Yes, it is. The word 'review' doesn't cut it. It's a comprehensive analysis. This site teaches you more about a product than like the rest of the internet combined.Reply
I have to say that I am really drawn by the build quality and construction detail of the HTC One. Even if the specs of the S4 are marginally higher in certain areas, I prefer a device that feels solid and comfortable to hold. "Ergonomics" doesn't matter for my desktop, but for a cell phone it's almost first priority when all other things (camera quality, screen quality, CPU, etc.) are equal or close to equal on competing phones.
I'm a Windows Phone user at the moment, but the One is bringing me over to Android. Pre-ordering right now on my carrier's website.Reply
I haven't had build quality issues with my 2 Samsung phones so far (SGS2 and GN). You may be confusing build quality with material choices. I personally don't give a damn about my phone being metal. It gets a case around it anyway and then I want to get the weight saving from plastic. :) All else being equal, I'll probably always choose the plastic phone. :DReply
I agree, the SGS2 is a solid phone. I remember mine getting squeaky after I dropped it pretty hard on a pavement once, so hard that the back popped off and the battery flew out. For a while I thought that I had bent the whole phone, but after looking it all over I realized that it was just the battery that was bent. I flattened it as good as I could, and after that the phone was nice and solid again. :)Reply
No carrier wants you to buy the iPhone. They sell it because they have to due to customer demand. they ay more for iPhones and can't load them up with logos and bloatware like Android phones.Reply
Just pre-ordered on the AT&T website and got my free media link. I am an existing customer so am surprised at your comment. They clearly spell out that you have to add the media link manually and it shows up as $0.00 in your cart. Reply
The thing that stops me from jumping off the Win 8 phone ship is that I think MS is just beginning to get serious about smart phones. The idea of a Surface Pro Smart phone, with its VaporMg body and full-blown Win8 OS, isn't all that far-fetched, and until MS proves they are never going to make such a thing, I'll be waiting for it. :)Reply
Gold? I really don't think I've ever seen one of those awarded before. I don't even think I've seen any phone win any award before. And that's not even your highest accolade? What is the highest?Reply
Wait, what?! You should REALLY add "spoiler" tags to your comments, man. Ha ha, jk. But I've never seen an Anandtech smartphone (or tablet) review EVER give out an Editor's Award. Wow.Reply
Yes, the new Awards Tiers include the "Pig Iron" award, specifically created for the Pantech Jest review. And Brian this review was riveting. No shit.Reply
I must say, I feel pity for those who'd buy the Galaxy S4 over this. This is one gorgeous device, and also goes head to head with Lumia 920 in imaging!Reply
I'm a Nexus 4 user here, and I'm not going to upgrade any time soon, but I think that consumers will be pleased no matter which of the two "flagship" phones they choose (HTC/Samsung). They both look pretty solid.Reply
I pity plastic. Samsung of all companies can't spend the cash on something better built? As for the faster hardware, I have no doubt you wouldn't notice the difference in your usage. Reply
How is it inferior hardware? You may believe a removable battery means "better hardware" but putting a plastic door at the back of a phone is not an impressive feat (nor a relevant feature for the vast majority of users), Micro SD is another feature that requires no major effort to include an is not something the general public cares about.
The screen, as usual, will be better in the One, the camera is better, the build quality is superior, the speakers are better, the screen size is more comfortable (and so is the shape of the phone), what exactly is better hardware-wise from Samsung?Reply
Newsflash..not everyone uses a case or wants one. Its a pretty pitiful comment that cheap plasticky phones don't matter because you can slap a plastic case over the existing plastic. Smells like rationalization.Reply
I am surprised why folks don't care about SD card expansion at all. For big media consumers, that can be huge. I was constantly hitting the wall on my 16 GB iPhone. It was extremely annoying and not much I could do about except delete my music ir apps. After moving to a Motorala Razr + 64GB micro SD card, it hasn't been the same since.
Though this one is super awesome and would love to get it, the horror of running out of space all the time stops me. Thoughts ?Reply
you do know this phone come with 32 and 64GB right? then you can buy a USB-OTG cable and connect any 64GB or 128GB usb stick to it as you like. This is better because you don't have to take the back cover in/out constantly.
In my opinion, 64GB internal on the HTC one is way faster performance compare to 16GB s4 with 64GB sd card everyday. Reply
It's not just your opinion, r/w on internal was 19/14mbs on the galaxy s, class 10 sd cards are stuck at 10mbs (and that's if you shell out the money for class 10).Reply
In no way Class 10 SD cards are stuck at 10MBps. That's just the minimum.
I'm simply not buying a non-expandable phone. The same with battery. I'm not the kind of person who changes devices every two years. I just had an iPhone 3G battery die on me and I swear I'm never going to experience that again. In a couple of years, 128GB very fast SD cards will be cheap.
I also dislike physical buttons. I think Google is right putting them inside the screen and both Samsung and HTC are wrong putting them outside it.
Finally, all this trouble to get through metal seems pretty silly to me. Coloured polycarbonate (Nokia N9-like) is my first choice regarding materials.
Commenting as I read - wow, that's a lot on the casing. isn't buying a phone for its casing like buying a gift for its wrapping ? Also, who cares ? phones need a sleeve, especially expensive Ones (pun !) - "This is what build quality is about, making an actually solid device." Nope. It's about making a resilient, durable design. I suspect Aluminum is bad at withstanding daily use (scratches...), and mishaps (falls). I'd rather have something a bit bendy, with a bit of amortization, and less visible scratches. - good sound, at last. Nice !
It's a bit sad to see HTC misdirecting their efforts (the casing of the HD2 was already very good, no need to get overly fancy), and forgetting the basics: an SD slot, a removable battery, timely updates, a big screen.
I was sad to not have an upgrade path from my beloved HD2 to another HTC. I'm on a Note right now, and the One is not what I'll be upgrading to later this year. I think HTC went for premium-mainstream, and forgot about the nerds. I wish them well.Reply
In the end, Android is about choice (well, except in the case of screen size). If you want a premium metal phone, get the One. If you want a plastic phone with a removable battery and SD slot, then get the S4. Reply
Form and function go hand in hand. It's the form that pushes engineers to advance function. To squeeze more pixels in the screen, to create a thinner case, to extend battery life all within a pleasant form requires the engineers to push their efforts in order to create components that can accommodate such needs. By your logic, we should all use a uniform design based on who can max outs specs the quickest and easiest.Reply
And if you want to talk about misdirecting efforts you might want to direct your efforts at Samsung who's spent more on marketing than R&D in 2012.Reply
"isn't buying a phone for its casing like buying a gift for its wrapping ?"
No it's not! Do you chuck the casing of whatever phone you buy and then use it? As Brian said, the casing really does matter a lot for a device you use all the time. To each his own, but the casing is definitely NOT equivalent to a wrapper.
"a big screen" Agree with the rest, but since when is a big screen a basic aspect of a phone? And how much bigger than 4.7" is your 'big"?Reply
GS4's 5" is largers, and I haven't seen the casing of my GS3 for more than 3 minute since I bought it 8 month ago, it have been sitting safely in a $50 case. The only thing I need to see on a phone is the screen anyway.Reply
you dont get a gift and walk around with it day after day week after week month after month all year like it is part of your body with the wrapping paper on do you ??!! .... i didnt think so, yes "trivial" but in response to your lame analogy. I like the rest of your post however.Reply
This has to be the most in-depth,thorough review I have ever read. I appreciate all your attention to detail in explaining how things work and perform. I was planning on getting this phone and after reading this review I'm chomping at the bit to get my hands on it. Thank you for all your hard workReply
Could you do a Airplane mode H.264 Video playback battery test for Smartphone reviews? A lot of people including me use their large(4.5"+) smartphone to watch videos during long flights.Reply
Well, since it has no SD (unlike the China version) they can burn in hell for all i care but i was curious to see battery life with 802.11ac ,hope we get that soon. As for thinking this is innovative ,you are going way too far.They are doing minor things that don't solve big problems ,a lot more can be done now and maybe we see a few far cooler things soon.Reply
What a sorry response to well written article explaining in depth and detail what actually IS innovative about the HTC One ... or perhaps explain what, in your opinion, would constitute true innovation.Reply
Brian: Seem like the battery test is very bad comparatively. For me the iPhone is just about on par and this phone perform way worst in the web browsing test.Reply
The iPhone 5 is on LTE. Don't compare apples to oranges, LTE makes a big difference in battery life performance on this current rev of battery life testing because of how much faster LTE is.Reply
As he stated, Brian tested the EMEA One, which does not have US-compatible LTE bands (4 and 17 basically). So he wasn't able to do any battery testing on LTE, meaning the test was performed on HSPA+. I assume this was AT&T, meaning 7 or 14Mbps HSDPA, though he did mention testing it on T-Mobile since they have 1900MHz UMTS deployment in his area.
I'd actually love to see battery comparisons on different network operators and types--it'd be interesting to see how much efficiency varies from, say, AT&T LTE to VZW LTE, or from ATT HSPA+ to T-Mo HSPA+ to VZW/Sprint EVDO.Reply
Fun fact: The Nokia N95 from 2007 had bigger camera pixels (2.2 microns) and a bigger sensor (1/2.5"). And in this comparison, doesn't avail itself at all badly for a 6 year old phone. http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/features/item/17055...
But all in all, great review Brian. Seriously, great review.You probably nudged me into getting this device (95% probability). If only the Xperia Z wasn't so gorgeous in purple, and waterproof to boot.Reply
I've got to say I'm surprised there are so few phones (are there any others?) with front or dual front speakers. There's such a natural and obvious place to put them in the top and bottom bezel where there's already a speaker at least (top) and a mic or nothing (bottom). I hope that becomes a common design feature going forward.Reply
I live in London.. I purchased the One two weeks ago.. I must quickly tell you I am a big phone enthusiast.. I have owned the Samsung galaxy s3, The One X,The Note 2 and the Nexus 4.Ye currently own the lot.. I was keen on getting the Xperia Z but after playing with it decided not to because of poor screen calibration and an overall feeling of disappointment in the fact it felt very 2012..I then decided on getting the One.. It is without doubt the best phone I have.. By a long long way.. It feels right, the hardware, software, screen, speed etc etc.. It feels more of a whole than any other Android phone thus far..I like Samsung and I love the Nexus 4 but for all the goodness those phones bring I don't love those phones. I love the One.. The screen is amazing. Words cannot describe how beautiful it is.. Sharp, vibrant, colour full, bright it is absolutely incredible. The hardware you just have to see it to believe it.. Pictures do not do it justice.. Personally I think it is even more beautiful than the IPhone 5..I never thought Android would ever be able to match such precision but this knocks it out the ball park. A great review by a reviewer I have the utmost respect for.. A wonderful review for a wonderful phone.. Keep up the great work Reply
I'm glad to see advancement in a new area, but I'll be much happier when that advancement doesn't require a "beats" logo. Few brands are more detestable.Reply
Brian, thank you for a delightful in-depth review that leaves no question unanswered to even the most discerning reader -- except only one :-) -- how is the audio quality through the headphone jack?
Please tell us audiophiles that it is as exceptional and brilliantly engineered as just about every other aspect of this phone... Please? Then I'll be truly excited!Reply
Wow this is amazing. Thanks so much! This is almost enough to tempt me back to Android, but I love the Lumia 920 and Windows Phone in general. I would love to see more Android users go this route though. Camera performance is so cool to see advance.Reply
The Lumia totally trounces the HTC One in the video test - that was surprising. The Lumia also is better in night photos, in my opinion - even more so when you compare full images (since the Lumia is at 8MP).
That being said, HTC One's camera is much better than anything else in the Android world - it will be interesting if they can sell it when people will just think 4MP = bad.Reply
Can you guys begin testing phones for in car connectivity as well? These days a lot of vehicles can display email and text so it would be nice to know if these phones come with a complete bluetooth stack. In addition bluetooth call quality should also be reviewed. Thanks for the great review!Reply
I still think HTC could pull off an 8MP camera with a 2/3" sensor (7x bigger pixels compared to a 1/3" 8MP sensor, which is what most phones used last year, if my math is right). They don’t even have to make it a phone from the “One” series. Just make it another niche device meant for “amateur photographers” market or whatever, that they’d release in the second half of the year.
Then they’d have almost the exact same strategy as Samsung, releasing the Galaxy S flagship in spring, and the Galaxy Note one in fall. HTC needs something like that, and I think they should take this market with the best “no-compromises” camera, even if the phone itself is a bit thicker 10-11mm – which is how thick Lumias have been anyway, and I haven’t seen their users complain too much about it.
Not to mention that if they do this, they also don’t have to let Nokia win the “camera of the year” award in smartphones, when they launch their next gen Lumia, which is in fall. HTC could beat Nokia and everyone else in fall (including the new iPhone) with the best camera on the market. This is a huge potential market. Sony is also rumored to release a 20 MP camera with pixel-binning this fall, by the way.
If HTC hires some Nikon/Canon engineers to help them get the camera hardware and software right, even better. I do think it’s time for smartphone companies to start at least collaborating with DSLR camera companies. If only the slightest know-how and technology trickles down from DSLR’s into smartphone cameras, we’d still see huge improvements in smartphone cameras.
So I do hope the next vector of competition in smartphones is camera quality, just like it has been for processors and screen sizes and resolutions so far. HTC could be at the forefront of this movement if they really wanted it. The question is how badly do they want it, because they’ll have to go a bit outside of their comfort zone. I don’t know how badly they want it or not, but I’d say they badly need it to recover as a company.Reply
They don't need a phone only 1% want, they need a phone 99% want, and the One is that type of phone 99% of people want.
If you want a 2/3" sensor inside a smartphone, then don't expect to get a chassis as small as 10mm, that's physically impossible. Take a look the the Lumia 808 (uses a sensor only slightly larger than 2/3"), but fat as hell (18mm!) HTC did what was physically possible and which made sense. Current technology does not allow significantly more. And HTC does not develop CMOS chips or optics, so they can't improve it further.
If HTC fixes the software issues of the camera it's probably the best smartphone camera available. If you want better quality you have to buy a thick point and shot or DSLR.Reply
2/3" sensor is quite a bit smaller than 1/1.2" sensor. So the bump itself would be smaller than 18mm in thickness. Plus, the technology has improved a lot since then, and we can now see 1/3" sensors in 7mm flat phone bodies, when they used to fit only in 12mm phones a few years ago.
I wouldn't mind a small bump anyway. Also the Note was considered "1% of the market" too back then. Most of the media was saying how nobody would want it. So I wouldn't be so quick to judge that.Reply
Hot damn I'm only on page 2 but this is in depth as hell. Just one disappointment though: no LTE battery life numbers for the one? Wondering if it would dethrown the iphone 5 as the king in that area.Reply
Fantastic Review Brian. The One will continue to be my recommendation for any Android shoppers.
Depth of the review just keeps getting crazier. I can only imagine the time spent on this.
Any reason why you think the iphone 5 mic cuts off at 16Khz?
Please explain "you could make an argument about nyquist and covering a few edge cases where the 50 percent square wave assumption built into 1 arcminute doesn’t hold up"Reply
Nyquist's theorem states that you want twice the sampling rate / resolution of what your highest end is. So if the target is a top end of 4khz you want a sampling rate of 8khz. I've never heard of this being applied to display technology as he does. I guess you could though. Basically he is saying that a LCD display applies here because you are using individual pixels to display something to your analog eyes. So according to Nyquist's theorem you'd want twice the number of given pixels for a resolution that one would consider to be 'max ppi' for that given resolution.
IMO, the theorem is kind of out of place here but I guess it makes sense.Reply
Hi mchart. Actually, as you intuitively know, the concept of spatial frequencies means that the theorem can applied to images. Images can be decomposed into "waves" with different spatial frequencies, just as a signal into sines. Regards Reply
I feel that after I buy this I should send you some money too because I've never been so sold on a device!
Alas, I won't do though...I hate android phones - not that I think anything is wrong with them, but I'm a bit OCD, and a very casual phone user, winmo suits me so perfectly with the tiles...but god damn do i want one of these... (i currently have the HD7 and it has less than 10 apps, thats how little I use my phone ha)Reply
Also as a side note, I have to to say Brian, your writing is just damn FANTASTIC, I've been reading Anandtech for years now and you've really come into your own, I'm a casual techie, I understand that stuff works blah but not quite HOW, and you go into just the right amount of depth so I don't skip anything or have to look anything up..well done mate :)Reply
This is how every review on Anantech needs to be written. Bravo and thank you.
My quick thoughts on the phone: It's a no buy. I currently use a Tegra 3 One X, and no way in hell am I paying for a phone with comparable battery life. Call your tests accurate as much as you want, but the truth is always way worse. I'll be going for one of those 3000mAh battery phones for my next purchase. As much as build quality, software and the camera are important, nothing really approaches significance with smartphones as much as battery life, which literally changes the way a phone is used.Reply
I'm just waiting for the HTC zealots to buy this, then proceed to slap a $70 otterbox on it. That's the problem with these alu phones, and the iphone is no different. People harp on how awesome the design is, but at the end of the day, 95% of them get slapped into a plastic / rubber protector which makes those 200 minutes of CNC time, and the cost associated with it - useless.
It's a great phone no doubt, but day to day use it's not going to be left 'naked' by the vast majority of buyers.Reply
I have a HTC Legend from 2010, and it's almost fully aluminum too. I've never had the need to keep it in a case. I've dropped it 3 times on concrete, and I only have a few dents in it, that you can only see if you look close on it. I'm sure all the iPhone 4 and 4S's out there look a lot worse, if used without a case, which is why most iPhone uses do use a case.Reply
Brian, why didn't you use GLBenchmark 2.7 and 3dmark when testing the GPU?
The Nexus 4 benchmark also seems to be "old", because I think Google drastically improved the drivers in Android 4.2.2 for the Nexus 4, which should've made it a lot more equal to the HTC One in performance. That's why you were getting such different results. I think HTC One uses those updated drivers, too, even though it's not on 4.2.2. But since you compared with the old Nexus 4 benchmark, you couldn't see that.
