HTC One with Nexus Experience Announced
by Brian Klug on May 30, 2013 12:30 PM EST
At Google I/O 2013, the search giant announced the Samsung Galaxy S4 with Nexus Experience, and almost immediately rumors began circulating about a potential HTC One with the same Nexus Experience moniker.
Today, Google has announced the HTC One with Nexus Experience. The hardware is the same as the HTC One (AT&T variant) we've seen before with the same set of banding, which is unsurprising given the HTC One Developer Unlocked Edition is the AT&T variant. I had hoped for this being the T-Mobile variant which includes AWS WCDMA and none of the arbitrary AT&T RAT locks, but it's still good for T-Mobile and AT&T LTE in the USA. This is the same great HTC One hardware but this time with a pure AOSP (Android Open Source Project) build, skin, and thus pure Nexus experience. There still are some customizations like Beats, for example, but they're not at the expense of the rest of the software platform.
HTC has pegged the One with Nexus Experience for release on June 26th on Google Play for $599 with 32 GB of onboard storage. Updates are of course provided by Google directly.
Update: There's a bit more information now about what features the HTC One with Nexus Experience will support compared to the Sense 5 version. First, Beats Audio is included and is always on, with no UI or notification to disable it. Camera again only comes with UI and UX provided by the stock camera application and implements those features. When it comes to the IR Tx/Rx system there's no common Android API for it, but I've been told this should work with third party applications. None of this should come as too big of a surprise, that's what the tradeoff is for a completely stock Android device.
Source: HTC Blog
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
41 Comments
View All Comments
superflex - Thursday, May 30, 2013 - link
Google wants the menu button gone. Micro SD slot too.I dont miss the menu button one bit. Home and back are all you need. The menu button is readily apparent in any app, if you need it.
I guess you still like dial up modems too or your just spewing Sammy talking points bashing the One.
Troll on
JDG1980 - Thursday, May 30, 2013 - link
What is it with software companies? They see a feature people like and use, and think "We've got to take that away from them!" Microsoft with the Start menu and Google with the menu button and MicroSD slot. Why are these companies so user-hostile?antef - Thursday, May 30, 2013 - link
The menu itself hasn't gone anywhere, it's right in the upper-right corner of most apps. What is user hostile about that? It's an improvement. You see it, you know it's there and does something. The hardware menu button is a black box, you never know if it'll do something or not. THAT'S user-hostile and why Google got rid of it.Affectionate-Bed-980 - Thursday, May 30, 2013 - link
Menu button going to the upper right corner doesn't make sense. I still prefer it at the bottom. Why? What's the point of me interacting with the phone near the bottom for the 3 buttons and keyboard only to have to reach across a ginormous 5" screen to the top? My thumb can't reach it. Not without shifting the device in my hands at least.And the search button is awesome. Open Yelp, hit search, and continue typing on my keyboard. All without having to reach for the top to click on the text input box. I'd be more open to having to touch all over the screen if our screens weren't 5" large.
antef - Thursday, May 30, 2013 - link
Well the entire action bar is up top. That's not going anywhere anytime soon, so no matter what, you have to be used to reaching up there. Thus menu being there makes sense as well, it should be grouped with other application features.The hardware menu button, although you might like the placement, is a fundamentally broken UI concept which is why Google got rid of it. You can't have phantom buttons that sometimes perform functions and sometimes don't. There's an increasing number of apps that due to their UI or feature set do not even require a menu. For those apps pressing the hardware button would simply do nothing. A new user might be left wondering if it's supposed to do something. It's also not consistent with tablets which will never have hardware menu keys. Consistency is desirable.
Tetracycloide - Friday, May 31, 2013 - link
The menu button is like a dial up modem? Really? And you accuse others of trolling?eallan - Friday, May 31, 2013 - link
The menu button has been intelligently done away with for years.The recent apps button, however, is infinitely more useful than a logo. There are three functions tied to the home button on the One. It's idiotic.
biassj - Thursday, May 30, 2013 - link
This is great for the root community. This means we get full Google ASOP releases without most of the bugs, and Cynogenmod/AKOP teams will jump to look at the code, making their releases even better.geniekid - Thursday, May 30, 2013 - link
What about the Sense app uses the IR blaster? AFAIK, Sense TV is the only app available that uses the IR blaster.JDG1980 - Thursday, May 30, 2013 - link
I know the camera on the HTC One has gotten some good reviews, but did anyone ever figure out a way to take RAW photos with it? If it can't do that, then it really isn't much better than any other smartphone camera since you don't have the needed color depth to do any real post-processing without getting banding and other nasty artifacts.