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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GTaudiophile - Wednesday, May 2, 2012 - link
I personally bought my first smartphone last week when Google started offering the Galaxy Nexus directly for $399. At first I thought I wouldn't like the screen size but after having used it for a few days, I can't imagine having something smaller. I received the phone in two days and have so far had zero issues. It came with ICS 4.0.4 installed.The biggest selling point for me is the pentaband 3G radio. As someone who is loyal to TMO USA AND a frequent business traveler to Europe, the pentaband 3G gives me a lot of flexibility that no other phone to-date can. If either the One S or X came with pentaband, I would have bought one, even though I do like having a stock Google OS.
I have no doubt the HTC One X and S are great, but I am happy with my Galaxy Nexus. I don't think it will have a problem getting me down the road for at least a year or two.
ectoplasmosis - Wednesday, May 2, 2012 - link
"I’m still waiting for a platform that can do 720p60 properly"That platform, here now, is an iPhone 4S paired with the SloPro app: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/slopro/id507232505
The paid version can export raw 60fps files in 720p.
UltraTech79 - Wednesday, May 2, 2012 - link
I wonder how high the 4S can go, and if it ends up being limited by the SoC or the flash storage.nitrousoxide - Thursday, May 3, 2012 - link
3G time and LTE time are almost identical. Is the phone really running on LTE when you are testing?darklordkk - Thursday, May 3, 2012 - link
9GB and 2GB?? Why?? Taking into account formatting, that's only around ~13GB at max. Where'd the 3GB go??Even the ye olde Galaxy S i9000 had 16GB partitioned into 2GB for apps and data (1.85 shown) and 14GB for data (13.43 shown)..
One43637 - Thursday, May 3, 2012 - link
I'm always amazed at how in depth your reviews are AT. Love them, please keep up the great work!Great HW, I'm just slightly disappointed that the US version gets a neutered 16GB of storage, with no micro SD slot for expansion. I know the big deal was to use Dropbox to help augment that, but with really no true unlimited data options for the majority of wireless providers, this seems like a very big trap door.
I also have read somewhere that the AT&T version doesn't even include Dropbox like the international version. Great job AT&T and HTC... /facepalm
At least give me the option to buy a 32GB version!
vision33r - Thursday, May 3, 2012 - link
No MicroSD card, what good is a 720p screen when I can't carry all my animes and movies on the device. That means I can only store DivX lowres movies in order to fit in the built in storage.Lame, SGS3 will dominate sales.
glenns - Friday, May 4, 2012 - link
"The phone is machined, not injection molded, from a single machined piece of polycarbonate plastic, and feels anything but cheap in the palm."Can I ask where this bit of information came from ? As someone who works in the plastic moulding industry its just seems very unlikely on a mass produced product. I cant see any benefit from machining a thermoset plastic like polycarbonate as opposed to injection moulding
Mbonus - Friday, May 4, 2012 - link
I thought HTC was one of the manufacturers that was going to provide unlocked bl. Not so for the early released units.ArmedandDangerous - Sunday, May 13, 2012 - link
They already have, couple of weeks ago :)