I think it's time to dump all the other benchmarks, and test the devices on the latest benchmarks. At the very least I suggest keeping ONLY the old GLBenchmark 2.5 Egypt HD on-screen and off-screen benchmarks (dump all of the old fill rate and what else ones) and then add the GLBenchmark 2.7 and 3dmark benchmarks to your new reviews. This way you can transition to having only the new benchmarks soon.Reply
Only in large phones you can stuff a large enough battery, high resolution display and a powerful SoC. That's the reason all high end phones are somewhere around 5".Reply
I'm pretty confident this trend will soon be reversed. The size of these so called "high end" phones is just too big for typical pockets in clothes. Women may put them in a purse, but most men don't use a purse. I believe the industry will crawl back to 4" and smaller soon. Pocketability will be the trend after this absurd 5" FullHD screens fad passes.Reply
I'm a guy who wears normal straight leg jeans and I keep my galaxy note 2 in my front pocket without issue. being that this phone is much smaller I don't see the issue here. I had the one x that was the same size and size is not a problem. 4.7 to 5 is perfect for me. I don't want anything smaller or bigger.Reply
Yeah but with a smaller 720p screen you also can get away with a smaller battery for the same amount of battery life.does phones just don't really fit in my pockets and thats were i want to carry it around.Reply
Excellent read! I've been waiting weeks for this review, and it was well worth it.
I was wondering if you could comment on whether it would be possible to fit a 1/2.3" sensor in a profile the size of the HTC One's, and if not how much thicker a device we would have to expect to fit such a sensor. I'm wondering if HTC should have pursued the same strategy of bigger pixel sizes, but not have skimped as much on the pixel count, or alternatively go with even bigger pixel sizes on a bigger sensor. I guess I'm also wondering if increasing sensor size is a direction we might see the mobile industry move towards. Reply
Excellent Review... Welcome back Anandtech... I agree about the benchmarks comment above, but in no way this spoils this awesome review (not even 1%).Reply
Brian I felt the need to congratulate you on such a deep, well researched, well supported, and honest review. It definitely spoke not only of your opinions of the phone, but of your impartiality and integrity. I will be using it as a reference whenever I need to answer questions about my phone.
As you pointed out, I am also of the opinion that Zoe (and Zoes) really set the entire HTC experience apart from anything the others can offer. It's not just yey another added-in piece of bloat like some of the current offerings from other manufacturers - IMO it's an integral part of the phone experience, and (hopefully) Ultrapixel technology and Zoe could be the catlyst for a re-definition of the concept of smartphone camera usage.
Thanks for all the hard work you must have put into the article. It was well worth it.Reply
Excellent review Brian!. As a radio HAM, I especially appreciate the detailed attention to the radio & antenna parts. It's after all a phone we're talking about :) Once again, really good work. And props to HTC for creating such a terrific device!Reply
Great review Brian! Only problem is what about real life battery performance? What is the screen on time and battery percentage after a full day of usage?Reply
"Most digital photographers know that bigger sensors are better somehow, fundamentally what they're talking about are bigger pixels with more sensitivity."
Noise is a function of sensor size, not pixel size. In addition, smaller pixels make the noise finer grained in relation to the detail in the image, which means it's less intrusive and easier to process away.
If you have a 12MP sensor and want to emulate a 4MP sensor, you simply resample the images to 4MP. Having done this you'll also get an image that's superior to that from a 4MP sensor because it's not being demosaiced at 4MP. If however you have a 4MP sensor and want to emulate a 12MP sensor... Well you have to go down and buy something with a 12MP sensor.Reply
Yeah, I surely trust them... either Samsung discovered that the current laws of physics are wrong, and will soon get a Nobel Prize... or GSMArena is wrong.Reply
Why is this (and every other phone) released with a single OS? Surely it is not beyond the wit of manufactures (Apple excepted) to be able to offer a choice of OS rather than just one as the hardware is basically the same for for all. With Mozilla and Unbutu making noises about phone releasing OSs surely it is time manufactures started taking a more agnostic approach to the OS that comes pre-installed? We would see less customisation of the OS and less requirements for validation which would mean faster releases of updates.Reply
I have seen a number of really serious build issues with this phone. Even the reviewed unit had clearly visible gaps for some cases. Wonder why those build issues are not covered by any of reviews so far.Reply
For me the design sucks, the speaker grills are stuck one, so there are gaps, my friend has exchanged 3 and there are visible gaps between them and the phone, that ifixit teardown proves this. If they were part of the construction, then I'd be impressed.
Also though I dropped my phone on Wednesday and had to repair it, I found it very easy, took me 10 mins. Looking at the ifixit teardown, the phone looks pretty impossible to repair yourself.Reply
It's pretty hilarious that you say, "There’s something inherently valuable about metal that I can’t convey, and those materials choices drive the rest of the experience so strongly that I can’t help but get stuck on it every time I pick the phone up," then proceed to have an entire section where you talk about covering it with a plastic case. Reply
This is the best review of the htc one I have read. very detail and fair. I love how Brian go in depth into the technical stuff and explain why thing work or don't work and what can be done to improve. just a lovely piece of review. I read the whole thing from beginning to the end.
based on this review, what I can tell is the HTC one is the most innovative phone of this year and everything HTC did was exactly what we need as consumer. boomsound, zoe, ultrapixel for low light, smaller file size, faster shutter speed, quality build and high grade material, best screen in the business, good battery life, beautiful and simple sense interface, very faster performance, feel thin and comfortable in your hand, amble amount of storage, audio quality that best all other phone, great call quality, and the list goes on. all of these are head and shoulder above iphone 5 or galaxy s4 to me. there is nothing else one can ask for in a phone this year.
Let see, s4 looks exactly just like s3, sd card and removable battery which I don't even use in my s3. thinner but you talking about 1mm (hardly noticable compare to s3), still plastic, touchwiz is awful looking with ugly icon and everything are blue/green (eye sore), too many gimmicky feature that you don't use. I turned off smartscroll on my s3 and never used it even once. smartstay is slow as hell on the s4 and i can see not much use of it, airview is useful but you can look like a tool using it in public. imagine the look you get when doing that waving on your phone on the bus.
I have not read a phone review from Brian/Anandtech before, but now this is my favourite review site just for the sheer honesty and technical info that I can get out of it.
phonearena and gsmarena even went on record saying the low light performance of the htc one is not any better than other smartphone and worse than the s4. one of them even say the htc one camera cannot even compete with 2010 phone camera. This doesn't make any sense to me because real world sample from many said otherwise. Those two reviewers are definitely trolling and has zero idea what they are talking about. I hate how they give false message to potential buyers who get turn away from this beautiful phone based on their inaccurate review. Another thing is they said the battery is poor and below average (many users/reviewer said the htc one batter is better than s3 and iphone, that is good, not below average). are those guys expecting the htc one to outlast the note2 battery overall, ridiculous (well it does beat the note 2 and everything else in browsing battery test which is amazing)? Reply
I just cannot see any innovation HTC has made, except for using the CNC unibody (like apple) and put a lower-resolution camera. And One's camera is actually worse than GS4 one in most situations.Reply
S4 packs larger screen in smaller and slimmer case, and still offers micro SD and removable battery (which is larger too). Has the first big.LITTLE AP. Has the best camera so far (both in daylight AND indoors, confirmed by gsmarena review)
I haven't included all the software features like float touch, two-screen multitasking and so on..Reply
you believe gsmarena? the one that said htc one low light camera is no better than iphone5 s3 but many sample said other wise? then went on to the low light shot in semi low light condition (you can see from the pic they posted, the low light shot is about 6-7pm outside which is not low light to me). you believe reviewer who has no idea what they talk about? use your brain a little bit.Reply
They DID compared with GS4 and they DID provide comparison samples. This review DIDN'T. And you can clearly see the resolution is terrible even compared with 8MP phones. It cannot hold a candle against new 13MP+ sensors.Reply
It boggles the mind how you can so HTC has not innovated yet you imply marginal spec bumps in the S4 are in fact innovation. It's also funny how the people that tout the S4's "slimness" as an advantage are often the same people saying that design is overrated when it's the HTC One receiving the praise. In general, when has Samsung ever innovated in the smartphone sphere? They've always been a market follower and continue to be with their gimmicky S-features. Being a component manufacturer, of course Samsung would love to trick the mainstream into thinking all that mattered was specs because they lack the vision to innovate.Reply
Regardless of everything else you said about aluminium: I have a Desire HD, dropped many times, never used a case (using a case on a beautiful smartphone is like covering your Aston Martin in a cheap body kit) and the back looks just perfect still.
Well, I now have a motorola Droid RAZR MAXX HD, but don't write off HTC aluminium devices - they don't scratch and look like crap after heavy use. They just don't.Reply
Hi brian, you did a "good" full review but I think that this sometimes turns is an biased review and give some clues to discredit other models
I copy and paste:
"Or instead of plastic, polymer, or polycarbonate, or whatever overly-specific word we use to avoid saying plastic"
"I've never given any smartphone an editors choice award before, though I daily regret not giving the One S an award of some kind. For the HTC One I'm giving our Editors Choice Gold award, which is our second highest award. The One is an incredibly awesome device.
"I'm a big fan of the HTC One and can see myself using it for quite a while, even without seeing necessarily everything of its main upcoming contenders"
Ok, then .... please give the task of the review to another editor (unbiesed and not HTC user)
I find it more likely that you're either a Samsung employee or a paid shill employed by a marketing firm hired by Samsung. There are tons of both infesting and trolling the tech blogs for the sake of Samsung.Reply
Read the article and then attempt to find unsupported claims or incorrect conclusions based on the very thorough and empirical evidence referenced. Good luck.Reply
I think Anand came away impressed from this phone as well (according to his mini review). Clear your mind, use the phone. If you still have complaints, then by all means, complain. Reply
If you follow him on Twitter he isn't really an HTC user. He uses the phone he reviews and recently I believe his go to phone has been an iPhone 5. He's sees a ton of phones in his capacity as phone reviewer and obviously likes using the One.Reply
HTC One is surely a excessive phone with its smart aspects. Really this is specific phone. I checked full specification of this phone this website as well. http://www.gadtecho.com/Reply
Come on. Don't fool people. Before you drop this comment do you know first and second photo are faked? Or you provide this wrong information deliberately? The Chinese characters on the second photo explain the photo is faked. There is a Taiwan tv news report explained this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OP49XOA-KTAReply
Stop trolling for Samsung, do you guys over there have no shame at all? What a poor reflection of an already corrupt company run by a felon for a CEO.Reply
OMG... I thought Nokia and Iphone trolls are the worst..but the "sammy" legion( yes sad but that's how they call it) are the worst. (sammy fans = pathetic human beings without a social life) PLEASE TROLL somewhere else. I happen to have the One and you know what sammy nerds ??? IT'S AWESOME best piece of kit i had since EVER !... and my previous 2 devices were a NEXUS 4 and a SGS3. I never went ONcE on a forum to complain about how crap it is and how cheap it feels..and how after i bought the Nexus i thought I'm in heaven.
short story..get a HTC One...hold it in your hand and play with it, and you will see what happens.
p.s Omniaz....Nerd1...and so on.. GET A LIFE TROLLS !..go and play with your fisher price plastic toys...Reply
@bulletdig.... dont get mad, accept that the "unibody" not is perfect.
Hold a htc one ?? no thanks, there is gap and some kind of dent betwen. I prefer durable "plastic" with body easy to repair, NOT the recycled coke can phone, with unperfect "unibody" and imposible to repair.Reply
like i said in my comment...have fun with your fisher price plastic toy ?!
Was i not CLEAR enough that i for One HAVE THE ONE and there isn't some kind of dent or gap ...
My friend ...I had the SGS3.....and it's ok...had a few signal issues and not the best build materials but overall was ok...had the Nexus 4 after still have it but don't use it, i can't because of the One. Back to SGS3. The design, let's be honest...since 'sammy' decided not to copy the little fruit any more their phones lack the wow factor..(not sure if they ever had it...maybe the S2)...but still i keep my own business and u know mind my own life. It's not like "sammy" is feeding you trolls is it ?! What I can definitely say about the One is...that from my point of view..it's the first android device to surpass the build quality and design of any Iphone build to date. As for Brian...he's review is brilliant..as always.Reply
can you really tell me that the S1 in particular was not a blatant copy ? And i mean design and even touchwiz...How in the God's name does the One resembles the Iphone ?!?
Listen trolls..i for One (see what i did there ?) have a social life and I don't have time to spend on forums to keep bashing about stuff... I also like to think that I have more than half a brain.
Then if i say: Htc is perfect wow, aluminium wooow, no gap, no dent, 4mp the best (im brillant like Brian, and i can be ur friend, im a good person with own life, maybe rich)
If i say... there is gap, dent, battery nots very good, not sd, no removable batt (im troll, your enemy, nerd with acne, fanboy, poor, stupid)
I don't know Brian, and this is the first time I'm aware of reading his work but having now read his work and your comments it's pretty easy to see that Brian is obviously very intelligent, and learned and you my friend... are not.Reply
"dont get mad, accept that the "unibody" not is perfect.
Hold a htc one ?? no thanks, there is gap and some kind of dent betwen. I prefer durable "plastic" with body easy to repair, NOT the recycled coke can phone, with unperfect "unibody" and imposible to repair."
Possibly the most inane, biased, foolish post I've read recently. Try writing your posts down on paper and reading them until your biased fervor has subsided. Them you may be able to see clearly how foolish they are.Reply
I'm betting they don't like seeing people being converted over to the other side. They were probably heartbroken when team hacksung refused to support the next Galaxy S. *sigh* Now they're raging over here trying to break any momentum HTC may have gained from this review. . .Reply
didn't read the whole thing yet, but as so often, i think you are setting the bar for technology-reviews.
what i'm very happy about is your inclusion of low-light comparisons complete with exif-data. i'm always astonished when sites are reviewing a phone with even the slightest emphasis on camera, most of the time they only feature outside-shots in bright daylight, a setting even my first vga-resolution toy-cam could handle to my content.
i also like how one can really feel how much you enjoy this phone, which doesn't come as a surprise with an engineering marvel as the one. if only it had a sd-slot, i would be all over it, too, but ok, can't have everything, right?Reply
Brian - A couple of things: Have you experienced the HTC One getting warm with extended use? Do you know if the phone is being shipped with the new software to address some of the camera's daylight issues? Is it also coming with the new facebook skin? Why do you like Swiftkey over the stock keyboard?Reply
It doesn't get warm..not like the Nexus 4 warm issues any ways..warmish maybe under heavy demanding apps but more than acceptable. Mine had shipped with the latest software version. i can tell you that if you know how to make photos..it will make great photos. (www.androidcentral.com has a good story on how to make photos with the One). No there is no facebook skin. I dig the stock keyboard. but then again swiftkey is not bad either..it goes down to personal taste and preferences really.Reply
Dammit! HOW does it work as a PHONE? I'm still looking for a "smartphone" that works hands free with any of the BT earpieces (Motorola elite, ,etc) I have had to go back to my old Motorola VT750 flip phone to get a hands free solution that actually works correctly. If they could do it then, why can't they do it now? All of the reviews completely skip a report on this important function. Here in California it is illegal to use a cell phone while driving a vehicle. Come on reviewers, get your act together and cover the whole set of functions in smartphones. Right now they are good play toys but lousy phones. PaulReply
I use it with a car holder stuck on dashboard (on of the original htc accesories for this phone). The front speakers are very load and .The people I was talking to were hearing me load and clear. I even used it to skype. haven't used it with a BT tough so i can't tell you. hope it helps.Reply
You may post your "plastic is fantastic" comment 100 times in here. It won't change the fact that Samsung's cheap plastic phones feel crappy in-hand.Reply
It's interesting that you believe that the more popular something is, the better it must be. Justin Bieber being a frame of reference there.Hope that clears it up for you.Reply
Wow, what a brilliant review. You just confirmed what I already suspected, it's simply a stunning bit of kit. Don't think anything can come close, HTC have really nailed it. I will be purchasing this phone asap, thank you.Reply
I have a problem with the forced 200nits brightness during battery, while that is OK when comapring LCD vs LCD, for a AMOLED device that's almost max brightness, hence why OLED devices such as Galaxy Note2 & GS3 perform abysmally in AT's battery benches compare to their reviews elsewhere.Reply
How can they be different. There are being measured on the brightness levels; that is what a nit is.
According to whatis.com "nit is a unit of visible-light intensity, commonly used to specify the brightness of a cathode ray tube or liquid crystal display computer display. One nit is equivalent to one candela per square meter."Reply
Cool review. On the materials choices for phones: I wonder if professional reviewers are biased because they get to play with so many different phones that protecting them from the environment is not an issue. A few scratches? I'll have a new phone in 3 weeks, so I don't care. For me, metal is not needed in a phone. It adds weight, it usually reduces customizability, it often adds to the price and it usually doesn't increase protection. I never see the phone itself for more than 30 minutes which is how long it takes me to plug in the SIM, apply a screen protector and push it into a case for protection. So I have no qualms with plastic phones and loved my SGS2 as well as my current GN. I also experience no flex in them, at least not when I push with any reasonable amount of force. :P So while I appreciate the 2 pages of industrial design talk, I pretty much disagree completely with the material ranking. :DReply
The sad thing is, no matter how wonderful a review site is or the review (or how abysmal) the content of many of the comments seems to have been penned by semi-literate fanbois who are compelled by some psychotic need to denigrate the "competition". One could swear that [insert-company-name-here] despoiled their sister or killed their cat.Reply
Thanks for another quality review, I think I might pick this over the Galaxy S4 after reading this. Of course the downside is not expandable storage and removable battery, but I never really use them anyways. Since prefer using a tablet for most mobile apps and the phone is just a the pocket able device needed for backup.Reply
I'm most confused about the camera, which is for me, the deciding factor. I understand the reviewer's enthusiasm at HTC taking a different novel track, but the reviews from The Verge, Engadget, Phonearena, GSMArena all mentioned the problem of noise making it less desirable than expected. When the recent blind test by Phonearena ended with users preferring images by iphone5 > galaxy s4 > galaxy s3 >Htc One >Sony Xperia Z ... Even nice images in low-light are still useless if it's compounded with noise.
