The HTC One: A Remarkable Device, Anand’s mini Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on March 21, 2013 4:49 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- HTC
- Mobile
- HTC One
The Camera
If the One’s industrial design and materials choices make it nice to own, it’s the camera that makes the One a must have. In fact, that’s how it all started for me. I popped my test sim into the One and started carrying it around with my iPhone 5 as I went about the user experience part of my review process. I quickly found myself only taking photos using the One, and using the 5 for everything else. After a few days, the 5 was pretty much only used to check iMessages and answer calls to that number - with the One being used for everything else.
I remember talking to Brian after he first learned about what HTC decided to do with the One’s camera system. I believe he said something like “this is exactly what they should be building”. In the three years I’ve worked with Brian I don’t think I’ve ever heard him say that about any smartphone OEM’s decision with any component/subsystem. The strong endorsement was enough to pique my interest in the One.
Brian will go into great detail about the One’s camera in his review, and what I’ll provide here is no where near doing it justice but I’ll do my best.
At a high level, HTC’s strategy with the One is to boldly bow out of the megapixel race and instead integrate a lower resolution rear facing camera sensor with larger pixels. Each pixel in the One’s 4MP rear facing camera sensor is over 2x larger than those in the iPhone 5, and even larger than those in the Galaxy S 4. Larger pixels help ensure a better signal to noise ratio, which in turn can really improve low light performance when paired with a suitable lens.
The downsides are obvious. Very well lit scenarios can suffer compared to a higher resolution sensor, and the bigger issue for HTC is that 4MP doesn’t sound as good to the uninformed consumer compared to the Galaxy S 4’s 13MP rear camera. HTC tried to get around the latter problem by calling its larger pixels Ultrapixels, but then it’s up to point of sale training to ensure that the benefits are adequately conveyed. Call me cynical but I don’t have a bunch of faith there.
The F2.0 lens ensures a bunch of light can hit the sensor, and the result is easily the best low light performance I’ve ever seen in any Android or iOS smartphone. I took this shot during Jen-Hsun’s GTC 2013 keynote earlier this week:
The One seems to want to drive ISO as high as possible to increase brightness, so for this particular shot I manually set ISO down to 100, but otherwise everything else was left to defaults.
The Auto ISO algorithm doesn’t always drive itself super high however, the shot below is outside of Terminal 2 at the RDU airport at 11:29PM:
For this shot I didn’t touch anything and the result was a surprisingly low-noise shot.
It’s not just night shots where the One’s camera excels, but also in the more common poorly lit indoor scenarios where I come away very impressed:
HTC One
iPhone 5
In well lit outdoor scenes the One’s camera does a reasonable job (although HTC seems to have an issue with noise in these well lit scenes from whatever processing they seem to be doing):
Integrating a good sensor and camera system is just part of what the One does really well here. The feature that I’ve found resonates the best among normal smartphone users is the highlights reel.
Sense 5.0 will automatically assemble 30 second highlights videos based on photos and video you’ve taken throughout your day. The One automatically adds filters, background music and stitches everything together; all you have to do is use the camera to take photos and video, everything else happens automatically.
The highlights reel below is one that was automatically generated based on my photos and videos from opening day at GTC 2013:
Although highlights reels are automatically generated, you can also generate highlights of individual albums. I created an album of photos I had taken over the past couple of trips (as well as some shots I took at home) and the One created this video:
Each highlights reel is shared as standard MP4 (baseline profile, ~3Mbps 720p H.264), so compatibility isn't a concern.
You can manually choose from multiple themes (filters/music combinations, 6 total), but there’s unfortunately no way to add your own background music yet (I suspect this is coming in the next major update).
The highlights reel is easily the most emotionally engaging feature the One has to offer, even ranking above aesthetics and build quality in my opinion. It’s the type of feature that really seems to resonate with everyone I show it to. The killer aspect in all of this is the fact that the One will put together highlights reels automatically, with no user intervention.
I can see the background music and filters getting boring after a while, and that’s why it’s very important for HTC to quickly enable end users to supply their own audio tracks (as well as quickly - and regularly - expand the collection of filters offered).
The downside to the One’s highlights reel autonomy is the feature remains relatively buried, almost hidden in the gallery app rather than front and center like Blinkfeed. The highlights reel is easy to demonstrate to someone else, it’s just not as obvious of a feature when you pick up the phone for the first time.
I haven’t touched on Zoe, the ability to simultaneously shoot stills and record a short video - both at full res. Zoe is a difficult feature to really explain without demonstrating it, but it does wonders in the creation of highlights reels. Zoe is a great way of dealing with the problem of what to do when your subject is in motion - do you hope for a good still or just capture a video? Zoe interestingly enough does both. It’ll capture a 1080p30 video, as well as 20 full resolution (4MP) stills at the same time.
I’ve mostly been using Zoe as a way to make my highlights reels more interesting, but the best use case I’ve seen was actually by a friend of mine who used it to capture the actions of some street performers in Europe. In one Zoe he had performers spinning on their heads, which typically would make for a good video or an emotionless (but potentially cool) still. Zoe delivered both.
The One, like Nokia’s Lumia 920, features optical image stabilization (OIS), which is designed to help both in shooting video as well as improving low light performance. In practice, I’m not super impressed with the OIS implementation on the One. It seems to need a bit of tuning, but I’ll leave it to Brian to explain exactly what’s going on.
Shot to shot latency on the One is amazing. Video quality is solid as well.
The One has the physical beauty to get you interested, but the camera prowess to keep you engaged.
