As the successor of last year's HTC flagship One X and as the only 4.7-inch smartphone with a full HD display (which results in record pixel density of 469 ppi), HTC One is already competing for the position of the best Android OS smartphone of the season. In order to fight off the competition from Samsung and increasingly dangerous companies like Sony and LG, HTC has equipped its One with several unique features that might prove to be game-changing in the eyes of many purchasers when deciding on which smartphone to buy.
Along with the aforementioned screen with its unprecedented pixel density, HTC One also brings an elegant aluminum unibody, Qualcomm's Snapdragon 600 chipset with four Krait 300 cores running a 1.7 GHz clock and Adreno 320 graphics, 2 GB of RAM, stereo speakers on the front side of the device, and the new Sense 5 UI, which provides a personalized information stream to the home screen known as BlinkFeed. Other features include a battery with a 2300 mAh capacity and an innovative back-facing camera that uses so-called "ultrapixels" -- sensors that capture three times more light than those used in most smartphone cameras. Although the latter feature will likely garner the most interest among potential purchasers, it in fact reveals the only serious shortcomings of the HTC One.
Editor's Note: This review is for the international version of the HTC One. For our review of the U.S. version, click here.
Build and Design
It is impossible not to notice how much HTC One resembles the Blackberry Z10 (as well as the iPhone 5) when seen from the front, and HTC's own Windows Phone 8X when seen from the back. However, despite this dose of unoriginality, this is a superbly designed device and everyone can see it is a top-notch model the moment they hold it in their hand. The aluminum unibody, which is 9 millimeters thick in the centre and slightly rounded, slims out to just 4 millimeters towards the edges. It feels fantastic when held in the hand, regardless of its size, and it gives the impression that this is a significantly thinner smartphone than its actual dimensions dictate (137 x 68 x 9 mm).
Apart from the display, the front also sports two stereo speakers (situated above and below the screen), a front-facing camera, and an ambience sensor. Two capacitive keys are on the bottom of the display (back and home) with the HTC logo in between. There is no menu activation key -- the user can chose whether they want the menus to activate with a long press of the back key or with gestures supported in Sense 5.
The back side features only the camera lens and flash, above which is a short slot in the aluminum unibody intended for NFC communications, since NFC signals cannot penetrate metal. The bottom edge includes a tiny microphone and a microUSB slot, equipped with MHL technology. The right side features the volume control switch, while the left includes a Micro-SIM card slot that is opened by a pin-like ejector, provided in the package.
The upper edge includes a 3.5-mm audio slot on the right side and a somewhat awkwardly-placed power key on the left side. Seeing how there are no physical keys on the screen surface, the only way to turn the device on from stand-by while holding it in the right hand is to press the power key with the forefinger. If this key were placed more logically on the right side, it could be reached with the thumb and the forefinger, but instead this setup takes getting used to even after several days of usage. The good thing is that the power key includes an infrared transmitter and the smartphone can be used as a universal remote control.
Display
The 4.7-inch, 1920 x 1080 full HD screen with Super LCD3 technology is surely the HTC One's strongest asset. So far, we have had the opportunity of seeing only 5-inch Full HD displays, which means pixel density is a record high on this device. The difference between imaging on a 469 ppi density display (HTC One) and 441 ppi (on 5-inch screens), however, is impossible to grasp with the naked eye. Still, due to other features this display offers, supreme imaging is far more emphasized on this device than on any other smartphone presented before HTC One.
It is not about the shorter diagonal, of course, but the wider viewing angle and the very good contrast this screen provides. Whiter tones are well lit -- they seem almost milky white. The colors are vivacious and precisely interpreted, while black tones are quite dark, although slightly "pushing" towards the bluer part of the spectrum. But this is a tiny flaw which has repercussions only on color saturation and does not decrease the superior imaging in practice.
I have only seen better contrast and color saturation on Super AMOLED screens, but if it is taken into account that the contrast is maintained on the HTC One even when the device is exposed to direct sunlight, it is even easier to forget about the bluish tone of the blacks. This is surely one of the best smartphone displays on the market, providing a rounded and pleasant experience. Purchasers will be more than pleased with it. It does not hurt to mention that the display is also covered with Gorilla Glass 2. It is quite reflexive and attracts a lot of fingertips, but it can easily be cleaned.
Performance and Battery Life
The quad-core Snapdragon 600 running a 1.7 GHz clock definitely pulled its weight on this device. The Qualcomm chipset is equally impressive on synthetic benchmarks -- which is not that important -- as it is in practice. According to AnTuTu benchmark, HTC One is approximately 10 percent faster than Sony's Xperia Z and LG's Optimus G Pro, scoring 22668, and almost 50 percent faster than the Samsung Galaxy S III. According to other speed measuring tools (Benchmark Pi, Linpack, Quadrant) -- it alternated among the top three positions with the aforementioned Sony and LG flagship models.
In reality, of course, when it comes to speed, the differences between the HTC One and the competition's top models cannot be spotted. Tasks take place without glitching, stopping, lag, or slowing down on these devices, regardless of whether the user is playing a graphically demanding game, forwarding video clips, zooming in and out or scrolling through web sites. Still, the advantages of the new Snapdragon generation are evident in other aspects, like economical energy consumption or the option of providing users with certain functions that older processors would find hard to handle (HTC Zoe, for example).