Is this noise problem in HTC One something that can be solved by HTC tweaking the camera software a bit more, or is it an inbuilt problem? Can the reviewer help us more on this?Reply
I've seen the one's here, and the ones on the verge, engadget, and phonearena, gsmarena and noise is unfortunately evident.
I'll make up my mind one whether I want to switch to the HTC One when I know is whether I can expect the noise to be remedied by some later software updates (as the reviewer mentions for excessive sharpness and ISO setting bugs), or whether it's tied to HTC's propriety camera hardware, thus something I have to give up for good low-light photos.
Can the reviewer help us here? Or will the review be updated when the U.S. version comes out? hopefully with HTC's software updates?Reply
nope, just read the article. It just explains what Ultrapixels means, it doesn't judge the term at all. You judge it, because you don't understand it.Reply
Great review, Brian. I'm only on the first page, but I noticed one issue. You mentioned that for a material to be more easily machinable, it should be more malleable. This is absolutely false. Harder materials are by far easier to machine because they cut more easily without becoming soft and gunking up/ruining the cutting tool. For this reason, a lot of machinists prefer working with steels/brasses over softer aluminum alloys. Thus a harder aluminum alloy, as you propose they used, is actually pretty good for machining. (I'm an ME).Reply
HTC One is a good looking phone; but I don't think it deserves the "unibody" or "full metal body" titles. I've looked at its photos on the web and from the teardown of iFixit. My understanding is: the big backplate piece in the middle is connected to top and bottom backplates using injection molding, what HTC calles "zero gap". This process also forms the plastic frame all around. Then, the speaker grills (top/bottom frontplates) are adhered to the rest. Display snaps to plastic features in the frame.
I think this type of design may have some drawbacks. First is reliability. There are 4 small pieces of metal that are kind of floating. Any drop to corners and it is very easy to make a damage. See here for instance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwE9PGDnlvs Other issue is reparability. It is not uncommon that the display glass can be broken or other parts of the phone may need to be serviced. One's approach makes it almost impossible to pop open a unit w/o damaging the plastic frame. The display assembly is designed in a way to cause this. Also, I cannot imagine the trouble engineers had to go through because they cannot easily open and work on these units.
The curved back of the phone helped HTC to avoid a bulge due to rear camera (which sticked with HTC phones for quite some time). The thin edge implementation contributes the ergonomics and psychological thinness effect. But, the curved body results in a very long CNC time and staircase volume. Such volumes cannot be used effectively and can easily result in tolerance stack-up issues.
I think everyone, including Brian, is pretty surprised to see a phone with metal almost everywhere, and it can still have a decent wireless performance. To me, this is not very surprising. Active tuning and switching of course mitigates the loading by user. The important questions are: how efficient are these antennas (passive, active, TRP, TIS, etc), how is the performance when the base station's signal level is not decent. From what I understand, Brian tested the case where signal levels are good. I'd test the case where signals are borderline and call drops can happen. In Rate Vs. Range situations, close range is always ruled by the radio (RF back end), long ranges are where RF front end gets really important. I don't expect HTC One to have a superb performance to pass carrier specs and have the upper hand during subsidization negotiations. Also I wonder how many bands (and bandwidth) this device covers and how it compares with its competitors.
A final remark is about the next generation HTC One. With this kind of design, I find it much difficult for HTC to go to a thinner design in the future.Reply
Wow .. that youtube is scary ... I don't put a case on my phone, so the HTC really appealed to me, but if the speaker grill separates like that, that is not "unibody." :(Reply
Actually, only the big middle section is really one solid piece. I think the smaller top and bottom plates are not part of the bigger middle plate. They may be connected at a few points for shorting pins/plates of the antennas and that's it.Reply
Actually, what is interesting is the bend in he made into HTC One bottom with the last drop. I would expect scratch, or dent, but not that the whole part gets deformed.Reply
I kind of agree with this. I pre-ordered the phone, but am pretty disappointed to see the front metal is just glued on decorative pieces. I had assumed there was a metal chassis of some sort in the front. Basically, this is just a metal back phone.Reply
Excellent review!! It was the most thorough I've seen since ever. Its an amazing phone i actually gotten a chance to play with it yesterday & I was quite impressed. I don't understand why people keep saying why does the appearance matter, it's only gonna end up in a case. I don't understand the logic but if that's how you need to justify your purchases so be it. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but I don't think for a second that plastic is premium over metal. Its just not the case whatsoever. Also everyone does not use cases!!! Reply
Never used a case on any HTC or Motorola phone I've had. When I bought a Droid Charge it got dinged pretty easily so I had to encase it and my sister had to do the same for the S3. Quite a shame really as the phone felt quite nice without one. Of course it was a slippery little bugger like the new iPod Touches.Reply
Oh, also, a question about the battery life, which is the second deciding factor for me. At the moment, it seems the HTC is fine, if not quite top, on 3G, but what about 4G LTE? My one fear about the HTC was that'd be decimated on LTE, kind of like my friend's miserable experience with HTC Thunderbolt on Verizon, and at the moment, it seems to be doing just okay on 3G which doesn't bode well for LTE. Will the reviewer also update info on HTC battery life on LTE, when it becomes available in the U.S.?
I'm guess since the HTC One isn't out in the U.S. yet, the reviewer couldn't test battery life on AT&T or Verizon or even T-mobile's LTE. Reply
dont cry.... :( htc one battery drains in standby.....thats important to me, cuz i sleep 8 hrs and drive 2 hr. S4 dont drain :) super battery friendly.BTW....S4 has bigger screen and ddr3 ram.Reply
Aaargh...! Excellent review. Now I'm back to, not being know what to get again, this or the S4. Because other sites really didn't show the quality of the camera in their reviews like you did... Ah well, still a long time for me to make up my mind, because the S4 probably won't be in Ireland until June anyway... :)Reply
I found your review to be extremely thorough. I was very excited about this phone. My concerns are many though. Firest off I owned the HTC flyer tablet and it took forever for Htc to do any sort of updated to that device. Htc is on a respirator as far as the company is concerned and unless they really step up the advertising this may be their last chance. as good as the hardware is, Im very concerned about the capabilities of the software. the more I look over what the new Samsung S4 will be capable of, the more I move away from the HTC one. I personally think the S4 blows it away from a software standpoint. why I find interesting is that you never really mention the s4 in comparison to this phone. Yes the s4 is plasticky, but you can add storage, change out the battery and i,ve seen photos taken with it and all that i,ve seen have more detail and seem more vibrant than this phone. Yes i think boomsound is great as well as blinkfeed but the s4 has smartscroll, s translator,s health, is shipping with jellybean 4.2.2 and will be the first to get jellybean 5.0 in mat. You can get a wireless charging adapter it has a nice smart cover and tons of software features this phone is lacking so im still on the fence. Voice quality for me is a big issue. Also the iphone 5 seems to have beaten this phone by many gpu benchmarks which is troubling to me. Id love to see you do a full in depth analysis on the S4 before making my decision.Reply
All of the heralded software features on the s4 seem quite gimmicky and just marketing junk to me. s translate? I'll prefer google translate personally, s health? There's so any fitness apps out there. Wireless charging is also a gimmick and is not an efficient charging method. Is plugging in a cable such a massive problem? Gesture scrolling etc seem likes a feature nobody is really going to use to replace finger scrolling.
I like the fact the HTC have just focused on a few small areas software wise and really focused on nailing them at the same time stripping down and simplifying sense. The whole camera/zoe package looks so clever and useful. I particularly like the video and audio recording quality highlighted in this review. The picture quality of the camera looks superb, and who really needs anything above 8mp considering it is rendered pointless if you are mainly using your photos for facebook/social media or viewing them on a 1080p monitor!
The attention to detail on The One and overall design makes it a far more appealing option to me personally. Each to their own in the end though, just nice to se HTC really upping their game, I think everyone has been surprised with the quality of this device.Reply
gimicky..i guess thats your perception..to me its features that i'd at least like to have in the phone...gimicky or not that's available to me to play with...and the camera is better in detail than the HTC One..and I have the iphone..so i have no allegiance to Samsung...just that the features are better..its a preference thing..and i do think the HTC One is a very well made device..so until i can test and feel both..i'll reserve judgement. I just pointed out that im starting to lean in Samsungs favor. thats all.Reply
Can you add the S3 and Note 2 to the rest of the display tests? More importantly, please include them all (including the One), when you test the S4. The Samsung phones are missing from most of the display tests and only appear in white brightness test. Reply
Seriously, what's up with all the Samsung douchebags coming out of the woodwork? They'll just troll everything that's not Samsung and are becoming just as rabid as Apple fanatics. S4 this, S4 that, Note 2 this, Note 3 that. It's like they want everyone to conform and use their products instead of allowing for choice like they keep shouting about when something about the iPhone comes up.
On topic, I would hope Verizon gets the HTC One (at least one as close to the original) soon. I would love to get a feel for this phone, the Nokia Lumia 928 (finally Verizon) and Galaxy S4 and make my purchasing decision from there.Reply
Just wondering if anyone knows if HTC provides warranty that covers accidental damage- something akin to the AppleCare + ($99 purchase which also extends the warranty to 2 years) which allows 2 accidental damages where the customer only have pays $49 to get his or her phone replaced. May not be a concern to those in contract but off contract, damaging a $600+ and being able to pay a small fee for replacement is a necessity.Reply
Yes. It's called TEP on Sprint. $9/month and $99 replacement cost. Cancel when you reach the break even point. Doesn't matter whether you are on contact or not. IDK about AT&T.Reply
Brian, Thank you for the excellent review. The wait between Anand's teaser and your review was painful but worth the wait. Once it gets to Sprint SERO, I'm all over the 32Gb model. $199 purchase price, $40/month and no contract! The Sammy trolls sure appear envious and their broken English is hilarious.Reply
I always look forward to the reviews, by far the most comprehensive and informative. I consider the other "reviews" out there to be more like first impressions. I can't wait until your review of the Galaxy S4.
I'm pretty disappointed that the HTC One doesn't have a removable battery and that might be the deciding factor between that and the S4. I like to keep my devices for 3-4 years. Do you know if it will be feasible/reasonable for the battery to get replaced? Thanks and keep up the good work.Reply
I just cannot understand why some people are over agressively defending the one and calling everyone trolls. Ultrapixel is not a innovation - its clearly a marketing gimmick, and has clear disadvantages as well. Machined alu case looks good (if not covered) but anyone can do that, apple has done it earlier, and also it has disadvantages too.
I always thought anandtech a techy site - i really dont like to see people following form and marketing over function here.Reply
Ultrapixel is not a marketing gimmick. The trend is seen in DSLRs as well. Why do you think Canon only increase resolution from 21.1MP to 22.3MP for the new 5D Mark III? And the EOS xxxD line has stayed at 18MP for three consecutive releases. Pixel size matters.Reply
yes, but the sensors are much larger and so are the pixels in the D800 much larger than the pixels found in smartphone sensors. With decreasing pixel size you hit a physical limit and noise gets worse and worse. It's possible that increasing pixel count works for the D800, but this doesn't mean that it still works for much smaller sensors used in a smartphone. Why do you think does the Lumia 808 have such a huge sensor if they could have fit all those pixels on a 1/3" with the same quality according to you? There are many limiting factors, like dispersion, diffraction, shot noise, ...
Additionally does the HTC One have an OIS, which is impressive in itself and only the Lumia 902 has one, too. Just the OIS alone puts its image quality above any other smartphone without one. Reply
Actually I thought 13MP sensor for phone camera wouldn't do any good, but actually GS4 camera is quite good (according to the examples from gsmarena) They have very good pixel-level acuity, and quite good (on par or sometimes actually better than the one) in terms of available light pics.
And I totally agree that OIS is a great feature. Reply
The gizmodo article doesn't really have anything saying it's a deceptive marketing. In fact, they explain why HTC created another term for the bigger pixels. I think this is totally different from cases like Apple's "Retina Display" marketing term. Now that's something really useless term Apple uses. In HTC's case, they needed to market it one way or the other for people who don't know the technology of the camera sensors.
My priority is low light performance. If you take pictures mostly on bright sunny days, then 13MP would probably be better.Reply
Omiaz, after flipping couple pages back on the comments, I feel stupid replying to your post. Why are you posting the same comment on and on? I wish there was a vote-for-ban button.Reply
the name is marketing, because 4mpx seems worse than 13mpx for dumb people. But it isn't. How else can HTC explain that their 4mpx sensor has larger and more sensitive pixels than a 13mpx sensor. How else can HTC explain that the 13mpx sensor is useless, because optics and noise can't make a use of it. How else can HTC explain that they integated an OIS which gives you sharp shoots at normal light conditions. (most reviews only test the smartphone cameras in well-lit areas, which you normally don't have)Reply
It's a marketing BS. Low-MP sensor is clearly worse when there are enough lighting. It is a FACT, and comparison pictures speak for themselves. It 'may' be better for low lighting situation, but gsmarena comparison test tells that is not the case.Reply
The pictures and video speak for themselves. Too bad Brian didn't use the crappy S3 camera for for a comparison. You'd be self immolating right nowReply
Finally finished the whole thing. I wished this review came out a bit earlier (than ATT pre-order starting date) but that's fine. Already made my decision and I believe the right one. I value camera functionality of a phone so the One is a better buy for me. Find out what fits you. Convincing people S4 is better (or worse) does you no good.Reply
Wow. I mean, I know it's an assembly-line CNC, but that just blows my mind. I wonder how much that adds to the cost of manufacturing? It's not cheap, I'm sure.Reply
This device sounds phenominal, but I am still put-off by the high monthly service charges for smartphones here in the US. Does anyone know if it's possible to buy a device such as this outright, and use it without cellular voice/data (using WiFi only) as a glorified PDA?Reply
You can buy the developer edition 64GB model for $650, and then there's a $100 trade-up program. I would at least use cellular voice though. If you look at T-mobile prepaid service (pay-as-you-go), you can charge $100 and become gold member, and you get 1000 minutes which will expire after 1 year. Charge another $10 before the 1 year, and your minutes extends another year.Reply
You can probably buy them unlocked and unsubsidized but it will be pretty expensive. How about the Samsung Galaxy Player? Those are pretty cheap and can be used as a glorified PDA. Not too sure about voice if you need it.Reply
Great review! Thanks for all your efforts. I would like to add just one thing. You claim that comparing between platforms is somewhat irrelevant because people will not switch over because of the camera. I have owned an iPhone4 for two years, which I love and hate for all the obvious reasons. For me the camera of the One and the ideas and innovations behind it are a big reason to go for HTC and android the next two years. I'd allready have one if only HTC would not have the Apple-esk delays... http://www.ibtimes.com/apple-iphone-5-pre-orders-d...Reply
This phone's design looks very 'China', just like other HTC phones. Especially on the back. Pointless horizontal and vertical lines 'hanging up' the camera hole, overly big HTC logo... Everything is far from a premium feeling. A cool design is not a matter of 'plastic or metal'. What is important is the beauty of moderation.Reply
Since image is everything, shouldn't you be at the Apple Store sipping a latte or at the plastic surgeon getting your girlfriend's boobs redone? HTC has struck a nerve with the Apple and Sammy fans.Reply
Amazing phone. Amazing review... What's going on with all the Samsung shills? Really is that what it comes to. How dare somebody tell another person how to spend their hard earned money. Buy what works for you Reply
I still don't quite get how you test battery life. Because no way in hell can you surf for 7+ hours on a One X. Same goes for the test on GSMArena by the way.Reply
best phone review i have ever read in a very long time , such attention to detail, and just what i needed to solidfy my choice to buy this phone. hope to see a comparison with the SGS4 when available.Reply
my neighbor's sister makes $85/hr on the computer. She has been fired for nine months but last month her paycheck was $12266 just working on the computer for a few hours. Read more on this site... Snag4.cℴmReply
Why does no one mention how the speaker grill doesn't sit flush with the screen, so when you swipe near the top and bottom, your finger hits that bump up tot he speaker grill and it's very annoying. The whole surface of the front should be flush, there shouldn't be anything like what the HTC One does.
It doesn't have good build quality, it doesn't even have premium materials as they're as cheap as plastic. What it has is design, all that people like about the phone.......Reply
Mate, it really really good. I use it with a pair of beats by dre and it's amazing. To be fair it's the first time when i feel the beats software tweaks as being more than a gimmick. Hope this helps. For more technical wait for Brian.Reply
You state in the BlinkFeed details that it only auto-refreshes on Wi-Fi, but I believe it does on mobile as well, but has a longer break in the refresh. I thought it was 2hrs on mobile data, 1hr on Wi-Fi, and 30mins if on Wi-Fi and plugged in charging. Was this changed?Reply
I really like this phone and i have both the Evo 4g LTE and the Galaxy S3 right now. Three things that may keep me from purchasing the One are Sprints lack of the 64gig model at launch, no sd card and no removable battery. I use my Galaxy S3 to listen to podcast all day at work just because I can change the battery out for a new one. My Evo will not last all day even if I charge it at lunch ! With out an sd card slot how will I load radios and firmware from the bootloader with a separate sd card that I use just for that. They should have put a sd card slot on the outside like the micro sim card slot. A slot the Sprint version will not have. I suppose I will just have to put them on the internal sd and then erase it immediately afterward. I would like to know how good the reception on Sprints LTE will be because the Evo (LTE) is no where near as good as my S3. It sounds like it should be good since the maximum RF on Sprints version is centered around Sprints 1900 mhz band but I guess i will not know until I get my hands on the One or someone test that. Brian I would like to know how much space is available for Apps because I run out on my Evo with 2 gigs. A problem I have yet to encounter on my S3 because it shares all available internal space with what ever needs it. In the end I could just get the 32gig One I suppose and keep using my S3 for podcast but I really want the 64 gig One and have no idea when Sprint will get it. I really hate to break the tradition of carrying one HTC and one Samsung phone which started with the original Evo and the original Galaxy S but this decision is a tough one mostly because of the lack of a 64 gig model. Great job on the review Brian looking forward to the next podcast !Reply
Regarding your listening to podcasts all day at work, it's called a battery charger. You ought to get one for your cubicle. Replacing your battery and forcing a reboot is so caveman, but I guess that's how Sammy shills roll.Reply
Nice Review Brian! I see that you used a Nokia Lumia 920 as a comparison on the photo and video portion of your review, but I do not see a detailed review of 920 on Anandtech.com! It's been 5 months since 920 is out! What's going on?!Reply
Yeah it's a bit perplexing. At one point I even saw it specifically mentioned that Klug was working on a review of the 920 but it never materialized and I never saw any comment on why it was shelved. Maybe they'll review the 928? =/Reply
Shame you didn't test the One's microphones versus the 920 Rich Recording High Amplitude Audio Capture Microphones, which also can record clear audio in extremely loud environments.
