Last month I wrote an article asking readers which phone they thought would come out ahead as the more popular device this year. Although this will be an ongoing battle between the Samsung Galaxy S6 and the HTC One M9 over the course of the year, we can now paint a much more accurate picture of which one we, the consumers, like the most.

In my article, I predicted that the Samsung Galaxy S6 would be the one that brought the most surprises and would “wow” people the most. Fast forward to today, and I feel like the Galaxy S6 did indeed steal the show over the HTC One M9.

I did write an article earlier today talking about how I felt that the design changes in the Galaxy S6 weren’t worth the two (arguably) major sacrifices that Samsung had to make in order to get there. I meant what I said, but that doesn’t mean I don’t think that the Samsung Galaxy S6 isn’t still a great device – it just happened to get rid of two very important (and seldom seen anymore) features that many people still wanted to see out of Samsung. As disappointing as that is, I can’t exactly call the Galaxy S6 or the S6 Edge “underwhelming”, which is a term I had used when discussing the HTC One M9.

I’ve been a big fan of the HTC One since the M7 made its debut in 2013, and not-so-big of a fan of the Galaxy S4 given my less-than-ideal experience with the device. In 2014, I was given the chance to do a 30-Day Challenge for the M8, and was also happy with the device (but not with the size). I’m one of the few that actually didn’t mind the UltraPixel camera, and was in fact happy with the results the pictures made. As for the Galaxy S5, I ended up feeling indifferent about it.

Visually, though, I guess I am a bit underwhelmed by the HTC One M9 this year. I think it still looks good, but when you’ve already seen it once, there’s not a whole lot of wow-ing going on.

That Galaxy S6, though. Yeah, it does look good on the outside. Like, really good – I even like the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge, which I think makes the whole “edge” concept look better when there are two sides instead of just one. And I’ve never been a big fan of TouchWiz myself, but I do notice a bit of a clean-up going on there. Nothing as drastic as I had hoped, though.

On the spec-side of things, it’s hard to tell at this point if there’s a clear winner in how they measure up to each other. They’re about the same size (S6 has a 5.1-inch display, One has a 5-inch); each has 3GB of RAM; each uses an octa-core processor, although HTC went with Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 and Samsung went with their own Exynos 7420; the S6 has a much higher pixel density (577 ppi compared to 441); HTC has a 20-megapixel rear-facing camera vs. Samsung’s 16-megapixel, but Samsung’s uses OIS and HTC’s doesn’t (why?); Samsung took away the microSD card this year, but offers larger internal storage options, and HTC only has a 32GB option for the M9 but has a microSD card slot; the S6 features a 2550 mAh battery, and the One features a 2840. Both run on Android Lollipop.

So, either way you go you’re going to get a flagship experience. It just depends on which sacrifices you personally are willing to make if you’re looking to buy one of these two devices. Would you rather have a 16-megapixel camera with OIS over a 20-megapixel one that doesn’t, or would you rather have the opportunity to expand your memory with microSD cards? At least the two are on par when it comes to the quality of materials they’re made out of – that is no longer truly an issue.

At the end of the day, we are presented with two wonderful phones. When it comes to which one will be liked the most and produce the most sales, though, I still predict that the Galaxy S6 will continue to win over consumers despite the loss of microSD and removable battery.