The HTC One X for AT&T Review
by Brian Klug on May 1, 2012 6:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Snapdragon
- HTC
- Qualcomm
- MSM8960
- Krait
- Mobile
- Tegra 3
- HTC One
- NVIDIA
The One X has a 4.7“ 1280x720 display that’s beautiful, dubbed the ”infinity screen.“ In fact, that’s really all you need to know about it - it’s absolutely wonderful, and honestly if you’re concerned with mobile displays just stop right there. At above 4.5” diagonal, 720p seems to be the new norm, and the combination of that 4.7" diagonal size and 720p on the HTC One X results in a PPI of 312. HTC shipped a device with an LCD display last year whose pixel density exceeded the iPhone 4/4S Retina Display for the first time in the HTC Rezound, which was 341 PPI.
Nevertheless the HTC One X still has subpixels small enough that I can’t visually distinguish them at all but from the most extreme distances. In addition, because it’s LCD you get an RGB stripe as opposed to PenTile RGBG like what currently ships on Samsung’s SAMOLED HD displays at 720p in the Galaxy Nexus.
I did some poking around, and my HTC One X (AT&T) review unit has a Sony display:
[DISP] mipi_video_sony_hd720p_init: assign initial setting for SONY_NT id 0x18103 Cut1, PANEL type = PANEL_ID_ELITE_SONY_NT
The panel goes extremely bright, at over 500 nits maximum, and has top of the chart contrast. As always I characterized the One X display using a combination of ColorHCFR and an i1D2 and Francois’ excellent Voodoo Screen Test Pattern generator application.
I’ve made both the color.chc file and measures available. The CIE diagram shows that HTC’s Infinity Display has very close to sRGB coverage, however color temperature is on the red side at just under 6000K. That’s really my only gripe, and curiously enough the One S with SAMOLED qHD displays are closer to 6500K than the LCD packing HTC One Xes.
Viewing angles look good on the HTC One X, there's no visible color shift at extreme angles. Outdoor viewing is also pretty good on the HTC One X, thanks in part to optical bonding between the display glass and LCD itself. One fewer air gap means fewer Fresnel reflections which quickly turn a display into a mess outdoors.
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Stormkroe - Wednesday, May 2, 2012 - link
The confusion comes from the fact that doubling power to a speaker gains you roughly 3 dB, so a speaker at 600 watts is only around 3 dB louder than the same speaker at 300 watts. Those darned sine waves :)ssddaydream - Saturday, May 5, 2012 - link
True, but the brain tends to perceive 10dB as twice as loud, even though it is 10X the power.I agree that any graphs should be on the dB scale, so that it is easier to judge differences.
EarthsDM - Wednesday, May 2, 2012 - link
Hi Brian, thanks for the review. What pages do you use for the mobile battery life test? Are they mobile formatted? Do they have Flash?Peanutsrevenge - Wednesday, May 2, 2012 - link
If it wasn't for the lack of removable battery/storage, I would be all over this like a fanboy to Apple, but I would much prefer even a 5mm thicker phone to have those options.I need to change batteries roughly once a week around 2-3pm and I'm not sure the added battery life over my Sensation would always see me through.
The removable storage... I just prefer to have it even though I only occasionally use it.
Nice review as always though chappies!
dcollins - Wednesday, May 2, 2012 - link
I want this phone so badly. Would an unlocked version work on Verizon's network?Impulses - Wednesday, May 2, 2012 - link
Absolutely not.ssddaydream - Saturday, May 5, 2012 - link
?It should be possible with proper hacking. The Rezound can essentially be modified into a world phone, since it has GSM hardware.
The One X does have the required basebands. It will likely not work at all on T-mobile though.
Never say never, it is technically possible. I suspect the probability isn't too high, but where would we be today if everybody thought everything was impossible?
icrf - Wednesday, May 2, 2012 - link
"high-end smartphones (I refuse to call them superphones)"thank you
georgekn3mp - Wednesday, May 2, 2012 - link
Im still loving my HTC Rezound 6 months later...and wondering why they backpedaled in some ways.Rezound has 16GB internal and 16 GB secondary SD and can expand to 80GB with a 64GB card...
Rezound has true LCD 1280x720, vs. One X SAMOLED...guess that one could be a toss-up to user preferences as both screens are rated top in reviews...especially compared to Pentiles. So it didnt oversaturate colors..thats a good thing.
Rezound has removable battery and can be upgraded to 2750 extended battery or higher.
Of course I'd love to know why Anand never published a Rezound review when I know they had said they had one!
The camera on One X "may" be better but Rezound has an awesome lens too, even if it had issues with white-balance on default settings sometimes. Replacement camera apps seem to resolve that.
I cant wait to see what ICS does on a OTA upgrade from Verizon...even if it's only Sense 3.5 for Rezound vs Sense 4 on One X it should still have better performance on Rezound on ICS over Rezound on Gingerbread. Alternate ROMS have shown that power...
On Gingerbread with extended battery I easily get 24 hours battery life, I can only hope ICS isn't worse.
PLUS HTC has boot unlocker now...
dagamer34 - Thursday, May 3, 2012 - link
The One X has a Super LCD 2 display. The One S has the PenTile screen. Also, I don't think you can get the same structural integrity with a removable battery because that means the back needs to come completely off. The device cannot be made from one piece and needs latches to hold the battery cover.