HTC One S Review - International and T-Mobile
by Brian Klug on July 17, 2012 9:30 AM ESTThe One S display is a 4.3" SAMOLED panel with qHD (960 x 540) resolution. If that sounds really familiar, it’s because it’s the same as what was in the Motorola Droid RAZR series, including PenTile RGBG.
What’s different, however, is how well HTC has controlled the color temperature and gamma compared to Motorola in the RAZR. As shown in the HCFR galleries below, gamma is pretty close to 2.2 until you get to the high end, and color temperature is pretty close to 6500K, except at the two darkest grey points. This is so much better than any other OEM calibration of an AMOLED panel I’ve taken a look at, which is rather humorous because the panel is undoubtably Samsung’s. HTC is also letting the panel go pretty bright, up past 350 nits, instead of clamping it way down around 200 (I’m looking at you, Galaxy Nexus) to save power. I also haven’t noticed blacks not being totally off on the One S like I have with some others. Of course, colors are still massively oversaturated if your source color space is sRGB.
I’ve griped about PenTile RGBG before on this panel and other SAMOLED displays, but I find the One S to be completely enjoyable in spite of having it thanks to two things. First, how well HTC has controlled the panel (no awful hues, weird white points, or dramatic shifts as you change brightness) - this is basically the best I’ve seen this particular panel, and until SGS3, the best I’ve seen AMOLED in general. Second, because HTC doesn’t appear to be applying any processing that applies sharpening (like Samsung’s mDNIe) to text.
How you feel about PenTile really is the final factor: it’s there, but I’ve slowly become accustomed to it after staring at it for so long. If you go back to the Nexus S days, I was one of the most outspoken critics because of how large those subpixels were. With small enough subpixels (below visual acuity), PenTile starts to make sense. In other news, HTC moving back to Samsung AMOLED for phones is an interesting move after supply issues forced HTC to SLCD with some earlier phones, here on the HTC One S however, it looks great.
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Zoomer - Thursday, July 19, 2012 - link
One could also take apart the phones, hook the logic boards/screens to seperate specialized lab power supplies, and then conduct the tests that way.Possible? Yes. Realistic? No - unless you are Intel and want a competitive advantage.
amdwilliam1985 - Tuesday, July 17, 2012 - link
On my SGS2, I enabled wifi-calling and limited radio to edge speed(10k/s), I can go through 2 days with normal usage at no problem.Android device got the power but doesn't mean you need to run it at maximum speed all the time. I run at "slower" speed most of the time, and ramp up the speed only when I "needed".
e.g. How fast can your car drive at? How fast do you normally drive at?
tipoo - Tuesday, July 17, 2012 - link
Screen size, processor clock speed.amdwilliam1985 - Tuesday, July 17, 2012 - link
Puny screen that doesn't show much for anyone to see.TareX - Tuesday, July 17, 2012 - link
Also, AMOLED consumes close to twice more power when displaying the predominantly white screen of web browsers compared to LCDs.Aslund - Tuesday, July 17, 2012 - link
I have recently recommended this phone to my mother, which she also bought. Initially I also thought the screen would be a huge let down, but after viewing it in real life I was pretty impressed. Sense 4 gave a good impression and the sleek feeling compared the Motorola Razr Maxx makes this phone, in my opinion, the best within its size range.hurrakan - Tuesday, July 17, 2012 - link
The "Display Mate" website advises NOT to set a black background on OLED screens:"Because of differential aging, setting your wallpaper to all Black is most likely a bad idea because the fixed arrangement of Home Screen icons may eventually affect screen uniformity, so ghost images of the icons might become noticeable."
http://www.displaymate.com/OLED_Galaxy_S123_ShootO...
Brian Klug - Tuesday, July 17, 2012 - link
I suppose it depends on what tradeoff you're willing to make. If you go through phones like I do, you'll be onto the next device long before aging effects start to burn in (and remember, it's also a function of what brightness you're driving, too).-Brian
nitram_tpr - Tuesday, July 17, 2012 - link
Nice review Brian, looks like a good phone. It's still a bit too big for my liking, I have the SE Xperia Ray and it (for me) is almost the perfect size. I'd love to see Samsong, HTC, LG etc come out with a sub 4" screen sized phone with a good high resolution.Size isn't everything you know?!?!
As for battery life, the 4s is thicker than this phone and alot that are out there so will have a bigger capacity battery. It also has a less powerful CPU/GPU than the newr phones to cope with.
MadMan007 - Tuesday, July 17, 2012 - link
For this SIM-only plan "(the magical $30/mo prepaid one with unlimited SMS, 5 GB of full speed data, and 100 minutes)", can 'anyone' (not a major tech site journalist) get the SIM through T-Mobile site or Wal-Mart without buying one of the matching phones?