I agree with everyone's comments about what an amazing writeup. I have done some experiments with my phones photo settings since HTC one was announced. I have a Nexus 4 and it produced poor quality photos in low light situations, but by lowering the size to 3.1MP it actually gives a much better photo indoors. It would be good to see if others can repeat this and see if they get the same results I did. Reply
As usual, author's attachment to aluminum cases is somewhat irrational. Sure aluminum has some perks in the looks department but that's about it. Technical review though should also clarify how much sacrifices the design makes when going with aluminum. Here are some of those: bad (cold) feeling, easily scratchable (and looking real bad after that), no replaceable battery, no SD card, no wireless charging. Is it worth it? Or perhaps it's an Apple-like form over function compromise? Reply
None of those are sacrifices or compromises really though. I would say the cool touch of metal is a good thing as a lot of people have already mentioned and the battery/sd card is really a non issue for the vast majority of users. (what percentage of people are away from a charger for more than say 12-24 hours? What percentage of people will use or need more than 64gb or even 32gb of storage?)
I certainly have no real desire to use wireless charging, what problem does it really solve? You still have to plug the charging pad in don't you? Is plugging a cable into your phone such a labour?Reply
One can argue whether the features present in Samsung phones are more or less important but they are still very much real. Much more real than the good looks of the aluminum case which disappear right after the phone is purchased (because it goes into a plastic case). The simple fact is that most aluminum phones are used in side plastic cases. If people preferred aluminum as much as many reviews would let you to believe why would people then stick their aluminum phones into plastic cases? Apparently people prefer plastic.
As far as wireless charging is concerned, there is a big different between connecting a amt (once in the phone lifetime) and a phone (at least once a day). Besides, when you need to accept a call, it's much easier to do it when the phone is on e the mat (than when it's connected to the wall).Reply
* I prefer amoled 5" * Octa core * Gpu PowerVr (octa core version) this more powerful than adreno 320 * Sd slot (good me, cuz i use many music,photos,video,games etc) * Removable battery * Good update suppot.
What, did your bosses tell you that the rude troll approach was actually turning opinion against your cause? Because you seem to have changed your strategy rather abruptly in light of your previous posts.
"I prefer durable "plastic" with body easy to repair, NOT the recycled coke can phone, with unperfect "unibody" and imposible to repair."
"The gap is even clearly visible with the review samples. Check this."
"Simply first batch problems ???? Zero Gap technology !!! FAIL"
"Zero Gap technology !!! FAILHold a htc one ?? no thanks, there is gap and some kind of dent betwen."
"HTC phones not receive support even same HTC LOL"
"13 mpx > 4 mpx Ultrapixels = just deceptive marketing"
"dont cry.... :( htc one battery drains in standby..."
"Marketing junk like the "ultrapixels"?"
and a duplicate post- "13 mpx > 4 mpx Ultrapixels = just deceptive marketing"Reply
HTC one. what does HTC actually engineer or make? they just repackage parts. Heck they don't even make their own OS. why are they considered a 1st class company?
1. good idea to make the phone aluminum. If I was the CEO of Samsung, I would have made the GS4 Aluminum.
besides that what did HTC exactly create? It has a Samsung Screen It has a TSMC processor It has a Samsung RAM and Flash memory.
Any chinese company can do the exact same thing as HTC. it takes no ingenuity whatsoever
So my opnion is that Cher Wang(her father is an ugly monkey) and Peter Chou are big time scam artists playing the innovation card when they do NO innovation at all. they are fraudsReply
HTC designed the phone and chose which components to include -- those make all the difference.
Also, news flash: even Samsung chooses non-Samsung components for some of its devices, like the Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 in some Galaxy S 4 variants. The notion that you have to design and manufacture every significant component yourself for a phone to be innovative is ridiculous.
It's doubtful that just "any Chinese company" can do what HTC did. Huawei hasn't done it. Lenovo hasn't done it. ZTE hasn't done it. Who has? The closest parallel to HTC's work on the One is, if you hadn't already guessed, Apple -- which spends loads of time on custom design work for the iPhone, but still has to outsource from other companies for parts.Reply
Wait, "There is no question in my mind that the One includes the best camera in the Android space right now". The best - really? I wouldn't agree, it's average in daylight at best. This sounds like infatuation and hinders objectivity of the review.Reply
360 Comments
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Paulman - Friday, April 05, 2013 - link
Now I can finally look forward to the next episode of the Anandtech podcast :P ReplyBrian Klug - Friday, April 05, 2013 - link
Ha, heck yes!-Brian Reply
Bull Dog - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Yea I missed you on the last podcast. It just wasn't quite the same without (what I like to call) the "Klug rants." Replyefeman - Friday, April 05, 2013 - link
The depth of this review is astonishing. Excellent work, Brian. ReplyMilwaukeeMike - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Yes, it is. The word 'review' doesn't cut it. It's a comprehensive analysis. This site teaches you more about a product than like the rest of the internet combined. ReplySabresiberian - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
This kind of review is why I come to Anandtech. :) ReplyPC Perv - Friday, April 05, 2013 - link
Too many quality control issues from what I've read around the Web. I would wait out the first batches. ReplyCrono - Friday, April 05, 2013 - link
I have to say that I am really drawn by the build quality and construction detail of the HTC One. Even if the specs of the S4 are marginally higher in certain areas, I prefer a device that feels solid and comfortable to hold. "Ergonomics" doesn't matter for my desktop, but for a cell phone it's almost first priority when all other things (camera quality, screen quality, CPU, etc.) are equal or close to equal on competing phones.I'm a Windows Phone user at the moment, but the One is bringing me over to Android. Pre-ordering right now on my carrier's website. Reply
Death666Angel - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
I haven't had build quality issues with my 2 Samsung phones so far (SGS2 and GN). You may be confusing build quality with material choices. I personally don't give a damn about my phone being metal. It gets a case around it anyway and then I want to get the weight saving from plastic. :) All else being equal, I'll probably always choose the plastic phone. :D Replytheduckofdeath - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
I agree, the SGS2 is a solid phone. I remember mine getting squeaky after I dropped it pretty hard on a pavement once, so hard that the back popped off and the battery flew out. For a while I thought that I had bent the whole phone, but after looking it all over I realized that it was just the battery that was bent. I flattened it as good as I could, and after that the phone was nice and solid again. :) ReplyAZsoul - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
If you are an existing att customer, no pre-order and no free media link. Another example of their superior customer service. Replyhoray - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
That's because AT&T wants you to buy the iphone. Replydarwinosx - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
No carrier wants you to buy the iPhone. They sell it because they have to due to customer demand. they ay more for iPhones and can't load them up with logos and bloatware like Android phones. ReplyIsthatyouBevis - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
That is not true. I went to the AT&T store and preordered and recieved the media link. Please don't spread dis-information Replysjain - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
Just pre-ordered on the AT&T website and got my free media link. I am an existing customer so am surprised at your comment. They clearly spell out that you have to add the media link manually and it shows up as $0.00 in your cart. ReplySabresiberian - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
The thing that stops me from jumping off the Win 8 phone ship is that I think MS is just beginning to get serious about smart phones. The idea of a Surface Pro Smart phone, with its VaporMg body and full-blown Win8 OS, isn't all that far-fetched, and until MS proves they are never going to make such a thing, I'll be waiting for it. :) Replykyuu - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
Full Win8 on a smartphone isn't going to happen, and I'm not sure why you'd *want* it in the first place. Replydarwinosx - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
Well thats a really reliable source... Replynehway0912 - Friday, April 05, 2013 - link
Samsung isn't the one who made the screen, JDI is. Samsung is the one who made the driver chip. ReplyBrian Klug - Friday, April 05, 2013 - link
Ahh is that how you'd parse the string? That makes much more sense.-Brian Reply
nehway0912 - Friday, April 05, 2013 - link
Yes. xda has a thread about who the manufacturer behind the screen is. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=3... Replyelmicker - Friday, April 05, 2013 - link
Gold? I really don't think I've ever seen one of those awarded before. I don't even think I've seen any phone win any award before. And that's not even your highest accolade? What is the highest? ReplyBrian Klug - Friday, April 05, 2013 - link
Platinum is highest, it's a new awards tier.-Brian Reply
elmicker - Friday, April 05, 2013 - link
I look forward, therefore, to never seeing one awarded. ReplyBrian Klug - Friday, April 05, 2013 - link
Yeah for me at least, platinum would imply absolute perfection.-Brian Reply
Paulman - Friday, April 05, 2013 - link
Correction: Diamond, followed by Masters/Grand Masters is higher than Platinum. #Starcraft ReplyPaulman - Friday, April 05, 2013 - link
Wait, what?! You should REALLY add "spoiler" tags to your comments, man. Ha ha, jk. But I've never seen an Anandtech smartphone (or tablet) review EVER give out an Editor's Award. Wow. ReplyThud2 - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Yes, the new Awards Tiers include the "Pig Iron" award, specifically created for the Pantech Jest review. And Brian this review was riveting. No shit. Replymeelahi - Friday, April 05, 2013 - link
I must say, I feel pity for those who'd buy the Galaxy S4 over this. This is one gorgeous device, and also goes head to head with Lumia 920 in imaging! ReplyPaulman - Friday, April 05, 2013 - link
I'm a Nexus 4 user here, and I'm not going to upgrade any time soon, but I think that consumers will be pleased no matter which of the two "flagship" phones they choose (HTC/Samsung). They both look pretty solid. Replytipoo - Friday, April 05, 2013 - link
Some would have to, because of carriers. Replys44 - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
I pity the folks who'd buy inferior hardware because of design, finish, etc etc that they'll have under a case forever anyway. ReplyEnzoFX - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
I pity plastic. Samsung of all companies can't spend the cash on something better built? As for the faster hardware, I have no doubt you wouldn't notice the difference in your usage. Replys44 - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Drop 'em both, see which breaks faster. Replytherealjoshhamilton - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
It appears plastic breaks faster.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4zQKeAEqsQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuwD7pdxxyo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6M5q5TRuAsY Reply
darwinosx - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
Plastic. Replydkr88 - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
I'm torn. I've dropped my sgs3 several times on concrete and the wounds are barely noticeable. I suspect the One would not fare so well... Replyaugustofretes - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
How is it inferior hardware? You may believe a removable battery means "better hardware" but putting a plastic door at the back of a phone is not an impressive feat (nor a relevant feature for the vast majority of users), Micro SD is another feature that requires no major effort to include an is not something the general public cares about.The screen, as usual, will be better in the One, the camera is better, the build quality is superior, the speakers are better, the screen size is more comfortable (and so is the shape of the phone), what exactly is better hardware-wise from Samsung? Reply
darwinosx - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
Newsflash..not everyone uses a case or wants one. Its a pretty pitiful comment that cheap plasticky phones don't matter because you can slap a plastic case over the existing plastic. Smells like rationalization. Replynyrulez - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
I am surprised why folks don't care about SD card expansion at all. For big media consumers, that can be huge. I was constantly hitting the wall on my 16 GB iPhone. It was extremely annoying and not much I could do about except delete my music ir apps. After moving to a Motorala Razr + 64GB micro SD card, it hasn't been the same since.Though this one is super awesome and would love to get it, the horror of running out of space all the time stops me. Thoughts ? Reply
tainguyen81 - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
you do know this phone come with 32 and 64GB right? then you can buy a USB-OTG cable and connect any 64GB or 128GB usb stick to it as you like. This is better because you don't have to take the back cover in/out constantly.In my opinion, 64GB internal on the HTC one is way faster performance compare to 16GB s4 with 64GB sd card everyday. Reply
therealjoshhamilton - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
It's not just your opinion, r/w on internal was 19/14mbs on the galaxy s, class 10 sd cards are stuck at 10mbs (and that's if you shell out the money for class 10). Replycomomolo - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
In no way Class 10 SD cards are stuck at 10MBps. That's just the minimum.I'm simply not buying a non-expandable phone. The same with battery. I'm not the kind of person who changes devices every two years. I just had an iPhone 3G battery die on me and I swear I'm never going to experience that again. In a couple of years, 128GB very fast SD cards will be cheap.
I also dislike physical buttons. I think Google is right putting them inside the screen and both Samsung and HTC are wrong putting them outside it.
Finally, all this trouble to get through metal seems pretty silly to me. Coloured polycarbonate (Nokia N9-like) is my first choice regarding materials.
I'm definitely no the target for this phone. Reply
thesavvymage - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
xperia ZL has a micro-sd slot and has on screen buttons :) Replyaugustofretes - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
The developer edition costs $649 and is 64GB, game set and match. That's my next phone. Replydarwinosx - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
Yeah thats a deal. Any word on when they are selling these? i assume developer edition means you don't have to root it.. Replydarwinosx - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
The carriers know that very, very few people ue SD card slots. Google doesn't like them either and never has. Replydarwinosx - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
Kind of screwed if you are on Verizon though and want their coverage. Can't believe they aren't offering this phone. Replybleh0 - Friday, April 05, 2013 - link
Sounds like an absolutely wonderful device but I'll wait the Galaxy S 4 reviews. Replydylan522p - Friday, April 05, 2013 - link
I forgive you for disappearing on us, and becoming so much less active. This review is quite possibly the best phone review I have ever read. ReplyStormyParis - Friday, April 05, 2013 - link
Commenting as I read- wow, that's a lot on the casing. isn't buying a phone for its casing like buying a gift for its wrapping ? Also, who cares ? phones need a sleeve, especially expensive Ones (pun !)
- "This is what build quality is about, making an actually solid device." Nope. It's about making a resilient, durable design. I suspect Aluminum is bad at withstanding daily use (scratches...), and mishaps (falls). I'd rather have something a bit bendy, with a bit of amortization, and less visible scratches.
- good sound, at last. Nice !
It's a bit sad to see HTC misdirecting their efforts (the casing of the HD2 was already very good, no need to get overly fancy), and forgetting the basics: an SD slot, a removable battery, timely updates, a big screen.
I was sad to not have an upgrade path from my beloved HD2 to another HTC. I'm on a Note right now, and the One is not what I'll be upgrading to later this year. I think HTC went for premium-mainstream, and forgot about the nerds. I wish them well. Reply
Pylon757 - Friday, April 05, 2013 - link
Then go buy an S4 then. You're clearly not the target audience. ReplyPylon757 - Friday, April 05, 2013 - link
In the end, Android is about choice (well, except in the case of screen size). If you want a premium metal phone, get the One. If you want a plastic phone with a removable battery and SD slot, then get the S4. Replyjayseeks - Friday, April 05, 2013 - link
Form and function go hand in hand. It's the form that pushes engineers to advance function. To squeeze more pixels in the screen, to create a thinner case, to extend battery life all within a pleasant form requires the engineers to push their efforts in order to create components that can accommodate such needs. By your logic, we should all use a uniform design based on who can max outs specs the quickest and easiest. Replyjayseeks - Friday, April 05, 2013 - link
And if you want to talk about misdirecting efforts you might want to direct your efforts at Samsung who's spent more on marketing than R&D in 2012. Replyharshilshah - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
"isn't buying a phone for its casing like buying a gift for its wrapping ?"No it's not! Do you chuck the casing of whatever phone you buy and then use it? As Brian said, the casing really does matter a lot for a device you use all the time. To each his own, but the casing is definitely NOT equivalent to a wrapper.
