LG’s Optimus 4X HD is the South Korean firm’s highest-end smartphone at the moment, and it aims to battle the flagship offerings of its competitors. In contrast, HTC’s One S is positioned somewhat lower in the Taiwanese company’s range of smartphones. However, there may be far more similarities than these phones’ market positioning would suggest.

Both phones execute their clearly different design philosophies very well. The HTC One S used a curved, organic style, while the LG Optimus 4X HD stuck to a sharp, angular design.

The two devices have different screen sizes and screen resolutions, as well as underlying display technologies. The One S has a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED display with 940 x 540 pixels of resolution, which works out to 256ppi of density. In contrast, the Optimus 4X HD features a 1280 x 720 HD IPS display, which gives it 312ppi of density. Contrast and color reproduction are impressive for both devices, but the LG handset should have an advantage in sunlight visibility.

The Optimus 4X HD has a quad-core Tegra 3 chipset paired with 1GB of RAM. While its two extra cores over the One S’ Snapdragon S4 chipset provide a distinct marketing advantage, performance is just about equivalent, particularly in terms of the user interface experience on the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich that both phones run on.

On the whole, it all depends on usage patterns. If you want a phone that’s going to be used primarily for watching video on the go, the Optimus 4X HD, with its 720p screen should be the better option. However, for day-to-day use, either phone should be an excellent choice.