to light up that second core and run it at full tilt. Samsung has a whitepaper that claims this is a good thing, but if you look at their architecture closely (check the cpuidle driver in arch/arm/mach-exynos of their kernels...) you'll notice a nasty flaw - All of the deeper cpuidle states are disabled if more than one core is active. This means that the second core is consuming almost as much power as if it were running at 100% load even if it might only be running at 10% load. Snapdragon can actually reduce the clock/voltage of additional cores that are active but lightly loaded.
Of course, the most important thing is software integration - absolutely awesome hardware means nothing if the software supporting it is ****. Look at the Galaxy Nexus - Thanks to Google and TI doing a great job of integrating the "Project Butter" capabilities of Jellybean, the Galaxy Nexus delivers smoother UI performance with a dual 1.2 GHz Cortex-A9 than the GS3 can with quad 1.4 GHz A9s...
That is what you will get with the Galaxy S4 - Awesome hardware paired with utterly crap software, leading to an overall crap experience. With the Xperia Z, you'll get great hardware paired with great software - for an overall great experience.
On HTC and S4
As to HTCs - they're a ***** to work with and HTC is even worse than Samsung at GPL compliance. HTC is also more zealous than any other manufacturer about sending lawyers after people. (Technically the latest round was DxO - but is it a coincidence it primarily affected HTC devices? Probably not.)
And Galaxy S4 - should've been called the Galaxy S3s - *yawn*
Z is awesome.
P.S. The above are the words of a highly respected ELITE XDA developer, not mine !. So if any Samsung fanboy's ego is hurt please go and argue with Entropy512 on XDA and not me. Thanks !!
Now coming to the screen of the Xperia Z. The first batch of Xperia Z used panel lottery system like Samsung TVs. 80% have Sharp panels, while the rest have JDC 1 and JDC 2 panel. ALL demo units have the worst quality - JDC 2 panel. So what you see in demo units is not what you'd probably get.
Let me summarize the three screens quick
1. Sharp - 1000:1 + Contrast Ratio, on par with the best screens on the market.
2. JDC 2 - 700:1 Contrast Ratio, This is what GSMArena got. It's the middle quality panel with worse blacks than Xperia S
3. JDC 1 - 450:1 Contrast Ratio. This is the worst panel of all and is found in ALL demo units and some retail units in Europe. I really have no words about this panel. It's a joke. You are 100% likely to see this panel in Demo Z at Croma and other outlets. EXtremely weak blacks and washed out colors with poorer viewing angles than even S/SL
Most of Asia has got the Sharp panel which is as good as Butterfly/One/One X/Xperia TX/Lumia 920 screens. There is very little chance you will NOT get this panel but to be sure
Buy a Z manufactured AFTER February 2013. Only the early batch uses panel lottery. February onwards 100% Sharp panels only are used. You can checkout the ZL screen to get an idea about the Sharp panel on Z. All ZL have Sharp panels.
So best thing to do is buy a fresh stock Z next month, you'll get the high quality Sharp panel.
Also screen calibration app will be provided by Sony in 4.2.2 update coming in 2 weeks.
In short, Z screen is NOT inferior to Butterfly/One or any other phone but the fact that ALL demo/review units feature poor quality JDC panels. Most Retail Z in India have Sharp panels which has good black levels and high contrast along with accurate colors. I've seen one myself so I do know what I'm talking about.