"a big screen"
Agree with the rest, but since when is a big screen a basic aspect of a phone? And how much bigger than 4.7" is your 'big"? Reply
sherlockwing - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
GS4's 5" is largers, and I haven't seen the casing of my GS3 for more than 3 minute since I bought it 8 month ago, it have been sitting safely in a $50 case. The only thing I need to see on a phone is the screen anyway. ReplyTyronius - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
If I had a Samsung, I would also hide it in a case... Replyhartwicklax22 - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
you dont get a gift and walk around with it day after day week after week month after month all year like it is part of your body with the wrapping paper on do you ??!! .... i didnt think so, yes "trivial" but in response to your lame analogy. I like the rest of your post however. Replytherealjoshhamilton - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
I won't say it's just a wrapper, it would be like saying the outside of a car is "just" a wrapper. ReplyThud2 - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Hurrumph. Dagnab newfangled fancy lunimum phones. Mine BENDS! Like a willow! Who needs quality! My Pinto gets me to work fine. ReplyScottneon - Friday, April 05, 2013 - link
This has to be the most in-depth,thorough review I have ever read. I appreciate all your attention to detail in explaining how things work and perform. I was planning on getting this phone and after reading this review I'm chomping at the bit to get my hands on it. Thank you for all your hard work Replysherlockwing - Friday, April 05, 2013 - link
Could you do a Airplane mode H.264 Video playback battery test for Smartphone reviews? A lot of people including me use their large(4.5"+) smartphone to watch videos during long flights. ReplyJebbyC - Friday, April 05, 2013 - link
The beats logo goes a long way towards ruining it.Vivek's not going to like your flippancy towards plastic, polymer and polycarbonate, they all mean different and specific things :P Reply
Paulman - Friday, April 05, 2013 - link
Does "plastically deformable polycarbonate polymer" make any sense, perchance? :P #YOLO ReplyVivekGowri - Friday, April 05, 2013 - link
Wow, I laughed at that. Replydylan522p - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
#HOLOYOLO Replyjjj - Friday, April 05, 2013 - link
Well, since it has no SD (unlike the China version) they can burn in hell for all i care but i was curious to see battery life with 802.11ac ,hope we get that soon.As for thinking this is innovative ,you are going way too far.They are doing minor things that don't solve big problems ,a lot more can be done now and maybe we see a few far cooler things soon. Reply
radiotrib - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
What a sorry response to well written article explaining in depth and detail what actually IS innovative about the HTC One ... or perhaps explain what, in your opinion, would constitute true innovation. Replydylan522p - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
Chinesse Version is proven fake. Replyhtvu91 - Friday, April 05, 2013 - link
Brian: Seem like the battery test is very bad comparatively. For me the iPhone is just about on par and this phone perform way worst in the web browsing test. ReplyHunt3rj2 - Friday, April 05, 2013 - link
The iPhone 5 is on LTE. Don't compare apples to oranges, LTE makes a big difference in battery life performance on this current rev of battery life testing because of how much faster LTE is. ReplyAZsoul - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
And the HTC One is not on LTE??? Replyjeffkibuule - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
The HTC One Brian tested does not have US compatible LTE bands, it is the EMEA version (Europe, Middle East, Africa). Replyteiglin - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
As he stated, Brian tested the EMEA One, which does not have US-compatible LTE bands (4 and 17 basically). So he wasn't able to do any battery testing on LTE, meaning the test was performed on HSPA+. I assume this was AT&T, meaning 7 or 14Mbps HSDPA, though he did mention testing it on T-Mobile since they have 1900MHz UMTS deployment in his area.I'd actually love to see battery comparisons on different network operators and types--it'd be interesting to see how much efficiency varies from, say, AT&T LTE to VZW LTE, or from ATT HSPA+ to T-Mo HSPA+ to VZW/Sprint EVDO. Reply
Joshdan - Friday, April 05, 2013 - link
A stunning review with greater in-depth analysis which is not found on any website.Marvelous work, reviewer, Brian Klug. Reply
fabarati - Friday, April 05, 2013 - link
Fun fact: The Nokia N95 from 2007 had bigger camera pixels (2.2 microns) and a bigger sensor (1/2.5"). And in this comparison, doesn't avail itself at all badly for a 6 year old phone.http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/features/item/17055...
But all in all, great review Brian. Seriously, great review.You probably nudged me into getting this device (95% probability). If only the Xperia Z wasn't so gorgeous in purple, and waterproof to boot. Reply
MadMan007 - Friday, April 05, 2013 - link
I've got to say I'm surprised there are so few phones (are there any others?) with front or dual front speakers. There's such a natural and obvious place to put them in the top and bottom bezel where there's already a speaker at least (top) and a mic or nothing (bottom). I hope that becomes a common design feature going forward. ReplyIsthatyouBevis - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
It requires a bigger phone for a given screen size. ReplyDavid Velar - Friday, April 05, 2013 - link
I live in London.. I purchased the One two weeks ago.. I must quickly tell you I am a big phone enthusiast.. I have owned the Samsung galaxy s3, The One X,The Note 2 and the Nexus 4.Ye currently own the lot.. I was keen on getting the Xperia Z but after playing with it decided not to because of poor screen calibration and an overall feeling of disappointment in the fact it felt very 2012..I then decided on getting the One.. It is without doubt the best phone I have.. By a long long way.. It feels right, the hardware, software, screen, speed etc etc.. It feels more of a whole than any other Android phone thus far..I like Samsung and I love the Nexus 4 but for all the goodness those phones bring I don't love those phones. I love the One.. The screen is amazing. Words cannot describe how beautiful it is.. Sharp, vibrant, colour full, bright it is absolutely incredible. The hardware you just have to see it to believe it.. Pictures do not do it justice.. Personally I think it is even more beautiful than the IPhone 5..I never thought Android would ever be able to match such precision but this knocks it out the ball park. A great review by a reviewer I have the utmost respect for.. A wonderful review for a wonderful phone.. Keep up the great work Replylanderf - Friday, April 05, 2013 - link
I'm glad to see advancement in a new area, but I'll be much happier when that advancement doesn't require a "beats" logo. Few brands are more detestable. Replys44 - Friday, April 05, 2013 - link
All that and no headphone output analysis... ReplyHackerForHire - Friday, April 05, 2013 - link
Brian, you get the Platinum award for the most thorough HTC One review on the Internet. Replybcg27 - Friday, April 05, 2013 - link
Incredible review, great job Brian. Pretty good chance this will be my next phone, although I'll wait to see the S4 review before deciding. ReplyThehumorpolice - Friday, April 05, 2013 - link
Brian- What did you think of the 720p60 video quality? I've seen others reviews that say its terrible. Replycrabnebula - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Brian, thank you for a delightful in-depth review that leaves no question unanswered to even the most discerning reader -- except only one :-) -- how is the audio quality through the headphone jack?Please tell us audiophiles that it is as exceptional and brilliantly engineered as just about every other aspect of this phone... Please? Then I'll be truly excited! Reply
MrMusicMan - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Nice review. But I have to ask: Cases but not a peep on headphone audio quality? Kinda weird. Replykarasaj - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Wow this is amazing. Thanks so much! This is almost enough to tempt me back to Android, but I love the Lumia 920 and Windows Phone in general. I would love to see more Android users go this route though. Camera performance is so cool to see advance. ReplyThermogenic - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
The Lumia totally trounces the HTC One in the video test - that was surprising. The Lumia also is better in night photos, in my opinion - even more so when you compare full images (since the Lumia is at 8MP).That being said, HTC One's camera is much better than anything else in the Android world - it will be interesting if they can sell it when people will just think 4MP = bad. Reply
randomhkkid - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Brian, articles like this are why Anandtech is at the forefront in my mind as the best tech review site on the internet. ReplyMegacharge - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
What are those two things in the sky in the first iPhone picture? They don't quite look like planes. Replyandyd - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
I don't understand why none of review charts (such as the display one) include 920. You have included Lumia 800 and 900 but still not 920. ReplyOwls - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Can you guys begin testing phones for in car connectivity as well? These days a lot of vehicles can display email and text so it would be nice to know if these phones come with a complete bluetooth stack. In addition bluetooth call quality should also be reviewed. Thanks for the great review! ReplyKrysto - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
I still think HTC could pull off an 8MP camera with a 2/3" sensor (7x bigger pixels compared to a 1/3" 8MP sensor, which is what most phones used last year, if my math is right). They don’t even have to make it a phone from the “One” series. Just make it another niche device meant for “amateur photographers” market or whatever, that they’d release in the second half of the year.Then they’d have almost the exact same strategy as Samsung, releasing the Galaxy S flagship in spring, and the Galaxy Note one in fall. HTC needs something like that, and I think they should take this market with the best “no-compromises” camera, even if the phone itself is a bit thicker 10-11mm – which is how thick Lumias have been anyway, and I haven’t seen their users complain too much about it.
Not to mention that if they do this, they also don’t have to let Nokia win the “camera of the year” award in smartphones, when they launch their next gen Lumia, which is in fall. HTC could beat Nokia and everyone else in fall (including the new iPhone) with the best camera on the market. This is a huge potential market. Sony is also rumored to release a 20 MP camera with pixel-binning this fall, by the way.
If HTC hires some Nikon/Canon engineers to help them get the camera hardware and software right, even better. I do think it’s time for smartphone companies to start at least collaborating with DSLR camera companies. If only the slightest know-how and technology trickles down from DSLR’s into smartphone cameras, we’d still see huge improvements in smartphone cameras.
So I do hope the next vector of competition in smartphones is camera quality, just like it has been for processors and screen sizes and resolutions so far. HTC could be at the forefront of this movement if they really wanted it. The question is how badly do they want it, because they’ll have to go a bit outside of their comfort zone. I don’t know how badly they want it or not, but I’d say they badly need it to recover as a company. Reply
UpSpin - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
They don't need a phone only 1% want, they need a phone 99% want, and the One is that type of phone 99% of people want.If you want a 2/3" sensor inside a smartphone, then don't expect to get a chassis as small as 10mm, that's physically impossible. Take a look the the Lumia 808 (uses a sensor only slightly larger than 2/3"), but fat as hell (18mm!)
HTC did what was physically possible and which made sense. Current technology does not allow significantly more. And HTC does not develop CMOS chips or optics, so they can't improve it further.
If HTC fixes the software issues of the camera it's probably the best smartphone camera available. If you want better quality you have to buy a thick point and shot or DSLR. Reply
Krysto - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
2/3" sensor is quite a bit smaller than 1/1.2" sensor. So the bump itself would be smaller than 18mm in thickness. Plus, the technology has improved a lot since then, and we can now see 1/3" sensors in 7mm flat phone bodies, when they used to fit only in 12mm phones a few years ago.I wouldn't mind a small bump anyway. Also the Note was considered "1% of the market" too back then. Most of the media was saying how nobody would want it. So I wouldn't be so quick to judge that. Reply
youwonder - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Hot damn I'm only on page 2 but this is in depth as hell. Just one disappointment though: no LTE battery life numbers for the one? Wondering if it would dethrown the iphone 5 as the king in that area. ReplyBrianTho2010 - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Fantastic Review Brian. The One will continue to be my recommendation for any Android shoppers.Depth of the review just keeps getting crazier. I can only imagine the time spent on this.
Any reason why you think the iphone 5 mic cuts off at 16Khz?
Please explain "you could make an argument about nyquist and covering a few edge cases where the 50 percent square wave assumption built into 1 arcminute doesn’t hold up" Reply
mchart - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Nyquist's theorem states that you want twice the sampling rate / resolution of what your highest end is. So if the target is a top end of 4khz you want a sampling rate of 8khz. I've never heard of this being applied to display technology as he does. I guess you could though. Basically he is saying that a LCD display applies here because you are using individual pixels to display something to your analog eyes. So according to Nyquist's theorem you'd want twice the number of given pixels for a resolution that one would consider to be 'max ppi' for that given resolution.IMO, the theorem is kind of out of place here but I guess it makes sense. Reply
BrianTho2010 - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Thanks for the explanation! ReplyLynxwound - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
Hi mchart. Actually, as you intuitively know, the concept of spatial frequencies means that the theorem can applied to images. Images can be decomposed into "waves" with different spatial frequencies, just as a signal into sines. Regards ReplyTunnah - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
I feel that after I buy this I should send you some money too because I've never been so sold on a device!Alas, I won't do though...I hate android phones - not that I think anything is wrong with them, but I'm a bit OCD, and a very casual phone user, winmo suits me so perfectly with the tiles...but god damn do i want one of these... (i currently have the HD7 and it has less than 10 apps, thats how little I use my phone ha) Reply
Tunnah - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Also as a side note, I have to to say Brian, your writing is just damn FANTASTIC, I've been reading Anandtech for years now and you've really come into your own, I'm a casual techie, I understand that stuff works blah but not quite HOW, and you go into just the right amount of depth so I don't skip anything or have to look anything up..well done mate :) Replyharshilshah - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Is there any way to add the WHOLE massive article to Pocket as one item? Or am I missing something? Replysunaadh - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
The pocket bookmarklet works. The entire article is saved, but a few images are out of place. ReplyUpSpin - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
bottom right corner 'print this article'. Maybe this helps. ReplyTareX - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
This is how every review on Anantech needs to be written. Bravo and thank you.My quick thoughts on the phone: It's a no buy. I currently use a Tegra 3 One X, and no way in hell am I paying for a phone with comparable battery life. Call your tests accurate as much as you want, but the truth is always way worse. I'll be going for one of those 3000mAh battery phones for my next purchase. As much as build quality, software and the camera are important, nothing really approaches significance with smartphones as much as battery life, which literally changes the way a phone is used. Reply
jeffkibuule - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
You're pretty much stuck with a Galaxy Note then, which has plenty of compromises of it's own. Replytipoo - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
You know there's a lot more to it than battery capacity. The Tegra 3 wasn't particularly efficient. ReplyDarkStryke - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
I'm just waiting for the HTC zealots to buy this, then proceed to slap a $70 otterbox on it. That's the problem with these alu phones, and the iphone is no different. People harp on how awesome the design is, but at the end of the day, 95% of them get slapped into a plastic / rubber protector which makes those 200 minutes of CNC time, and the cost associated with it - useless.It's a great phone no doubt, but day to day use it's not going to be left 'naked' by the vast majority of buyers. Reply
Krysto - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
I have a HTC Legend from 2010, and it's almost fully aluminum too. I've never had the need to keep it in a case. I've dropped it 3 times on concrete, and I only have a few dents in it, that you can only see if you look close on it. I'm sure all the iPhone 4 and 4S's out there look a lot worse, if used without a case, which is why most iPhone uses do use a case. ReplyKrysto - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Brian, why didn't you use GLBenchmark 2.7 and 3dmark when testing the GPU?The Nexus 4 benchmark also seems to be "old", because I think Google drastically improved the drivers in Android 4.2.2 for the Nexus 4, which should've made it a lot more equal to the HTC One in performance. That's why you were getting such different results. I think HTC One uses those updated drivers, too, even though it's not on 4.2.2. But since you compared with the old Nexus 4 benchmark, you couldn't see that.
I think it's time to dump all the other benchmarks, and test the devices on the latest benchmarks. At the very least I suggest keeping ONLY the old GLBenchmark 2.5 Egypt HD on-screen and off-screen benchmarks (dump all of the old fill rate and what else ones) and then add the GLBenchmark 2.7 and 3dmark benchmarks to your new reviews. This way you can transition to having only the new benchmarks soon. Reply
varad - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
You can find the HTC One benchmark numbers for GLBenchmark 2.7 and 3dmark on Anand's article in the following links:http://www.anandtech.com/show/6877/the-great-equal...
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6876/microsofts-surf...
But i agree those graphs should also have been included in the device review here. Reply
beginner99 - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Great phone but to large, like all top notch phones... ReplyUpSpin - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Only in large phones you can stuff a large enough battery, high resolution display and a powerful SoC. That's the reason all high end phones are somewhere around 5". Replycomomolo - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
I'm pretty confident this trend will soon be reversed. The size of these so called "high end" phones is just too big for typical pockets in clothes. Women may put them in a purse, but most men don't use a purse. I believe the industry will crawl back to 4" and smaller soon. Pocketability will be the trend after this absurd 5" FullHD screens fad passes. Replyfuturegerald - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
I'm a guy who wears normal straight leg jeans and I keep my galaxy note 2 in my front pocket without issue. being that this phone is much smaller I don't see the issue here. I had the one x that was the same size and size is not a problem. 4.7 to 5 is perfect for me. I don't want anything smaller or bigger. Replybeginner99 - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
Yeah but with a smaller 720p screen you also can get away with a smaller battery for the same amount of battery life.does phones just don't really fit in my pockets and thats were i want to carry it around. ReplyMitch89 - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Agreed, would love a 4.3-4.5" 720p phone with this level of design, 4.7" is just slightly bigger than my ideal.Didn't stop me ordering a black HTC One when it came up for preorder though. Reply
manik. - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Great read. Replylatenlazy - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Excellent read! I've been waiting weeks for this review, and it was well worth it.I was wondering if you could comment on whether it would be possible to fit a 1/2.3" sensor in a profile the size of the HTC One's, and if not how much thicker a device we would have to expect to fit such a sensor. I'm wondering if HTC should have pursued the same strategy of bigger pixel sizes, but not have skimped as much on the pixel count, or alternatively go with even bigger pixel sizes on a bigger sensor. I guess I'm also wondering if increasing sensor size is a direction we might see the mobile industry move towards. Reply
momoX52 - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
I also would like to know about headphone jack quality.If this phone had iOS I would definitely buy it.
Enjoy your sleep Brian, you've earned it. Reply
Diagrafeas - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Excellent Review...Welcome back Anandtech...
I agree about the benchmarks comment above, but in no way this spoils this awesome review (not even 1%). Reply
radiotrib - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Brian I felt the need to congratulate you on such a deep, well researched, well supported, and honest review. It definitely spoke not only of your opinions of the phone, but of your impartiality and integrity. I will be using it as a reference whenever I need to answer questions about my phone.As you pointed out, I am also of the opinion that Zoe (and Zoes) really set the entire HTC experience apart from anything the others can offer. It's not just yey another added-in piece of bloat like some of the current offerings from other manufacturers - IMO it's an integral part of the phone experience, and (hopefully) Ultrapixel technology and Zoe could be the catlyst for a re-definition of the concept of smartphone camera usage.
Thanks for all the hard work you must have put into the article. It was well worth it. Reply
Elroko1 - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Excellent review Brian!. As a radio HAM, I especially appreciate the detailed attention to the radio & antenna parts. It's after all a phone we're talking about :) Once again, really good work. And props to HTC for creating such a terrific device! Replyn3xas - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Great review Brian! Only problem is what about real life battery performance? What is the screen on time and battery percentage after a full day of usage? Replymayankleoboy1 - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Are the screens pre-caliberated ? ReplyThud2 - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Read the article Replyratte - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Fantastic indepth review, thank you! Replypliablemoosethebanned - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Great review, and I'm excited that HTC seems to have gotten it's mojo back, I was a big fan back in the day.I know many of you must visit XDA Developers site and forum (I have for years now), it even got it's name from an HTC phone. Reply
boozed - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
"Most digital photographers know that bigger sensors are better somehow, fundamentally what they're talking about are bigger pixels with more sensitivity."Noise is a function of sensor size, not pixel size. In addition, smaller pixels make the noise finer grained in relation to the detail in the image, which means it's less intrusive and easier to process away.
