HTC’s 01 flagship phone of the year
combines bIeeding-edge spec and innovative with class-leading design. Is this
the one you’ve been waiting for?
IR port
The power button is located on the top-left
of the phone, and is a little hard to reach. However, it doubles up as an IR
port you can use to control your TV. It's one of the most welcome additional
features we've seen in some time
No expansion
The micro SIM slot is located on the
top-left edge, and the uncovered micro USB on the bottom. There's no space for
a micro SD card slot, and the battery cannot be replaced either
Aluminum unibody
The phone is crafted from a single block of
aluminum. The build quality is exceptionally high. It feels extremely solid,
high-end and looks fantastic
Dual-speakers
Two speakers are housed on the front,
neatly incorporated into the phone's design. They're pretty loud and since
they're facing you, give off great sound when you're watching videos
Two buttons
The only buttons below the screen are Back
and Home. The task switching function is assigned to a double-tap of the Home
button. At no point did we find ourselves pressing the HTC logo instead of a
button
Superfast data
The phone runs on 4G networks where
available and also supports 802.11ac Wi-Fi for superfast data connections in
excess of 100Mbps.
"With the One, HTC has
demondstrated that it is one of the few companies willing to try something
different."
Back in 2010 HTC was well placed to become
Android’s dominant manufacturer. It had popular ranges at all the key price
points and had also been chosen by Google to make the first Nexus phone. In
2011 it built too many mediocre handsets, with muddled branding and poor marketing
just at the time Samsung was making its move with the Galaxy S II, and all its
momentum was lost. In 2012, despite a recognition of its mistakes, the company
was still not able to turn a generally positive reception for its devices into
sales. 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.
Performance tests
As expected, the One betters two of the
biggest powerhouses on the Android market currently. It trumps the Xperia Z and
Note II in tests for CPU, graphics and browsing, something that was matched in
our real world experience. The HTC One delivered a seemingly unprecedented
level of speed and smoothness in an Android device.
The
HTC One delivered a seemingly unprecedented level of speed and smoothness in an
Android device
Design and build
The HTC One raises the bar for the design
of not only Android devices but all other smartphones. It’s safe to say that it
is in a class alone with the iPhone 5, but where such comparisons would
normally involve an amount of wishful thinking on the part of the Android camp,
here it is not so. You could easily argue that HTC has surpassed what Apple has
been doing - the One unquestionably looks like the more modern device, and is
beautiful.
HTC has returned to the aluminum 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 helps it fit
comfortably in the hand. With a smaller than normal bezel down the edges of the
screen, the phone is also a couple of millimeters narrower than you would
normally expect of a 4.7-inch device, and that also has great ergonomic
benefits.
Stereo speakers sit above and below the
screen and are nicely integrated as a design feature. Also below the screen are
capacitive buttons for Back and Home. The Menu button is now virtual and only
appears as and when needed, and the task switching function is assigned to a
double-tap of the Home button. The two buttons straddle an HTC logo in the center,
and although it is an irregular arrangement, we never had any issue with it.
Stereo
speakers sit above and below the screen and are nicely integrated as a design
feature.
The power button is located in the
top-left. This isn’t ideal, although in this instance the button serves a
secondary function as an IR remote control. Other features are minimal. The
micro SIM tray requires a tool to open, there’s no memory card slot and the
back plate is, of course, not removable.
Screen
The phone boots incredibly quickly, and
within about seven seconds you find yourself staring at the best screen on any
smartphone today. Like with last year’s One X the screen is laminated, meaning
there is no discernible gap between the actual display layer and the glass
above it. 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 colors. 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-specific brightness setting, quickly
rectified that though.
The HTC One is without equal when it
comes to design - this is the best-looking phone ever
