Xavier
Galvanizer
HTC has introduced a device it hopes will help in regaining its Android crown - the HTC One.
Frankly, there’s not a lot here that hasn’t already been spoiled by an insane number of leaks over the past few weeks, but the One is still a terribly pretty handset. The One sports a 4.7-inch 1080p display (pixel density: 468ppi) flanked on either side by white or black trim not entirely unlike the BlackBerry Z10. Naturally, the internals are nothing to scoff at either — inside its sleek, gently curved aluminum unibody chassis, are one of Qualcomm’s new quad-core Snapdragon 600 chipsets clocked at 1.6GHz, 2GB of RAM, and 32 or 64 GB of internal flash storage.
HTC has also gone to town with the One’s camera — with its so-called “Ultrapixel†sensor HTC is trying to transcend the megapixel race entirely. An f/2.0 lens helps the cause here, but the company insists that its newfangled sensor collects “300 percent more light†than those of its rivals. Through in a living room play in the form of an IR blaster and a HTC-branded remote control/guide app powered by Peel and you’ve got yourself a neat little package.
The new and improved Sense 5 UI is Sense 5 is easily the cleanest, least obtrusive version of HTC’s custom UI to date. It’s a drastic step away from the sorts of overly gaudy, overwrought interfaces the company used to be so fond of.
Google’s Roboto typeface is featured prominently throughout and Sense’s icons and widgets are flatter and more in line with Jelly Bean’s cold digital aesthetic. The biggest addition though is a new feature called BlinkFeed, which pulls in content from thousands of sources (think ESPN, AOL’s media properties, The Verge, Reuters, and more), and dumps them into an activity stream that acts as the device’s homescreen.
Meanwhile, a series of four (that’s a hard limit) more standard homescreens can be accessed by swiping to the left from BlinkFeed. For better or worse, there’s no way to turn the feature off — rather, users can pop into the settings and trim down the list of sources that BlinkFeed pulls its content from.
HTC has said that the One will ultimately be available from 185+ wireless carriers the world over starting in March, but here in the States, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile will be the ones to carry HTC’s latest flagship. Sorry, Verizon fans — there’s no official word on why Verizon turned down the One, but it’s not a huge shock considering that the Droid DNA is still relatively new to their lineup.
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So, this is HTC's 2013 flagship. Looks good on paper as well as in the pictures, but I feel that they should have taken the Sony route and used a 5 inch display without increasing its dimensions. Although one should note that this phone does have dedicated capacitive buttons, so the usable screen size will be more or less the same as the Sony Xperia Z. I expect it to have a better display than the Z in terms of viewing angles, colour reproduction and contrast. The Z has been underwhelming on these accounts as per most reviews. I am not sure about this UltraPixel thing that they are touting and I hope that it's more than a gimmick.
The One X showed a lot of promise in 2012 but unfortunately couldn't get the job done and ended up being a distant second to the runaway success of the Galaxy S3. Will the HTC One defy this tradition and climb to the top of the Android smartphone pile?
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