If you have a 12MP sensor and want to emulate a 4MP sensor, you simply resample the images to 4MP. Having done this you'll also get an image that's superior to that from a 4MP sensor because it's not being demosaiced at 4MP. If however you have a 4MP sensor and want to emulate a 12MP sensor... Well you have to go down and buy something with a 12MP sensor. Reply
nerd1 - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Actually, according to gsmarena, gs4 camera (13MP with the same sensor size) is better in both resolution and low light handling than One. Replytherealjoshhamilton - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
They were using pre-release software. Replyaugustofretes - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
Yeah, I surely trust them... either Samsung discovered that the current laws of physics are wrong, and will soon get a Nobel Prize... or GSMArena is wrong. Replylorribot - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Why is this (and every other phone) released with a single OS? Surely it is not beyond the wit of manufactures (Apple excepted) to be able to offer a choice of OS rather than just one as the hardware is basically the same for for all. With Mozilla and Unbutu making noises about phone releasing OSs surely it is time manufactures started taking a more agnostic approach to the OS that comes pre-installed?We would see less customisation of the OS and less requirements for validation which would mean faster releases of updates. Reply
nerd1 - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
I have seen a number of really serious build issues with this phone. Even the reviewed unit had clearly visible gaps for some cases. Wonder why those build issues are not covered by any of reviews so far. Replynerd1 - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Also sammy cameras have a special long-exposure mode (night scene mode or something)That mode should be used for comparison IMO. Reply
therealjoshhamilton - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
That's apples and oranges. The longer the exposure the more blurry something is. You can get daylight photos out of a tripod at night. Replytherealjoshhamilton - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
That's because the speakers grills aren't part of the one piece design... Replyscaramoosh - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
For me the design sucks, the speaker grills are stuck one, so there are gaps, my friend has exchanged 3 and there are visible gaps between them and the phone, that ifixit teardown proves this. If they were part of the construction, then I'd be impressed.Also though I dropped my phone on Wednesday and had to repair it, I found it very easy, took me 10 mins. Looking at the ifixit teardown, the phone looks pretty impossible to repair yourself. Reply
scaramoosh - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
on* no edit... Replytainguyen81 - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
bs, your friend changed 3 and the phone barly been out and no review has complain about quality. quit the trolling and lie. ReplyDestroyThaNet - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
It's pretty hilarious that you say, "There’s something inherently valuable about metal that I can’t convey, and those materials choices drive the rest of the experience so strongly that I can’t help but get stuck on it every time I pick the phone up," then proceed to have an entire section where you talk about covering it with a plastic case. Replytherealjoshhamilton - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
He does say that he didn't want to use a case... he was merely reviewing the option. Replytainguyen81 - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
This is the best review of the htc one I have read. very detail and fair. I love how Brian go in depth into the technical stuff and explain why thing work or don't work and what can be done to improve. just a lovely piece of review. I read the whole thing from beginning to the end.based on this review, what I can tell is the HTC one is the most innovative phone of this year and everything HTC did was exactly what we need as consumer. boomsound, zoe, ultrapixel for low light, smaller file size, faster shutter speed, quality build and high grade material, best screen in the business, good battery life, beautiful and simple sense interface, very faster performance, feel thin and comfortable in your hand, amble amount of storage, audio quality that best all other phone, great call quality, and the list goes on. all of these are head and shoulder above iphone 5 or galaxy s4 to me. there is nothing else one can ask for in a phone this year.
Let see, s4 looks exactly just like s3, sd card and removable battery which I don't even use in my s3. thinner but you talking about 1mm (hardly noticable compare to s3), still plastic, touchwiz is awful looking with ugly icon and everything are blue/green (eye sore), too many gimmicky feature that you don't use. I turned off smartscroll on my s3 and never used it even once. smartstay is slow as hell on the s4 and i can see not much use of it, airview is useful but you can look like a tool using it in public. imagine the look you get when doing that waving on your phone on the bus.
I have not read a phone review from Brian/Anandtech before, but now this is my favourite review site just for the sheer honesty and technical info that I can get out of it.
phonearena and gsmarena even went on record saying the low light performance of the htc one is not any better than other smartphone and worse than the s4. one of them even say the htc one camera cannot even compete with 2010 phone camera. This doesn't make any sense to me because real world sample from many said otherwise. Those two reviewers are definitely trolling and has zero idea what they are talking about. I hate how they give false message to potential buyers who get turn away from this beautiful phone based on their inaccurate review. Another thing is they said the battery is poor and below average (many users/reviewer said the htc one batter is better than s3 and iphone, that is good, not below average). are those guys expecting the htc one to outlast the note2 battery overall, ridiculous (well it does beat the note 2 and everything else in browsing battery test which is amazing)? Reply
nerd1 - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
I just cannot see any innovation HTC has made, except for using the CNC unibody (like apple) and put a lower-resolution camera. And One's camera is actually worse than GS4 one in most situations. Replytainguyen81 - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
lol, the uninformed. Replytainguyen81 - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
and you are totally blind. I seriously think you either trolling or has zero idea what innovation is. s4 is innovative to you? Replynerd1 - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
S4 packs larger screen in smaller and slimmer case, and still offers micro SD and removable battery (which is larger too). Has the first big.LITTLE AP. Has the best camera so far (both in daylight AND indoors, confirmed by gsmarena review)I haven't included all the software features like float touch, two-screen multitasking and so on.. Reply
tainguyen81 - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
you believe gsmarena? the one that said htc one low light camera is no better than iphone5 s3 but many sample said other wise? then went on to the low light shot in semi low light condition (you can see from the pic they posted, the low light shot is about 6-7pm outside which is not low light to me). you believe reviewer who has no idea what they talk about? use your brain a little bit. Replynerd1 - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
They DID compared with GS4 and they DID provide comparison samples. This review DIDN'T.And you can clearly see the resolution is terrible even compared with 8MP phones. It cannot hold a candle against new 13MP+ sensors. Reply
Thud2 - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Read the article ReplyOmiaz - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
@tainguyen81Then.... You trust only those who praise the HTC one ??? LOL
Great !!! Reply
jayseeks - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
It boggles the mind how you can so HTC has not innovated yet you imply marginal spec bumps in the S4 are in fact innovation. It's also funny how the people that tout the S4's "slimness" as an advantage are often the same people saying that design is overrated when it's the HTC One receiving the praise.In general, when has Samsung ever innovated in the smartphone sphere? They've always been a market follower and continue to be with their gimmicky S-features. Being a component manufacturer, of course Samsung would love to trick the mainstream into thinking all that mattered was specs because they lack the vision to innovate. Reply
jayseeks - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
correction: It boggles the mind how you can say* Replynerd1 - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
So please let me know WHAT innovation this phone offers. Replytherealjoshhamilton - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
dual membrane mics, actively tuned antennas, dual stereo front facing speakers, new case, etc etc ReplyThud2 - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Read the article ReplyPylon757 - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Dual membrane mics? Actively tuned antennas? Stereo front-facing speakers? ReplyThud2 - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Read the article Replypiroroadkill - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Regardless of everything else you said about aluminium: I have a Desire HD, dropped many times, never used a case (using a case on a beautiful smartphone is like covering your Aston Martin in a cheap body kit) and the back looks just perfect still.Well, I now have a motorola Droid RAZR MAXX HD, but don't write off HTC aluminium devices - they don't scratch and look like crap after heavy use. They just don't. Reply
Omiaz - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Hi brian, you did a "good" full review but I think that this sometimes turns is an biased review and give some clues to discredit other modelsI copy and paste:
"Or instead of plastic, polymer, or polycarbonate, or whatever overly-specific word we use to avoid saying plastic"
"I've never given any smartphone an editors choice award before, though I daily regret not giving the One S an award of some kind. For the HTC One I'm giving our Editors Choice Gold award, which is our second highest award. The One is an incredibly awesome device.
"I'm a big fan of the HTC One and can see myself using it for quite a while, even without seeing necessarily everything of its main upcoming contenders"
Ok, then .... please give the task of the review to another editor (unbiesed and not HTC user)
I have written this with respect to you Reply
tainguyen81 - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
so a decent review of the htc one and you say he is bias. common now..... Replytainguyen81 - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
the phone itself is phenomenal. why would someone say it is bad? LO just too funny the samsung fanboy. ReplyOmiaz - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Wait wait wait, I know this Htc one is very very good phone, but must be reviewed by unbiesed editor....(not htc user) just saying. ReplyOmiaz - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
the only site who praises htc one, giving gold award.... and u call this decent?and you dare to call me fanboy. LOL Reply
jayseeks - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
I find it more likely that you're either a Samsung employee or a paid shill employed by a marketing firm hired by Samsung. There are tons of both infesting and trolling the tech blogs for the sake of Samsung. ReplyThud2 - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Read the article and then attempt to find unsupported claims or incorrect conclusions based on the very thorough and empirical evidence referenced. Good luck. Replycryosx - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
I think Anand came away impressed from this phone as well (according to his mini review). Clear your mind, use the phone. If you still have complaints, then by all means, complain. ReplyThud2 - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
The fact that well researched findings do not agree with your world view does not a bad review make. Replycmikeh2 - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
If you follow him on Twitter he isn't really an HTC user. He uses the phone he reviews and recently I believe his go to phone has been an iPhone 5. He's sees a ton of phones in his capacity as phone reviewer and obviously likes using the One. ReplyAmit kumar - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
HTC One is surely a excessive phone with its smart aspects. Really this is specific phone. I checked full specification of this phone this website as well. http://www.gadtecho.com/ Replynerd1 - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
"Great build quality" with "tiny, tiny gap"?Never seen such a bad QC with any other phone so far.
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/36077148/One_gap.jpg
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/36077148/One_gap2.jpg
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/36077148/One_QC.jpg Reply
Omiaz - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
LOL, even iphone 5 QC is much better. ReplyComply - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
It's fake. Notice how the paper ''somehow'' gets less wide inside the screen? ReplyOmiaz - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
@Complyhey butthurt !!!! Visit xda developers forum.... many many pages talking about this Reply
therealjoshhamilton - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
fake.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OP49XOA-KTA Reply
nerd1 - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
You really think they bother to make elaborate fakes? for what?https://dl.dropbox.com/u/36077148/One_gap3.jpg
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/36077148/One_gap_5.jpg
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/36077148/one_gap6.jpg
The gap is even clearly visible with the review samples. Check this.
http://www.notebookcheck.com/typo3temp/pics/3ed607...
http://www.notebookcheck.com/typo3temp/pics/366408... Reply
Comply - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Yes I do, how do you explain a piece of paper going through the camera module... lolHaving said that, there are a few early models with gaps yes, simply first batch problems, like every other manufacturer. Reply
Thud2 - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
For what? yeah there's the millions of dollars... but ....what else? Replymaximuss - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Come on. Don't fool people. Before you drop this comment do you know first and second photo are faked? Or you provide this wrong information deliberately? The Chinese characters on the second photo explain the photo is faked. There is a Taiwan tv news report explained this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OP49XOA-KTA ReplyOmiaz - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Simply first batch problems ???? Zero Gap technology !!! FAILOk, ok, I accept that gap sample pic is fake (piece of paper)
Then can u accept that manufacturing and QC not is "perfect" as they say. Reply
maximuss - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Anyone can criticize QC level of any manufacturer, but please use true information. ReplyOmiaz - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Yea, but Htc one isnt cheap at all, they claim his phone is perfect ReplyThud2 - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Omiaz, how many pieces of propaganda are you required to produce daily? ReplyOmiaz - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
S4 dont need propaganda, actually the "plastic" is selling well Replynerd1 - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
I'm sorry but it seems the first two pictures are PSed.However I still see a surprising large number of 'review units' having that gap issues. Reply
jayseeks - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Stop trolling for Samsung, do you guys over there have no shame at all? What a poor reflection of an already corrupt company run by a felon for a CEO. ReplyThud2 - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Ha ha, redacted! ReplyOmiaz - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Stop talking (or writing) and see sample comparations on gsmarena.U can see the diferense betwen S4 and One. Samples with medium/low light. Reply
Omiaz - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Zero Gap technology !!! FAILhttp://gsminsider.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/H...
http://gsminsider.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/H... Reply
jayseeks - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
trolling hard. Replyjayseeks - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
http://www.dailytech.com/Samsung+Emails+Bolster+Ap...Samsung or Scamsung? Shameless either way. Reply
jayseeks - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
more food for thoughthttp://news.yahoo.com/132-page-internal-document-s... Reply
Omiaz - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
the student surpasses the teacher !!! my friend ..LOL Replybulletdig - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
OMG... I thought Nokia and Iphone trolls are the worst..but the "sammy" legion( yes sad but that's how they call it) are the worst. (sammy fans = pathetic human beings without a social life) PLEASE TROLL somewhere else. I happen to have the One and you know what sammy nerds ??? IT'S AWESOME best piece of kit i had since EVER !... and my previous 2 devices were a NEXUS 4 and a SGS3. I never went ONcE on a forum to complain about how crap it is and how cheap it feels..and how after i bought the Nexus i thought I'm in heaven.short story..get a HTC One...hold it in your hand and play with it, and you will see what happens.
p.s Omniaz....Nerd1...and so on.. GET A LIFE TROLLS !..go and play with your fisher price plastic toys... Reply
Omiaz - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
@bulletdig.... dont get mad, accept that the "unibody" not is perfect.Hold a htc one ?? no thanks, there is gap and some kind of dent betwen.
I prefer durable "plastic" with body easy to repair, NOT the recycled coke can phone, with unperfect "unibody" and imposible to repair. Reply
bulletdig - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
like i said in my comment...have fun with your fisher price plastic toy ?!Was i not CLEAR enough that i for One HAVE THE ONE and there isn't some kind of dent or gap ...
My friend ...I had the SGS3.....and it's ok...had a few signal issues and not the best build materials but overall was ok...had the Nexus 4 after still have it but don't use it, i can't because of the One. Back to SGS3. The design, let's be honest...since 'sammy' decided not to copy the little fruit any more their phones lack the wow factor..(not sure if they ever had it...maybe the S2)...but still i keep my own business and u know mind my own life. It's not like "sammy" is feeding you trolls is it ?! What I can definitely say about the One is...that from my point of view..it's the first android device to surpass the build quality and design of any Iphone build to date.
As for Brian...he's review is brilliant..as always. Reply
nerd1 - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
So you accuse samsung for copying iPhone design and praising the one's design and build? Replybulletdig - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
can you really tell me that the S1 in particular was not a blatant copy ? And i mean design and even touchwiz...How in the God's name does the One resembles the Iphone ?!?Listen trolls..i for One (see what i did there ?) have a social life and I don't have time to spend on forums to keep bashing about stuff... I also like to think that I have more than half a brain.
Happy trolling ! Try not to get wet ! Reply
jayseeks - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
http://news.yahoo.com/132-page-internal-document-s... Replyjayseeks - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
To accuse would be to imply it wasn't proven, but its been proven Samsung intentionally copied the iPhone despite Apple being their client.http://news.yahoo.com/132-page-internal-document-s... Reply
Omiaz - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Ok !Then if i say: Htc is perfect wow, aluminium wooow, no gap, no dent, 4mp the best (im brillant like Brian, and i can be ur friend, im a good person with own life, maybe rich)
If i say... there is gap, dent, battery nots very good, not sd, no removable batt (im troll, your enemy, nerd with acne, fanboy, poor, stupid)
Your logic is nice Reply
Thud2 - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
I don't know Brian, and this is the first time I'm aware of reading his work but having now read his work and your comments it's pretty easy to see that Brian is obviously very intelligent, and learned and you my friend... are not. ReplyThud2 - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
OMG,"dont get mad, accept that the "unibody" not is perfect.
Hold a htc one ?? no thanks, there is gap and some kind of dent betwen.
I prefer durable "plastic" with body easy to repair, NOT the recycled coke can phone, with unperfect "unibody" and imposible to repair."
Possibly the most inane, biased, foolish post I've read recently. Try writing your posts down on paper and reading them until your biased fervor has subsided. Them you may be able to see clearly how foolish they are. Reply
Omiaz - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
dont cry ! Replyfernandosor - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
You are a blithering idiot Replyfernandosor - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
Referring to the comment you quoted by omiaz ReplyOmiaz - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
hey hey...take it easy.Are u defending to ur girlfriend? Reply
cryosx - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
I'm betting they don't like seeing people being converted over to the other side. They were probably heartbroken when team hacksung refused to support the next Galaxy S. *sigh* Now they're raging over here trying to break any momentum HTC may have gained from this review. . . ReplyOmiaz - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Team, hacksung ???? S4 dont need that,,,,HTC phones not receive support even same HTC
LOL Reply
fokka - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
didn't read the whole thing yet, but as so often, i think you are setting the bar for technology-reviews.what i'm very happy about is your inclusion of low-light comparisons complete with exif-data. i'm always astonished when sites are reviewing a phone with even the slightest emphasis on camera, most of the time they only feature outside-shots in bright daylight, a setting even my first vga-resolution toy-cam could handle to my content.
i also like how one can really feel how much you enjoy this phone, which doesn't come as a surprise with an engineering marvel as the one. if only it had a sd-slot, i would be all over it, too, but ok, can't have everything, right? Reply
A Geologist - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
*Looks out of window... strange, no flying pigs... :-) Nice review Brian, worth the wait. Replygarthrowley@yahoo.com - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Brian - A couple of things: Have you experienced the HTC One getting warm with extended use? Do you know if the phone is being shipped with the new software to address some of the camera's daylight issues? Is it also coming with the new facebook skin? Why do you like Swiftkey over the stock keyboard? Replybulletdig - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
@ garthrowley@yahoo.comIt doesn't get warm..not like the Nexus 4 warm issues any ways..warmish maybe under heavy demanding apps but more than acceptable. Mine had shipped with the latest software version. i can tell you that if you know how to make photos..it will make great photos. (www.androidcentral.com has a good story on how to make photos with the One).
