HTC One S Review - International and T-Mobile
by Brian Klug on July 17, 2012 9:30 AM ESTIt took me a while to finish the One S review, partially because honestly I didn’t want to be done with it. Ok, well that's part of it, truth be told it took me far too long to finish the One S review, but I have some good excuses - a month full of abrupt life changes, a move across town, and a number of trips to exciting places covering the SGS3 announcement, Google I/O, and Windows Phone 8 all seemed to preclude hitting post on the One S review. The whole time, I've been using the T-Mobile One S with my own T-Mobile SIM and plan (the magical $30/mo prepaid one with unlimited SMS, 5 GB of full speed data, and 100 minutes) since getting it, and the device is almost always in my pocket alongside either the One X, SGS3, or Galaxy Nexus with my other AT&T line.
If you’re a T-Mobile customer in the USA, there’s no doubt about it that the HTC One S is the current number one or two device out there, thanks in part to that combination of DC-HSPA+ and new 28nm SoC. Even now that T-Mobile has the Samsung Galaxy S III, the One S still has a place at the top of the carrier’s lineup for shoppers that aren’t looking for the largest device, or value the metal construction. Since both are based on the same SoC, the differentiating factors really come down to display, camera, and other features. SGS3 obviously includes the bigger and better display, but HTC feels like it holds the upper hand in camera and construction. The rest is just personal preference. For international shoppers, their particular One S gets the plasma sputtered metal case in addition to none of the T-Mobile software preload.
Really the differentiator is the display, and LTE. With regards to the display, I initially thought that another 4.3" qHD SAMOLED display with PenTile would immediately turn me off, but HTC has done the best job I’ve seen thus far of getting that particular panel to a place where it doesn’t have a weird tint at every brightness level or insane amounts of sharpening. It blows my mind that Samsung can't get its own AMOLED panels tuned this well. With regards to LTE, there are still a number of carriers out there who don’t have LTE, but are instead looking to improvements on WCDMA to both increase capacity and deliver higher throughput. In my neck of the woods and other similar places where there's no AT&T LTE coming for the foreseeable year or so, going to a carrier with DC-HSPA+ in the interim does make some sense.
I really have to go back to what I started talking about in the first section - the One S has an absolutely phenomenal in-hand feel thanks to the combination of both that metal construction, and the center taper. Even in the supplied case, the device sort of fades away in the pocket in a way that is starting to become depressingly uncommon as OEMs push into much larger display sizes and form factors.
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flashbacck - Wednesday, July 18, 2012 - link
I have a T-mobile One S. I've noticed (and would be interested in hearing what other people have experienced) that battery life is destroyed if you turn on the "best wi-fi performance" setting in the wi-fi > menu > advanced menu.Zoomer - Thursday, July 19, 2012 - link
That should be the settings that leaves wifi on all the time (disables sleep). That would destroy battery life for any device.Death666Angel - Thursday, July 19, 2012 - link
My SGS2 runs with that I always get comfortably through a day of medium to heavy use. Since my 2000mAh battery upgrade, I could maybe approach 2 days but why bother? :Ddxkj - Wednesday, July 18, 2012 - link
It pulls ahead for "some reason". I believe that reason is the quad core is on the international version and the 2 core is on the US versionsunsetsam - Friday, July 27, 2012 - link
Article says "sealed battery", chart shows "Removable". Pretty sure it's sealed, and if so, that's a deal killer. Really like my Sensation and was looking to upgrade, but sealed battery, no deal.Tomsgate - Monday, September 10, 2012 - link
Generally a nice device, but be aware that many times many users, including myself, are experiencing a SERIOUS ISSUE whenever carrier signal is weak: The capacitive Home Touch Button then tends to press itself. When in an app or on the home screen with or without the finger near the home button it seems to spaz out as if the home button gets pressed in quick time succession.Basically, you then completely loose control over your phone. Just google "HTC one S touch home button issue" and you'll see plenty of posts and videos about it.
This issue has been reported to HTC by many users for several months now, but no patch or update has been released now as to address the problem. So keep this in mind if you want to purchase this device... You have been warned.
HTC, please take position and FIX THIS ISSUE! Thank you...
Other issues on this phone (personal experience):
- HTC Task widget duplicates tasks by itself, up to X times
- Connectivity issues, phone suddenly switches between 3G and HSPDA permanently, resulting in extremely slow data connection
- Sync issues with contacts (ICS issue)
Reported issues:
- Black metal coating chipping off on black edition
Karl1 - Thursday, September 13, 2012 - link
HOME SCREEN BUTTON ISSUE!In many ways this phone is excellent, but it has a huge design flaw and becomes almost useless in areas with poor reception.
No point describing it in detail here, just google 'home screen button issue'. There are hundreds of people reporting the problem and receiving precisely zero support from HTC.
Obviously not every handset seems to be affected, but I have had two that were (replaced the first one), and the spreadsheet listing those affected is growing daily. Worse, the problem seems to take a few weeks to develop (so you will be outside your cooling-off period and will not be able to return it), then becomes increasingly bad after that.
Seriously, think twice before buying this phone. If I knew what I know now I would not even consider it. I certainly will never buy an HTC again.