HTC One Review

Now in 2013 we have the HTC One. It will be HTC’s only flagship device of the year, and the product tasked with turning around six consecutive quarters of loss. It certainly feels like a fresh start. The One displays incredible attention to detail, as if every single feature of the phone has been thought and rethought. HTC has pulled back from the unwinnable specs race, taken its own path in industrial design, and in the process has produced the most impressive Android phone we’ve ever seen.

HTC has returned to the aluminium unibody design that it helped pioneer and has now perfected. The phone feels incredibly solid, it is weighty but not heavy, and with a curved back helpsit fit comfortably in the hand. With a smaller than normal bezel down the edges of the screen, the phone is also a couple of millimetres narrower than you would normally expect of a 4.7-inch device, and that also has great ergonomic benefits.

The 1080p resolution over 4.7 inches gives a pixel density of 468ppi, higher than any other device. It is noticeably better than 720p displays, and also better than another 1080p display, in the Sony Xperia Z. The One has vastly superior viewing angles, far deeper blacks and more vibrant colours. It’s even viewable in the (winter) sun, although we might need to revisit it in a couple of months to see how it holds up in the middle of summer. The screen goes very bright if you need it to. We found the auto-brightness setting to be acceptable for most purposes, but a bit too dim for video viewing. A quick download of MX Player, with its own app-specifi c brightness setting, quickly rectifi ed that though.

There’s a quad-core Krait processor clocked at 1.7GHz, Adreno 320 graphics and 2GB of RAM, which all help things move along as smoothly as possible. It is aided to an extent by a version of HTC Sense that is much lighter than normal. All traces of lag were all but eliminated – any very minor jerks that we may have encountered were those that appear to be unavoidable realities of the Android OS. Our review unit had 32GB of storage, and a 64GB version is also available. Of that 32GB about 29GB was available out of the box.

Verdict 
With the One, HTC has demonstrated that it is one of the few companies willing to try something different. The combination of industry-leading design, high-quality components and genuine innovation in the software are great enough that you overlook its minor downsides, such as its slightly disappointing camera and the potential issues with storage shortage. Put simply, this is the best Android phone to date, and arguably better than any phone on any platform.

Battery life, It should get you through the day on normal use, but power users might need an end-of-day top-up.
Performance, Superfast and extremely powerful. We couldn’t find a single task to tax the One
Design, Miles ahead of the rest of Android. It’sbeautiful, with a very premium finish
Features, You can quibble about a few hardware issues, but the software is well thought out
Value for money , Like all flagships it is expensive. But you can see where your money has gone
Specs
» Operating system ...............Android 4.1.2
» Processor ................................... Snapdragon 1.7GHz quad-core
» Memory .......................................2GB RAM, 32GB storage
» Dimensions ..............................137.4 x 68.2 x 9.3mm
» Weight ..........................................143g
» Display size ...............................4.7-inch
» Display resolution ...............1080 x 1920 pixels
» Expansion slot ....................... None

Source : Android Magazine UK - Issue 24_ 2013