No there is no facebook skin. I dig the stock keyboard. but then again swiftkey is not bad either..it goes down to personal taste and preferences really. Reply
Peroxyde - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Any idea about rooting and installing custom ROM on the HTC One? Replysjprg2 - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Dammit! HOW does it work as a PHONE? I'm still looking for a "smartphone" that works hands free with any of the BT earpieces (Motorola elite, ,etc) I have had to go back to my old Motorola VT750 flip phone to get a hands free solution that actually works correctly. If they could do it then, why can't they do it now? All of the reviews completely skip a report on this important function. Here in California it is illegal to use a cell phone while driving a vehicle. Come on reviewers, get your act together and cover the whole set of functions in smartphones. Right now they are good play toys but lousy phones.Paul Reply
bulletdig - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
I use it with a car holder stuck on dashboard (on of the original htc accesories for this phone). The front speakers are very load and .The people I was talking to were hearing me load and clear. I even used it to skype. haven't used it with a BT tough so i can't tell you. hope it helps. ReplyOmiaz - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Gap too bad !!!Plastic is fantastic !!! Reply
Krysto - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
You may post your "plastic is fantastic" comment 100 times in here. It won't change the fact that Samsung's cheap plastic phones feel crappy in-hand. ReplyOmiaz - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
the "plastic" is selling well...very well Replyrichy184 - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
so is justin beiber ReplyOmiaz - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
facepalm for u Replyrichy184 - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
It's interesting that you believe that the more popular something is, the better it must be. Justin Bieber being a frame of reference there.Hope that clears it up for you. Replyfernandosor - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
Can someone hit this guy with a frickin mallet? ReplyThud2 - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Mr. Omiaz B. Samsung. Replyhaze4peace - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
If you are going to shill for samsung at least stay on topic. This reply has nothing to do with what you are replying to. ReplySaxie81 - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
And this is why I continue to go to Anandtech for anything review related. Replyrichy184 - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Wow, what a brilliant review. You just confirmed what I already suspected, it's simply a stunning bit of kit. Don't think anything can come close, HTC have really nailed it. I will be purchasing this phone asap, thank you. Replysherlockwing - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
I have a problem with the forced 200nits brightness during battery, while that is OK when comapring LCD vs LCD, for a AMOLED device that's almost max brightness, hence why OLED devices such as Galaxy Note2 & GS3 perform abysmally in AT's battery benches compare to their reviews elsewhere. ReplyComply - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
notsureifsrsso basically you want to compare battery life with devices having to display over twice the amount of brightness, brilliant, absolutely brilliant Reply
sherlockwing - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Fact is most people are fine with default brightness on OLED phones and few will use it at max brightness like tested in the AT benches. Replysherlockwing - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
You also don't understand that 200nits on an OLED is much brighter than 200nits on a LCD Replysapient2k7 - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
How can they be different. There are being measured on the brightness levels; that is what a nit is.According to whatis.com
"nit is a unit of visible-light intensity, commonly used to specify the brightness of a cathode ray tube or liquid crystal display computer display. One nit is equivalent to one candela per square meter." Reply
lukarak - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
And a kilogram of feathers is much lighter than a kilogram of lead. Replykyuu - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
... Lol. Too funny. 200 nits is 200 nits is 200 nits. Unfortunately lukarak beat me to the punch on making a weight analogy. Replysupersox - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Most comprehensive and empirical review I've read anywhere, great job! It makes same review on the verge look like kids stuff. ReplyDeath666Angel - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Cool review.On the materials choices for phones: I wonder if professional reviewers are biased because they get to play with so many different phones that protecting them from the environment is not an issue. A few scratches? I'll have a new phone in 3 weeks, so I don't care. For me, metal is not needed in a phone. It adds weight, it usually reduces customizability, it often adds to the price and it usually doesn't increase protection. I never see the phone itself for more than 30 minutes which is how long it takes me to plug in the SIM, apply a screen protector and push it into a case for protection. So I have no qualms with plastic phones and loved my SGS2 as well as my current GN. I also experience no flex in them, at least not when I push with any reasonable amount of force. :P
So while I appreciate the 2 pages of industrial design talk, I pretty much disagree completely with the material ranking. :D Reply
Thud2 - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
I agree, Thats why they make Saturns out of plastic and Mercedes out of metal. Oh that's right, they stopped selling Saturns. ReplyOmiaz - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
I repeat.... the "plastic" is selling well......so plastic is fantastic. LOL ReplyThud2 - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
Just to make it clear, Omiaz likes plastic. OK Omiaz? Now everyone knows.It's one thing to express your opinion, which you've done. It's another to be an ass, and you've done that too. Reply
peterg21 - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
The sad thing is, no matter how wonderful a review site is or the review (or how abysmal) the content of many of the comments seems to have been penned by semi-literate fanbois who are compelled by some psychotic need to denigrate the "competition". One could swear that [insert-company-name-here] despoiled their sister or killed their cat. Replybiassj - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Thanks for another quality review, I think I might pick this over the Galaxy S4 after reading this. Of course the downside is not expandable storage and removable battery, but I never really use them anyways. Since prefer using a tablet for most mobile apps and the phone is just a the pocket able device needed for backup. Replygnx - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Amazing review, but confusing too.I'm most confused about the camera, which is for me, the deciding factor. I understand the reviewer's enthusiasm at HTC taking a different novel track, but the reviews from The Verge, Engadget, Phonearena, GSMArena all mentioned the problem of noise making it less desirable than expected. When the recent blind test by Phonearena ended with users preferring images by iphone5 > galaxy s4 > galaxy s3 >Htc One >Sony Xperia Z ... Even nice images in low-light are still useless if it's compounded with noise.
Is this noise problem in HTC One something that can be solved by HTC tweaking the camera software a bit more, or is it an inbuilt problem? Can the reviewer help us more on this? Reply
Thud2 - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
There are images and videos from many phones for viewing in the article. Make up your own mind based on the evidence maybe? Replygnx - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
I've seen the one's here, and the ones on the verge, engadget, and phonearena, gsmarena and noise is unfortunately evident.I'll make up my mind one whether I want to switch to the HTC One when I know is whether I can expect the noise to be remedied by some later software updates (as the reviewer mentions for excessive sharpness and ISO setting bugs), or whether it's tied to HTC's propriety camera hardware, thus something I have to give up for good low-light photos.
Can the reviewer help us here? Or will the review be updated when the U.S. version comes out? hopefully with HTC's software updates? Reply
Omiaz - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
PLease please please... dont ask for help to the reviewer, I guess he will say: "htc one is better since his camera update" Replysonicxml - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
They were probably using pre-release software, a later software update helped fix a lot of the camera issues ReplyOmiaz - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
13 mpx > 4 mpxUltrapixels = just deceptive marketing
http://gizmodo.com/5985348/what-is-an-ultrapixel Reply
UpSpin - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
nope, just read the article. It just explains what Ultrapixels means, it doesn't judge the term at all. You judge it, because you don't understand it. Replytipoo - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
That makes no sense. Not all megapixels are created equal, it's like comparing processors just by MHz. Replynumberoneoppa - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Great review, Brian. I'm only on the first page, but I noticed one issue. You mentioned that for a material to be more easily machinable, it should be more malleable. This is absolutely false. Harder materials are by far easier to machine because they cut more easily without becoming soft and gunking up/ruining the cutting tool. For this reason, a lot of machinists prefer working with steels/brasses over softer aluminum alloys. Thus a harder aluminum alloy, as you propose they used, is actually pretty good for machining. (I'm an ME). Replynerdstalker - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
HTC One is a good looking phone; but I don't think it deserves the "unibody" or "full metal body" titles. I've looked at its photos on the web and from the teardown of iFixit. My understanding is: the big backplate piece in the middle is connected to top and bottom backplates using injection molding, what HTC calles "zero gap". This process also forms the plastic frame all around. Then, the speaker grills (top/bottom frontplates) are adhered to the rest. Display snaps to plastic features in the frame.I think this type of design may have some drawbacks. First is reliability. There are 4 small pieces of metal that are kind of floating. Any drop to corners and it is very easy to make a damage. See here for instance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwE9PGDnlvs Other issue is reparability. It is not uncommon that the display glass can be broken or other parts of the phone may need to be serviced. One's approach makes it almost impossible to pop open a unit w/o damaging the plastic frame. The display assembly is designed in a way to cause this. Also, I cannot imagine the trouble engineers had to go through because they cannot easily open and work on these units.
The curved back of the phone helped HTC to avoid a bulge due to rear camera (which sticked with HTC phones for quite some time). The thin edge implementation contributes the ergonomics and psychological thinness effect. But, the curved body results in a very long CNC time and staircase volume. Such volumes cannot be used effectively and can easily result in tolerance stack-up issues.
I think everyone, including Brian, is pretty surprised to see a phone with metal almost everywhere, and it can still have a decent wireless performance. To me, this is not very surprising. Active tuning and switching of course mitigates the loading by user. The important questions are: how efficient are these antennas (passive, active, TRP, TIS, etc), how is the performance when the base station's signal level is not decent. From what I understand, Brian tested the case where signal levels are good. I'd test the case where signals are borderline and call drops can happen. In Rate Vs. Range situations, close range is always ruled by the radio (RF back end), long ranges are where RF front end gets really important. I don't expect HTC One to have a superb performance to pass carrier specs and have the upper hand during subsidization negotiations. Also I wonder how many bands (and bandwidth) this device covers and how it compares with its competitors.
A final remark is about the next generation HTC One. With this kind of design, I find it much difficult for HTC to go to a thinner design in the future. Reply
gnx - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Wow .. that youtube is scary ... I don't put a case on my phone, so the HTC really appealed to me, but if the speaker grill separates like that, that is not "unibody." :( Replycryosx - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Yeah, only the back is really one solid unit. Replynerdstalker - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
Actually, only the big middle section is really one solid piece. I think the smaller top and bottom plates are not part of the bigger middle plate. They may be connected at a few points for shorting pins/plates of the antennas and that's it. Replyrisa2000 - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Actually, what is interesting is the bend in he made into HTC One bottom with the last drop. I would expect scratch, or dent, but not that the whole part gets deformed. ReplyIsthatyouBevis - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
I kind of agree with this. I pre-ordered the phone, but am pretty disappointed to see the front metal is just glued on decorative pieces. I had assumed there was a metal chassis of some sort in the front. Basically, this is just a metal back phone. ReplyTechTranny - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Excellent review!! It was the most thorough I've seen since ever. Its an amazing phone i actually gotten a chance to play with it yesterday & I was quite impressed. I don't understand why people keep saying why does the appearance matter, it's only gonna end up in a case. I don't understand the logic but if that's how you need to justify your purchases so be it. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but I don't think for a second that plastic is premium over metal. Its just not the case whatsoever. Also everyone does not use cases!!! ReplyOmega215D - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Never used a case on any HTC or Motorola phone I've had. When I bought a Droid Charge it got dinged pretty easily so I had to encase it and my sister had to do the same for the S3. Quite a shame really as the phone felt quite nice without one. Of course it was a slippery little bugger like the new iPod Touches. Replygnx - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Oh, also, a question about the battery life, which is the second deciding factor for me. At the moment, it seems the HTC is fine, if not quite top, on 3G, but what about 4G LTE? My one fear about the HTC was that'd be decimated on LTE, kind of like my friend's miserable experience with HTC Thunderbolt on Verizon, and at the moment, it seems to be doing just okay on 3G which doesn't bode well for LTE. Will the reviewer also update info on HTC battery life on LTE, when it becomes available in the U.S.?
I'm guess since the HTC One isn't out in the U.S. yet, the reviewer couldn't test battery life on AT&T or Verizon or even T-mobile's LTE. Reply
Omiaz - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
S4, much better, wait for octa core.... (battery friendly)Visit gsmarena
Battery test: (incluiding standby)
S4: 64 hr
HTC: 48 hr
HTC: http://blog.gsmarena.com/htc-one-battery-test-is-c...
S4: http://blog.gsmarena.com/samsung-galaxy-s4-battery... Reply
zilm - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
ahaha, what a lie, look at their numbers carefully:HTC One: Talk: 13:38h Browsing: 9:58h Video: 10:02h Rating: 48h
Galaxy S4: Talk: 13:53h Browsing: 8:42h Video: 10:16h Rating: 63h
So S4 (compared to HTC One): Talk: +2% Browsing: -13% Video: +2% Rating: +31%
Ehhhh, they call it review? More like buyview Reply
Omiaz - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
dont cry.... :(htc one battery drains in standby.....thats important to me, cuz i sleep 8 hrs and drive 2 hr.
S4 dont drain :) super battery friendly.BTW....S4 has bigger screen and ddr3 ram. Reply
Thud2 - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
Dogmatic much? Look it up. ReplyThud2 - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
Cuz yur it. Replyxnay - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Thank you Brian for the most comprehensive review out there. It changed my opinion about the One (in a positive way). Replytheduckofdeath - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Aaargh...! Excellent review. Now I'm back to, not being know what to get again, this or the S4. Because other sites really didn't show the quality of the camera in their reviews like you did... Ah well, still a long time for me to make up my mind, because the S4 probably won't be in Ireland until June anyway... :) Replytheduckofdeath - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
After watching a drop test at Android Authority, I am back at 'probably getting the S4' again. The speaker grills are glued on!? ReplyAbacus0101 - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
I found your review to be extremely thorough. I was very excited about this phone. My concerns are many though. Firest off I owned the HTC flyer tablet and it took forever for Htc to do any sort of updated to that device. Htc is on a respirator as far as the company is concerned and unless they really step up the advertising this may be their last chance. as good as the hardware is, Im very concerned about the capabilities of the software. the more I look over what the new Samsung S4 will be capable of, the more I move away from the HTC one. I personally think the S4 blows it away from a software standpoint. why I find interesting is that you never really mention the s4 in comparison to this phone. Yes the s4 is plasticky, but you can add storage, change out the battery and i,ve seen photos taken with it and all that i,ve seen have more detail and seem more vibrant than this phone. Yes i think boomsound is great as well as blinkfeed but the s4 has smartscroll, s translator,s health, is shipping with jellybean 4.2.2 and will be the first to get jellybean 5.0 in mat. You can get a wireless charging adapter it has a nice smart cover and tons of software features this phone is lacking so im still on the fence. Voice quality for me is a big issue. Also the iphone 5 seems to have beaten this phone by many gpu benchmarks which is troubling to me. Id love to see you do a full in depth analysis on the S4 before making my decision. Replyrichy184 - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
All of the heralded software features on the s4 seem quite gimmicky and just marketing junk to me. s translate? I'll prefer google translate personally, s health? There's so any fitness apps out there. Wireless charging is also a gimmick and is not an efficient charging method. Is plugging in a cable such a massive problem? Gesture scrolling etc seem likes a feature nobody is really going to use to replace finger scrolling.I like the fact the HTC have just focused on a few small areas software wise and really focused on nailing them at the same time stripping down and simplifying sense. The whole camera/zoe package looks so clever and useful. I particularly like the video and audio recording quality highlighted in this review. The picture quality of the camera looks superb, and who really needs anything above 8mp considering it is rendered pointless if you are mainly using your photos for facebook/social media or viewing them on a 1080p monitor!
The attention to detail on The One and overall design makes it a far more appealing option to me personally. Each to their own in the end though, just nice to se HTC really upping their game, I think everyone has been surprised with the quality of this device. Reply
Abacus0101 - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
gimicky..i guess thats your perception..to me its features that i'd at least like to have in the phone...gimicky or not that's available to me to play with...and the camera is better in detail than the HTC One..and I have the iphone..so i have no allegiance to Samsung...just that the features are better..its a preference thing..and i do think the HTC One is a very well made device..so until i can test and feel both..i'll reserve judgement. I just pointed out that im starting to lean in Samsungs favor. thats all. ReplyOmiaz - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Marketing junk like the "ultrapixels"?http://gizmodo.com/5985348/what-is-an-ultrapixel Reply
richy184 - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
No, not like that at all. You need to improve your reading comprehension, you crashing bore. Replydawheat - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Can you add the S3 and Note 2 to the rest of the display tests? More importantly, please include them all (including the One), when you test the S4. The Samsung phones are missing from most of the display tests and only appear in white brightness test. Replyhvalrgir - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
"Up top, the One locates the headphone jack off-center..."lol Reply
Omega215D - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Seriously, what's up with all the Samsung douchebags coming out of the woodwork? They'll just troll everything that's not Samsung and are becoming just as rabid as Apple fanatics. S4 this, S4 that, Note 2 this, Note 3 that. It's like they want everyone to conform and use their products instead of allowing for choice like they keep shouting about when something about the iPhone comes up.On topic, I would hope Verizon gets the HTC One (at least one as close to the original) soon. I would love to get a feel for this phone, the Nokia Lumia 928 (finally Verizon) and Galaxy S4 and make my purchasing decision from there. Reply
Abacus0101 - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
and i guess that makes you an HTC One douchebag... ReplyOmega215D - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Re-read the damn post asshole. ReplyThud2 - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
Many of the post raise relevant questions but one poster (Omiaz) has turned this into a monkey throwing it's shit fest. ReplyMykeM - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Just wondering if anyone knows if HTC provides warranty that covers accidental damage- something akin to the AppleCare + ($99 purchase which also extends the warranty to 2 years) which allows 2 accidental damages where the customer only have pays $49 to get his or her phone replaced. May not be a concern to those in contract but off contract, damaging a $600+ and being able to pay a small fee for replacement is a necessity. Replysuperflex - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Yes. It's called TEP on Sprint. $9/month and $99 replacement cost. Cancel when you reach the break even point. Doesn't matter whether you are on contact or not.IDK about AT&T. Reply
tlo07 - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
I recommend SquareTrade. I buy this on all my gadgets now. Replymike656 - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
I wonder if there is a good solvent that can remove the beats audio logo without damaging the metal? Then IMO it would look nice on the backside. ReplyThud2 - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
Agreed! Replysuperflex - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Brian,Thank you for the excellent review. The wait between Anand's teaser and your review was painful but worth the wait. Once it gets to Sprint SERO, I'm all over the 32Gb model. $199 purchase price, $40/month and no contract!