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acky2lum - Friday, March 22, 2013 - link
You mean your picture frames actually have a usb sticking out from the frame? You know the usb flash drive is actually a sd card with a different case right? But sd cards and usb have seperate uses, u can't replace everything with a usb drive.Just because u are so used to not using a sd card and pay more for extra storage, doesn't mean you can discredit / bash the usage of sd card. The only reason nexus 4 have no sd card slot is because they need to compensate for the cheap price of the phone itself, not because sd card is not important.
jayseeks - Saturday, March 23, 2013 - link
Yes, my digital frame has a USB port in the back where you can't see it. Because only the most incompetent manufacturers would place a USB port on the side. Most digital frames actually come with memory so that all you have to do is transfer the pictures, usually with a USB cable. I've used SD cards for a long time, they are extremely inconvenient and even the new ones aren't must faster. On top of that, if you don't properly eject them all the time, your SD card can actually get damaged over time, a major inconvenience if you plan on constantly switching them up. The SD card really isn't an important feature to me, and in my experience, most people. Even the IT guys I know don't care for SD storage. The only people that I knew that really emphasized microSD were the Blackberry people.DEECEE - Thursday, March 28, 2013 - link
This dude must work for HTC or something, if so, Jayseeks, go back and tell your boss to put replaceable battery and SD cards in the next One, and shut everyone up already, sheesh. It's a completely stupid move after the misstep that is the OneX, you'd think HTC would learn from that. Or create two versions, similar cases, one with the replaceable battery and SD card, one without, it's the total volume that generates revenue right, not stick to a design principal that is completely subjective to different individuals. Stupid, stupid move on the part of HTC.You know what, if Apple put replaceable battery and SD card in their phone, i'd make the iphone a much better phone, but they Apple loses on gauging its customers. HTC on the other hand does not have a monopoly on Android phones, it's simply stupid to leave out major features when you bigger competitor have them.
CeriseCogburn - Monday, March 25, 2013 - link
Below suckyface tells us how experienced he is and addicted to SD cards, he actually loses his own argument and solidifies my points.Not like tardobrain will notice.
People like the SD card, they don't want to rewrite and overwrite, and the SD card usually has a lock on it, unlike the USB thumb.
The usb thumb sticks out of their laptop and breaks off, NOT the sd card, slides in flush or worse case barely not flush( some HP's for instance).
Dummy lost and lost badly, as is the case, always.
eebrah - Saturday, March 23, 2013 - link
To know for sure if a feature is a "deal breaker" you need to compare a device that has that feature with a similar device lacking said feature. When it comes to the comparison between Samsung Galaxy S and iPhone, there is a lot different than whether or not it has a removable battery or SD card slotDEECEE - Thursday, March 28, 2013 - link
Exactly, so why would HTC even leave the door open for that comparison to be in favor of Samsung by not having Replaceable battery and SD card? Stupid. It'd would be such a quick decision for so many people deciding between the two phone if the One has everything S4 does and with a more beautiful design, but no HTC pushes customer to decide between the outward appearance and the practicality of having replaceable batteries and SD cards, why??othercents - Friday, March 22, 2013 - link
I never said that they would use them. Marketing and sales is not about features you will use, but more about features that are nice to have. If you have two phones side by side that look and feel the same then features like removable battery and SD card slots become the deciding factor. However in reality it is going to be brand recognition that gets the masses to purchase the S4 over the HTC One. Samsung had a massive marketing campaign against the iPhone 5 which could be the deciding factor. This is especially true given that the HTC One and S4 are both supposed to be available at the end of April.eebrah - Saturday, March 23, 2013 - link
I think not. Quite a few people find the removable battery and expandable storage to be desired features that influence their decision to purchase a device, amongst other factors.To dismiss it so casually out of hand, when the most popular Android device has both and when the entire Android space is taken as a whole, a majority of devices have this features, seem to just be arrogant.
I am very familiar with the North American and European markets but in the places with the highest rates of Smart-phone growth, those features are essential and even in North America and Europe, a whole lot of people are buying and android phone with removable battery and expandable storage when they have other similarly priced options.
You may not like the idea of removable batteries and expandable storage [ your opinions and choices ] but please stop dismissing them without much evidence to back your claims.
Keep in mind that even if only 10% of the market wanted a feature, it is still significant enough for a manufacturer to include it in their flagship... and cheaper too, rather than created a similar device with/without those features for different markets.
You do not like a device? vote with your wallet and DON'T buy it, let others make their own choices
eebrah - Saturday, March 23, 2013 - link
Edit: I am *not* very familiar with the North American and European Marketsothercents - Monday, March 25, 2013 - link
Out of the 30 million S3 phones sold last year I would bet that less than 10% of the people have ever removed the batteries or installed an SD card. This makes it a nice to have feature that some people find necessary, however for the masses it is not critical. "Quite a few people..." does not equal a requirement for everyone (maybe to just you and your friends). While the SD and replaceable battery are not critical the S4 will still outsell the HTC One due to the brand recognition of Samsung vs HTC and due to the fact that when placing the handsets side by side some people will decide function (SD and Battery) over form regardless if they will use it or not.My original point is still the same. Marketing wins before anything else. Function over form due to fear of loss (IE. not getting something you might need later on).
Side note, people keep complaining about 16GB without SD vs 16GB with SD however the truth is you should be comparing a 32GB without SD vs a 16GB with SD since they should be similarly priced. For me since I only load apps on my phone and don't bog it down with videos or music then the 32GB or even 64GB without SD works great. The 16GB with SD is good for someone who wants to carry their music and video library around with them.
I find it interesting that someone would be arguing for the S4 and replaceable battery when I clearly stated twice that the S4 would outsell the HTC One.