There are three things that strike you as you take HTC’s new flagship Android smartphone, the One X, out of its box. The first is how big the screen is; the second how thin and light it is for such a large phone; and, the third, how gorgeous its curved design looks.
In the 130g HTC One X, the Taiwanese handset manufacturer has developed, from this reviewer’s standpoint at least, the best-looking smartphone made to date. Yup, even better than the iPhone. Of course, we must qualify that statement a little since we haven’t got our hands on a Samsung Galaxy S3 yet, which is the phone the One X is going up against. We’re taking delivery of an S3 on Friday and we’ll have a review up next week.
The One X is so packed full of nifty hardware and software features that it’s almost impossible to cover them all in a 1 000-word review. And it’s also difficult to know where to start to unpack it all. But start we must, so let’s begin with that monster of a screen.
Measuring 4,7 inches diagonally, it features Corning’s Gorilla Glass, making it scratch resistant and toughened for shocks, and offers a screen resolution of 720×1280 pixels for a pixel density of 312ppi. That’s close to the iPhone 4S’s “Retina” display density of 326ppi and the result is simply brilliant, especially on the much bigger display than the one offered on the Apple device. When viewing high-resolution images, it actually feels like you’re looking at a printed photograph rather than a screen.
Though some consumers may feel the One X is actually too big — especially those with smaller hands and those who like to be able to reach every corner of the screen easily with one hand — we think the size works well. Samsung’s Galaxy Note, at 5,3 inches, was a bit too big. But 4,7 inches is great for quickly scanning full-version websites and then drilling down into the content we’re looking for.
The Super IPS LCD2 capacitive touchscreen serves up 16m colours. Though perhaps not as vibrant as the Super Amoled displays preferred by Samsung, the brightness and pixel density more than make up for it. And the screen is still readable in direct sunlight, which is an improvement over the earlier HTC Sensation.
With such a big screen, the next concern prospective buyers will have is battery life, but it’s actually surprisingly good. The 1 800mAh battery delivers a full day’s battery, though you may have to top it up in the early evening if you’ve been using it very heavily. Most of the time, you should be able to forgo the power cable between waking up in the morning and going to sleep again in the evening.
Though the battery is not as big as the mammoth 2 100mAh one found in the Samsung Galaxy S3, it’s still generously sized and offers reasonable life given the hungry quad-core processor and large screen.
HTC has taken a minimalistic approach to the One X’s hardware. The left of the phone features only the power/USB port while the right side has only the volume rocker. The 3,5mm audio jack is at the top, along with the on/off button and the Sim tray. Taking a cue from Apple, the phone does not open, meaning the battery is not user replaceable — one of the few ticks against this phone, but a decision that helped HTC make the One X looks so sleek and gorgeous.
Arguably the biggest improvement in the One X — at least in comparison with previous HTC’s — is the camera and the software that powers it. The 8-megapixel shooter, which has its own imaging chip, features LED flash and autofocus and can shoot up to 20 photos in continuous shooting, and the software allows you to quickly delete the pictures you don’t like. It can even shoot 1080p high-definition video and take still images at the same time. Image quality is excellent for a smartphone, but obviously not as good as the results you’d get on a dedicated D-SLR.
The speed with which you can take photos is greatly improved — usually only a few seconds from pocket to picture — ensuring you’re less likely to miss an action shot. It really is lightning fast. There’s also face detection and auto-smile capture (which only seems to work some of the time). Naturally, ISO settings are also user configurable.
As you could guess, the One X runs the latest and greatest version of Google’s Android, the curiously named Ice Cream Sandwich. As you could probably also guess, it’s overlaid with the latest version of HTC’s Sense user interface, which offers design tweaks to Android as well as a handful of apps.
Sense has always been a bit controversial, especially among Android fans who prefer the plain vanilla operating system without fancy overlays. But we’ve always been a bit partial to it. There’s something about the clock/weather widget in particular, with its retro design, that really appeals. The ability to drag four user-customisable apps into a ring to open them when the phone is in lock mode is also a nice touch, though it’s not new to the latest version of Sense.
Of course, Sense also has its downsides, the biggest of which is that it takes HTC a long time to push Android updates to its customers because it has to rework the user interface to ensure compatibility.
The One X offers seven home screens and a wide range of HTC widgets, from an in-car app that provides access to software you’re likely to need when driving to a music player.
Speaking of music, the phone has 32GB of built-in storage (but no microSD slot), of which about 26GB is available to the user — plenty of space for most people’s music collections. However, the audio quality through the built-in speakers is middling and a little tinny. But when we plugged in a pair of Beats noise-cancelling headphones — HTC owns Beats — audio playback was very impressive across the range. Even music streamed using TuneIn Radio sounded about as good as uncompressed CD-quality audio.
All in all, the HTC One X is one of the top two best Android smartphones in the market today. Sense works well on Android 4.0, the design styling is world-class, the screen is absolutely gorgeous and the camera is brilliant. What’s not to like, right?
In fact, the only real problem with the One X is not of HTC’s making. It’s called the Samsung Galaxy S3, which may have pipped it to the post. We’ll find out next week and let you know what we think. But if you’re already a fan of HTC and Sense, you simply won’t go wrong adding the One X to your upgrade cart. — (c) 2012 NewsCentral Media