The Sammy trolls sure appear envious and their broken English is hilarious. Reply
dyc4ha - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
great job on the review! Replyotokoyama - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
I always look forward to the reviews, by far the most comprehensive and informative. I consider the other "reviews" out there to be more like first impressions. I can't wait until your review of the Galaxy S4.I'm pretty disappointed that the HTC One doesn't have a removable battery and that might be the deciding factor between that and the S4. I like to keep my devices for 3-4 years. Do you know if it will be feasible/reasonable for the battery to get replaced? Thanks and keep up the good work. Reply
superflex - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
I've had my HTO Evo 4G 3 years still on the original battery. Replynerd1 - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
I just cannot understand why some people are over agressively defending the one and calling everyone trolls. Ultrapixel is not a innovation - its clearly a marketing gimmick, and has clear disadvantages as well. Machined alu case looks good (if not covered) but anyone can do that, apple has done it earlier, and also it has disadvantages too.I always thought anandtech a techy site - i really dont like to see people following form and marketing over function here. Reply
ninety - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
Ultrapixel is not a marketing gimmick. The trend is seen in DSLRs as well. Why do you think Canon only increase resolution from 21.1MP to 22.3MP for the new 5D Mark III? And the EOS xxxD line has stayed at 18MP for three consecutive releases. Pixel size matters. Replynerd1 - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
They are not. 36MP D800/D800e is just as good as any lower-MP FF cameras out there in terms of dynamic range and noise. ReplyUpSpin - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
yes, but the sensors are much larger and so are the pixels in the D800 much larger than the pixels found in smartphone sensors. With decreasing pixel size you hit a physical limit and noise gets worse and worse.It's possible that increasing pixel count works for the D800, but this doesn't mean that it still works for much smaller sensors used in a smartphone. Why do you think does the Lumia 808 have such a huge sensor if they could have fit all those pixels on a 1/3" with the same quality according to you? There are many limiting factors, like dispersion, diffraction, shot noise, ...
Additionally does the HTC One have an OIS, which is impressive in itself and only the Lumia 902 has one, too. Just the OIS alone puts its image quality above any other smartphone without one. Reply
nerd1 - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
Actually I thought 13MP sensor for phone camera wouldn't do any good, but actually GS4 camera is quite good (according to the examples from gsmarena) They have very good pixel-level acuity, and quite good (on par or sometimes actually better than the one) in terms of available light pics.And I totally agree that OIS is a great feature. Reply
Omiaz - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
13 mpx > 4 mpxUltrapixels = just deceptive marketing
http://gizmodo.com/5985348/what-is-an-ultrapixel Reply
hp79 - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
The gizmodo article doesn't really have anything saying it's a deceptive marketing. In fact, they explain why HTC created another term for the bigger pixels. I think this is totally different from cases like Apple's "Retina Display" marketing term. Now that's something really useless term Apple uses. In HTC's case, they needed to market it one way or the other for people who don't know the technology of the camera sensors.My priority is low light performance. If you take pictures mostly on bright sunny days, then 13MP would probably be better. Reply
hp79 - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
Omiaz, after flipping couple pages back on the comments, I feel stupid replying to your post. Why are you posting the same comment on and on? I wish there was a vote-for-ban button. ReplyOmiaz - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
exactly !!!! "created term" :) ReplyOmiaz - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
if i gonna take pictures in low light or night then I carry my digital camera with xenon flash....easy my friend....better than any smartphone. Reply
hp79 - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
Sure, no problem if you can plan ahead. ReplyOmiaz - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
i carry a digital camera to all importants events (clubs, birtdays, wedings) I dont need to "plan ahead"Btw....
plan ahead???? LOL. Obviously all the plans are ahead.
or....can u plan the past......??? Reply
UpSpin - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
the name is marketing, because 4mpx seems worse than 13mpx for dumb people. But it isn't.How else can HTC explain that their 4mpx sensor has larger and more sensitive pixels than a 13mpx sensor. How else can HTC explain that the 13mpx sensor is useless, because optics and noise can't make a use of it. How else can HTC explain that they integated an OIS which gives you sharp shoots at normal light conditions. (most reviews only test the smartphone cameras in well-lit areas, which you normally don't have) Reply
nerd1 - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
It's a marketing BS. Low-MP sensor is clearly worse when there are enough lighting. It is a FACT, and comparison pictures speak for themselves. It 'may' be better for low lighting situation, but gsmarena comparison test tells that is not the case. Replysuperflex - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
The pictures and video speak for themselves.Too bad Brian didn't use the crappy S3 camera for for a comparison. You'd be self immolating right now Reply
Thud2 - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
lol Replyninety - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
Finally finished the whole thing. I wished this review came out a bit earlier (than ATT pre-order starting date) but that's fine. Already made my decision and I believe the right one. I value camera functionality of a phone so the One is a better buy for me. Find out what fits you. Convincing people S4 is better (or worse) does you no good. ReplyOmiaz - Saturday, April 06, 2013 - link
is your money my friend :) Replybsl100 - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
Hi Brian. Fantastic review. What's the Frequency Response of the external speaker? Replywinddroid - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
This is the most detailed, comprehensive review I have ever read. Thanks for the technical detail in the review. ReplySabresiberian - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
200 minutes on the CNC just to machine one case?Wow. I mean, I know it's an assembly-line CNC, but that just blows my mind. I wonder how much that adds to the cost of manufacturing? It's not cheap, I'm sure. Reply
superflex - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
Same price as the SGS3 and 4 without the crappy plastic case. Replybminor13 - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
This device sounds phenominal, but I am still put-off by the high monthly service charges for smartphones here in the US. Does anyone know if it's possible to buy a device such as this outright, and use it without cellular voice/data (using WiFi only) as a glorified PDA? Replyhp79 - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
You can buy the developer edition 64GB model for $650, and then there's a $100 trade-up program. I would at least use cellular voice though. If you look at T-mobile prepaid service (pay-as-you-go), you can charge $100 and become gold member, and you get 1000 minutes which will expire after 1 year. Charge another $10 before the 1 year, and your minutes extends another year. ReplyOmega215D - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
You can probably buy them unlocked and unsubsidized but it will be pretty expensive. How about the Samsung Galaxy Player? Those are pretty cheap and can be used as a glorified PDA. Not too sure about voice if you need it. Replyoneandonly - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
Great review! Thanks for all your efforts. I would like to add just one thing. You claim that comparing between platforms is somewhat irrelevant because people will not switch over because of the camera. I have owned an iPhone4 for two years, which I love and hate for all the obvious reasons. For me the camera of the One and the ideas and innovations behind it are a big reason to go for HTC and android the next two years.I'd allready have one if only HTC would not have the Apple-esk delays...
http://www.ibtimes.com/apple-iphone-5-pre-orders-d... Reply
chocolaking - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
I love this beautiful phone! I am getting this phone no matter what!HTC ONE ! I want you bad!! Reply
osikiri - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
Does this phone look cool? Not for me...This phone's design looks very 'China', just like other HTC phones. Especially on the back. Pointless horizontal and vertical lines 'hanging up' the camera hole, overly big HTC logo... Everything is far from a premium feeling. A cool design is not a matter of 'plastic or metal'. What is important is the beauty of moderation. Reply
superflex - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
Since image is everything, shouldn't you be at the Apple Store sipping a latte or at the plastic surgeon getting your girlfriend's boobs redone?HTC has struck a nerve with the Apple and Sammy fans. Reply
Thud2 - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
Sorry to say...that sounds racist. ReplyDeadeyeM - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
I cant seem to find Audio quality using headphones? Does Anandtech do this kind of stuff? ReplyKlug4Pres - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
Great review! Will take me a while to wade through it, but in the meantime, some edits for you.Conclusions page:
solicit laughter --> elicit laughter
remaining of the Sense experience --> reworking? Reply
TechTranny - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
Amazing phone. Amazing review... What's going on with all the Samsung shills? Really is that what it comes to. How dare somebody tell another person how to spend their hard earned money. Buy what works for you ReplyChloiber - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
I still don't quite get how you test battery life. Because no way in hell can you surf for 7+ hours on a One X. Same goes for the test on GSMArena by the way. Replypiroroadkill - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
Uh, they're the antennas. You need to have gaps in solid metal for the antenna to work. Way to read the review.Maximum trolling detected. Reply
bulletdig - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
"maximum trolling detected" really like that :))the plastic fisher toys aka sgs1234... are very "premium" Reply
long John - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
best phone review i have ever read in a very long time , such attention to detail, and just what i needed to solidfy my choice to buy this phone. hope to see a comparison with the SGS4 when available. ReplyAnn E. Bartley - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
my neighbor's sister makes $85/hr on the computer. She has been fired for nine months but last month her paycheck was $12266 just working on the computer for a few hours. Read more on this site... Snag4.cℴm ReplyThud2 - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
Omiaz is moonlighting? ReplyOmiaz - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
do u miss me? Replyscaramoosh - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
Why does no one mention how the speaker grill doesn't sit flush with the screen, so when you swipe near the top and bottom, your finger hits that bump up tot he speaker grill and it's very annoying. The whole surface of the front should be flush, there shouldn't be anything like what the HTC One does.It doesn't have good build quality, it doesn't even have premium materials as they're as cheap as plastic. What it has is design, all that people like about the phone....... Reply
superflex - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
Samsung should teach you better English.Your envy is showing Reply
scaramoosh - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
Envy? I have neither phone and a free upgrade..... ReplyEDALBNUG - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
I didn't see a battery rundown test in the review this time. Is that coming up in its own article later? ReplyEDALBNUG - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
wow I meant to say headphone output quality. Can't think properly without sleep. Replybulletdig - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
@ EDALBNUGMate, it really really good. I use it with a pair of beats by dre and it's amazing. To be fair it's the first time when i feel the beats software tweaks as being more than a gimmick. Hope this helps. For more technical wait for Brian. Reply
perry1mm - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
You state in the BlinkFeed details that it only auto-refreshes on Wi-Fi, but I believe it does on mobile as well, but has a longer break in the refresh. I thought it was 2hrs on mobile data, 1hr on Wi-Fi, and 30mins if on Wi-Fi and plugged in charging. Was this changed? ReplyAndroidtech - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
I really like this phone and i have both the Evo 4g LTE and the Galaxy S3 right now. Three things that may keep me from purchasing the One are Sprints lack of the 64gig model at launch, no sd card and no removable battery. I use my Galaxy S3 to listen to podcast all day at work just because I can change the battery out for a new one. My Evo will not last all day even if I charge it at lunch ! With out an sd card slot how will I load radios and firmware from the bootloader with a separate sd card that I use just for that. They should have put a sd card slot on the outside like the micro sim card slot. A slot the Sprint version will not have. I suppose I will just have to put them on the internal sd and then erase it immediately afterward. I would like to know how good the reception on Sprints LTE will be because the Evo (LTE) is no where near as good as my S3. It sounds like it should be good since the maximum RF on Sprints version is centered around Sprints 1900 mhz band but I guess i will not know until I get my hands on the One or someone test that. Brian I would like to know how much space is available for Apps because I run out on my Evo with 2 gigs. A problem I have yet to encounter on my S3 because it shares all available internal space with what ever needs it. In the end I could just get the 32gig One I suppose and keep using my S3 for podcast but I really want the 64 gig One and have no idea when Sprint will get it. I really hate to break the tradition of carrying one HTC and one Samsung phone which started with the original Evo and the original Galaxy S but this decision is a tough one mostly because of the lack of a 64 gig model. Great job on the review Brian looking forward to the next podcast ! Replysuperflex - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
Regarding your listening to podcasts all day at work, it's called a battery charger. You ought to get one for your cubicle. Replacing your battery and forcing a reboot is so caveman, but I guess that's how Sammy shills roll. ReplyCraig234 - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
Why the heck do they use the gold award as the second highest? Way to risk confusion. Replyco4nd - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
Amazing how the iPhone 5 released nearly 6 months ago still destroys everyone on gpu. To bad you can't get an A6 in an android device. ReplyOmiaz - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
wrong !!! my troll friend.S4 octa core version has PowerVR 544 Gpu (533 Mhz)
iPhone 5 has PowerVR 543 Gpu (350 Mhz)
Yeah !!! Reply
netmann - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
Nice Review Brian! I see that you used a Nokia Lumia 920 as a comparison on the photo and video portion of your review, but I do not see a detailed review of 920 on Anandtech.com! It's been 5 months since 920 is out! What's going on?! Replykyuu - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
Yeah it's a bit perplexing. At one point I even saw it specifically mentioned that Klug was working on a review of the 920 but it never materialized and I never saw any comment on why it was shelved. Maybe they'll review the 928? =/ ReplyDark_Archonis - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
Shame you didn't test the One's microphones versus the 920 Rich Recording High Amplitude Audio Capture Microphones, which also can record clear audio in extremely loud environments.http://i.nokia.com/blob/view/-/1696152/data/2/-/Do... Reply
kyuu - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
Huh, that's interesting. Didn't know Nokia was doing anything like that. Is that tech in the Lumia 920? ReplyBecherovka05 - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
I agree with everyone's comments about what an amazing writeup. I have done some experiments with my phones photo settings since HTC one was announced. I have a Nexus 4 and it produced poor quality photos in low light situations, but by lowering the size to 3.1MP it actually gives a much better photo indoors. It would be good to see if others can repeat this and see if they get the same results I did. ReplyBecherovka05 - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
Its just 3MP's not 3.1 ReplyNeo-ST - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
This is, hands down, the best review of a phone in a very long time. Congratulations and keep up the good work! Replylilo777 - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
As usual, author's attachment to aluminum cases is somewhat irrational. Sure aluminum has some perks in the looks department but that's about it. Technical review though should also clarify how much sacrifices the design makes when going with aluminum. Here are some of those: bad (cold) feeling, easily scratchable (and looking real bad after that), no replaceable battery, no SD card, no wireless charging. Is it worth it? Or perhaps it's an Apple-like form over function compromise? Replyrichy184 - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
None of those are sacrifices or compromises really though. I would say the cool touch of metal is a good thing as a lot of people have already mentioned and the battery/sd card is really a non issue for the vast majority of users. (what percentage of people are away from a charger for more than say 12-24 hours? What percentage of people will use or need more than 64gb or even 32gb of storage?)I certainly have no real desire to use wireless charging, what problem does it really solve? You still have to plug the charging pad in don't you? Is plugging a cable into your phone such a labour? Reply
lilo777 - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
One can argue whether the features present in Samsung phones are more or less important but they are still very much real. Much more real than the good looks of the aluminum case which disappear right after the phone is purchased (because it goes into a plastic case). The simple fact is that most aluminum phones are used in side plastic cases. If people preferred aluminum as much as many reviews would let you to believe why would people then stick their aluminum phones into plastic cases? Apparently people prefer plastic.As far as wireless charging is concerned, there is a big different between connecting a amt (once in the phone lifetime) and a phone (at least once a day). Besides, when you need to accept a call, it's much easier to do it when the phone is on e the mat (than when it's connected to the wall). Reply
Omiaz - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
same opinion here .Htc one is a good phone. But i prefer S4. Why?
* I prefer amoled 5"
* Octa core
* Gpu PowerVr (octa core version) this more powerful than adreno 320
* Sd slot (good me, cuz i use many music,photos,video,games etc)
* Removable battery
* Good update suppot.
I repeat...The htc is a very good phone. Reply
Thud2 - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
"The HTC ONE is a good phone" ????What, did your bosses tell you that the rude troll approach was actually turning opinion against your cause? Because you seem to have changed your strategy rather abruptly in light of your previous posts.
"I prefer durable "plastic" with body easy to repair, NOT the recycled coke can phone, with unperfect "unibody" and imposible to repair."
"The gap is even clearly visible with the review samples. Check this."
"Simply first batch problems ???? Zero Gap technology !!! FAIL"
"Zero Gap technology !!! FAILHold a htc one ?? no thanks, there is gap and some kind of dent betwen."
"HTC phones not receive support even same HTC LOL"
"13 mpx > 4 mpx Ultrapixels = just deceptive marketing"
"dont cry.... :( htc one battery drains in standby..."
"Marketing junk like the "ultrapixels"?"
and a duplicate post- "13 mpx > 4 mpx Ultrapixels = just deceptive marketing" Reply
Thud2 - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
Great article Brian Replyhaze4peace - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
So many fanboys. Let people like what they want to like. ReplyFlash783 - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
HTC one. what does HTC actually engineer or make? they just repackage parts. Heck they don't even make their own OS. why are they considered a 1st class company?1. good idea to make the phone aluminum. If I was the CEO of Samsung, I would have made the GS4 Aluminum.
besides that what did HTC exactly create?
It has a Samsung Screen
It has a TSMC processor
It has a Samsung RAM and Flash memory.
Any chinese company can do the exact same thing as HTC. it takes no ingenuity whatsoever
So my opnion is that Cher Wang(her father is an ugly monkey) and Peter Chou are big time scam artists playing the innovation card when they do NO innovation at all. they are frauds Reply
Commodus - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
HTC designed the phone and chose which components to include -- those make all the difference.Also, news flash: even Samsung chooses non-Samsung components for some of its devices, like the Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 in some Galaxy S 4 variants. The notion that you have to design and manufacture every significant component yourself for a phone to be innovative is ridiculous.
It's doubtful that just "any Chinese company" can do what HTC did. Huawei hasn't done it. Lenovo hasn't done it. ZTE hasn't done it. Who has? The closest parallel to HTC's work on the One is, if you hadn't already guessed, Apple -- which spends loads of time on custom design work for the iPhone, but still has to outsource from other companies for parts. Reply
Thud2 - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
What is this "Chinese Company" thing. You don't sound good speaking in those terms. Replythesavvymage - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
HTC now remake your g2 sliding keyboard phone with this level of detail! Only me and probably 10 other people will buy it, but we will love it! ReplyNeo-ST - Sunday, April 07, 2013 - link
Wait, "There is no question in my mind that the One includes the best camera in the Android space right now". The best - really? I wouldn't agree, it's average in daylight at best. This sounds like infatuation and hinders objectivity of the review. Reply