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.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
137 Comments
View All Comments
antef - Friday, May 4, 2012 - link
Oh, interesting, thanks for clearing that up!1ceTr0n - Wednesday, May 2, 2012 - link
But i'll stick with my new white and sexy Galaxy Noteakyp - Wednesday, May 2, 2012 - link
"What’s really interesting to me is just how many recent handsets from so many other OEMs have taken a similar design approach - microSIM, unibody polymer construction, no microSD card slot, and non removable battery. That combination of features seems necessary if you’re going to craft a device with competitive form factor this generation, and no doubt even more vendors will update with that profile. Polymer makes sense because it’s both a material transparent to RF, and easy to machine, and going with a microSIM makes sense since it’s all about minimizing area that isn’t dedicated to battery."I strongly disagree with this trend and I think this is right up there with glossy 768p notebook displays in terms of absurdity and simply got to stop. It's not about making the device slim nor maximizing battery, as the One X stands out in neither. It's all about cutting cost and forcing users to upgrade devices sooner because the battery has gone bad and cannot be replaced easily, or the internal storage has run out and there's no way to expand it with a microSD. MicroSIM is an abomination created by Apple just because they can.
xype - Wednesday, May 2, 2012 - link
"The One X on AT&T is really a One XL (L for LTE), however in the USA the device carries full One X branding. We’ve got the International One X and One S variants which will be reviewed in short order, but for today we’re talking specifically about the One X on AT&T."Every time someone will tell me that Android branding is NOT confusing I will point them to this paragraph. Damn, you’d think the people at HTC are all retarded or something.
Sabresiberian - Wednesday, May 2, 2012 - link
I've never owned a smart phone so maybe it's not the problem it is on monitors for desktop and portable computers, but I'm concerned about these screens getting narrower. I'd like to see that trend change, I think. In this, Apple looks to me like it's doing a better job.;)
Impulses - Wednesday, May 2, 2012 - link
This screen is actually ever so slightly wider than last gen 4.3" qHD displays... Tho those were slightly narrower than the first 4.3" displays, so it's kind of a wash really. The iPhone's display is just smaller in every direction, I don't see how that's an improvement unless you have tiny hands or shallow pockets... If that's the case there's always the One S, it's barely any wider than the iphone, about half an inch longer, but it packs in a 4" display (shame it's Pentile qHD tho (.jefffeely - Wednesday, May 2, 2012 - link
"The rear facing CMOS is a Samsung S5K3H2YX which Vivek spotted in the MyTouch 4G Slide. "The Rezound has the same camera module as well.
I would love to see a camera comparison between the One X and another phone with the same module so as to see how much of a difference the dedicated ISP makes. Oh darn, guess I'll just have to go buy an One X now.
As a side note: thank you so much for doing this review. It is nice to be able to find something unbiased in the sea of hype.
quiksilvr - Wednesday, May 2, 2012 - link
In the Camera Section for iPhone 4S, it says:8 MP with LED Flash, Front Facing Camera
But that is not correct. It SHOULD say:
8 MP AF/LED Flash, VGA Front Facing Camera
ssj3gohan - Wednesday, May 2, 2012 - link
The decibel scale being logarithmic, it's pretty much useless to graph it linearly. You get the false impression that for instance something that has a 77dB loudness is 'just' 5% less loud than something at 80dB, while in fact it's a 100% difference.The loudness graphs would be much more informative if they would convey these actual differences. There are big, big differences between speaker loudness of phones and it is a legitimate point of review.
skiboysteve - Wednesday, May 2, 2012 - link
I agree in principle, but 3dB is not twice as loud. 5-10 dB is.I actually thought 3dB was twice as loud for a long time but someone finally showed me I was wrong. Google it :)