Thus, the HTC One has solid battery life, especially considering that Sense 5 uses radio communication relatively frequently, even on stand-by. At first, everyone with an HTC One will toy with it intensively in order to get acquainted with all of its options, and it will be difficult to really stretch out the battery life. But with average usage, recharging roughly every other night will be regular for owners of this smartphone.
HTC Sense 5 UI and BlinkFeed
HTC One comes with Android OS 4.1.2 (Jelly Bean) and Sense 5, the latest version of HTC's Sense UI, which includes significant differences compared to "pure" versions of Google's operating system and previous versions of Sense. Above all, the home screen has had the most alterations, with BlinkFeed taking up most of its space.
BlinkFeed is an information stream, drawing from the user's social networks and hundreds of news web sites and presented as a line of variously sized tiles. Due to design, BlinkFeed is reminiscent of Flipboard, the difference being that the tiles are not flipped through here, but moved downwards, as they are arranged in reverse chronological order (from the latest to the oldest).
The user can select which type of information they wish to see on BlinkFeed and according to default settings, it will be automatically refreshed every hour if Wi-Fi is used or every two hours if 3G or LTE is used. The user can also manually refresh their BlinkFeed at any moment. Touching an individual tile will take the user to the appropriate web site or social network application (Facebook, Twitter etc.).
BlinkFeed is not a standard widget and a different home screen cannot be selected, but it can be turned off altogether. This is an especially useful option for those who have limited data plans (e.g. those who often travel abroad), seeing as how BlinkFeed generates large amounts of data traffic. Understandably, with BlinkFeed, HTC targeted users who are used to transferring large amounts of data via smartphone, as typical flagship model purchasers are. BlinkFeed is a useful and exceptionally well-integrated Android OS software addition, but still, it is not something that significantly differentiates this device from the competition, given that there is a whole line of similar applications for this operating system.
A significant difference compared to others is that Sense UI 5 enables menu activation by gesture. Google, for one, intends to eliminate special menu keys on newer Android OS versions, forcing developers to place the keys within applications, but HTC has enabled menu activation with a swipe down. The user should keep in mind not to start the downward swipe from the upper edge of the screen, as this motion activates the notifications panel, but this is easy to get used to.
Other novelties boil down to a different lock-screen design, the option of setting up icons in the 3x4 or 4x4 formation in the applications drawer, and several useful widgets and applications that come preloaded on the device. HTC One can be switched to "Car mode", which provides enormous icons for navigation, telephone, music player etc. or "Kid mode", activating a limited group of educational games for children, while all other functions are unavailable. This is quite practical -- probably more useful than the prominent BlinkFeed.
Sound and Camera
HTC has put a lot of emphasis on this device's multimedia options -- to be precise, its BoomSound speakers and 4MP camera with ultrapixels. As far as the speakers go, they really do provide better sound than any other smartphone does, but if you turn them up full blast, i.e. the declared 93 dB, you will hear a great amount of distortion. Still, there is no room for serious objections. You will be using headphones or external speakers if you want to listen to music more seriously, while the built-in BoomSound is still better than what the completion has to offer.
On the other hand, the back-facing camera deserves some criticism. HTC has equipped it with a chip that includes three times greater sensors than common smartphone chips, which theoretically means they can perceive three times the amount of light. In practice, this should mean that photographs have evidently less noise (especially under poorly lit conditions) and that the images are sharper and purer, with precise exposure and better saturation than those taken with ?regular' sensors. This is why HTC has dubbed pixels captured by One as ultrapixels.
The problem is that there are only 4 million of these ultrapixels, i.e. the maximum resolution provided by the HTC One is 4 megapixels. True, the amount of pixels is not proportional to the photo quality. However, when a 13-megapixel photograph is resized to 4 megapixels, the amount of noise is drastically reduced, while its sharpness is drastically improved, along with all other features. Photographs taken by the HTC One are above average according to some criteria, partially due to the ultrapixels and partially due to the viewing angle of 22 mm with an f/2.0 aperture. However, I have seen better photographs taken with smartphones - sharper, better exposed, and better saturated - especially when it comes to greater shooting resolutions. The same thing goes for the video shooting quality -- HDR is supported, but you won't fall in love with it.
What might delight you is HTC Zoe, the shooting option which records several seconds of video every time a photograph is taken. Later on, a 30-second video can automatically be generated, depicting a certain situation (a birthday, vacation, trip?) which will consist of photographs and the short video fragments, with the option of adding special effects. This looks like Instagram for video -- with minimal effort, an effective and creative video can be made in a few seconds, which is an excellent option this device provides. Of course, it is one of the options enabled by its excellent Snapdragon 600 chipset.
Conclusion
Without a doubt, the HTC One is the best smartphones HTC has ever created and surely one of the best smartphones we will see in 2013. Its excellent display is impressive, as is its outstanding performance and great design. Its preloaded software caters to those who do not care about data usage and is a matter of taste. It comes with several practical additions, like the Car or Kids mode, but the device's multimedia options leave room for improvement. Still, with all the pros and cons taken into account, it's clear that whoever purchases HTC One will be very pleased with it.
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