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.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
97 Comments
View All Comments
Death666Angel - Thursday, July 19, 2012 - link
4.3" is my normal. 4.0" is really the smallest I could imagine going. iPhones 3.5" is just unacceptable for my usage case and hands. The Note was not that bad, though I only tried it in the shop. 4.6"/4.7" will probably replace my SGS2 in a year or so.ausaras - Tuesday, July 17, 2012 - link
I seriously doubt the AMOLED screen in One S is from SAMSUNG, not after SAMSUNG screwed HTC over.I have read news in Taiwan several months ago that AUO is working on AMOLED screens. After reading this article, I Googled a bit and found several sources (in English and Chinese) that AUO indeed is shipping AMOLED screens at the second half of 2012, to HTC and Sony.
If any reader here is from Taiwan, it should be apparent that the Asian IT industry is in the mist of change. Taiwanese and Japanese companies are forming alliances against the SAMSUNG juggernaut. Another reason why I doubt the AMOLED screen in One S is from SAMSUNG.
tynopik - Tuesday, July 17, 2012 - link
when i saw the pic out of the corner of my eye, i thought it was some sort weird combo phone that joined two regular phones with some metal scaffoldingJohnmcl7 - Wednesday, July 18, 2012 - link
I'm glad it wasn't just me, I was trying to figure out what on earth the phone was as it looked like some sort of strange double phone attached with a metal hinge from the picture.John
dishayu - Wednesday, July 18, 2012 - link
I love this phone. It's perfect for me. I was waiting for 3 months to be able to buy it, but then all of a sudden, HTC decided to bait and switch and now India has a One S with 1.7 Ghz Scorpion processor, unlike the krait in international version. VERY disappointed.Zoomer - Thursday, July 19, 2012 - link
They pulled a Samsung? Damn.M0rky - Wednesday, July 18, 2012 - link
What countries is this One S international sold in? The version sold in Europe and Asia has a S3 cpu running at 1.7Ghz. I can´t find a single review of this version and as far as I can tell the S4 version is only sold in America.pikahatonjon - Wednesday, July 18, 2012 - link
is the screen in the galaxy nexus and the galaxy s 3 the exact same?because i heard reports that the galaxy s 3 one is a bit more bright, but with franco's custom kernel and with the trinity kernal for the galaxy nexus, i can get it really bright. perhaps brighter than the 200 nits that you mentioned in this review. could you possible investigate?
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=22579...
azntwboy - Wednesday, July 18, 2012 - link
So, according to your measurements, this screen has a color gamut of something like 130% sRGB? How does that actually look? Are the colors super saturated? How does it compare with the HTC X and the Google Nexus 7? Can you please provide a graphic with the color gamuts overlaid so it's easier to compare?One issue I have with all new phones is that they don't have replaceable batteries. I use my phone for both displaying photos for work, and GPS navigation for hiking, so I need to be able to run it for 8 days at a time. I have a HTC desire and I take 8 batteries with me for a week long hike. I wonder if a solar panel charger is something I could use instead of replaceable batteries.
dishayu - Wednesday, July 18, 2012 - link
There are 12000 mAH USB battery packs on the market selling for around 60$ that you can carry along. IMO it's much more convinient than carrying 8 batteries and also a lot more versatile because you can use any USB chargable device with them.But i do agree, user replacable battery is one option i'd like to have as well, because ultimately when the battery performance starts to detoriate after months of usage, there's no other way.