HTC One max Review - It's Huge
by Brian Klug on October 28, 2013 10:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- HTC
- Mobile
- One
- Snapdragon 600
- Android 4.3
- One max
The software side of the One max also changes slightly from the original HTC One. The One max launches running Android 4.3, which as of this writing is the newest version of Android available, although 4.4 KitKat is right on the horizon. In addition the version of HTC’s skin and software suite, Sense, is bumped up to 5.5. The biggest changes in Sense 5.5 are to Blinkfeed, HTC’s newsfeed and home screen replacement, and the computationally generated highlights reel videos. First off, blinkfeed gets improvements that now allow custom topics, RSS, and more control over what items appear. In addition there’s now support for both Instagram and Google+ accounts to surface stories in Blinkfeed.
There’s also a read later feature in the highlights feed. Finally there’s also a way to disable Blinkfeed entirely, previously you could change the primary home screen to a widget panel, in Sense 5.5 this menu has been changed around to allow Blinkfeed to be disabled entirely.
A bunch of features that people originally wanted for the automatically generated highlights reel videos are now incorporated into Sense 5.5 as well. The gallery application it lives inside has been reorganized and is more intuitive now, albums and events views are now a pivot rather than drop down option, likewise the individual views beneath the are pivots. Video highlights now lives in its own pivot as well, and now has a simple picker for choosing what videos, Zoes, or photos the algorithm can select from. There are also more themes, which are entirely new, as well as the ability to select your own music. I’m told the highlights reel engine has been completely rewritten with better textures, film treatments, overlays, and dynamic editing. Subjectively I find the results of the new engine to be much better, where the previous highlights videos would always follow basically the same schedule, the new ones seem much more dynamic and won’t get tiresome nearly as fast.
Animated GIFs are all the rage right now, and HTC has chosen to capitalize on some of that with a GIF creator inside Sense 5.5. From the gallery’s edit menu animated GIFs can be created from continual shooting shots or Zoes.
The notification shade also gets a tweak, and the quick settings inside can now be customized. These settings tiles can now either be rearranged or disabled and swapped out for other ones. There is a simple picker for choosing the 12 you want to appear on the shade.
A new addition among these is a do not disturb function mode which can be toggled either here or from the sound menu. This does what you’d expect and silences incoming calls or notifications and prevents them from making sounds, vibrations, or activating the LED. Selected contacts can still cause a ring, and there’s also a timeout duration option.
A smaller but noteworthy change is that HTC no longer preinstalls Dropbox and gives free storage along with it. Instead of Dropbox, HTC has partnered with Google and gives 50 GB of bonus space with the One max.
There are a few other changes in the Sense 5.5 UI but I’ll get to those in the respective sections. The reality is that UI skins aren’t going away, but after spending a lot of time with Sense 5 I honestly never felt like it was distracting. I was able to live comfortably on the HTC One and One mini with Sense 5 just fine, 5.5 is a good refinement that continues to arguably look very good in a world of increasingly flat UI.
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chizow - Tuesday, October 29, 2013 - link
Couldn't have written it better myself, I'll be honest and say I haven't read through an entire one of Brian Klug's reviews but if they were all filled with this kind of distorted reality transposed to the general populous, I probably wasn't missing much.Simply put, microSD opens up uses that base model 16GB phone users could never dream of using for their phones. For example, I recently had 2 large family events during the same weekend, took multiple movies at full 1080p on my SGS4 with a UHS-I microSD and captured around 25GB of footage. Never could I have done this with my 16GB Apple 4S, nor would I even attempted to do it.
And what would the other option be? Pay 2x as much for 16GB more? No thanks, not when I can just move my microSD card from one phone to the next and not get fleeced on extra storage every time I buy a new device, with my own money (seems to be a key point lost upon Brian, anyways).
seapeople - Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - link
So let's see... I'm a budget conscious consumer who is shopping for a smartphone that I'm going to keep for 4 years because I'm too cheap to upgrade sooner. My options are 16GB phone + microSD card for a total four year price of $3600, or a 64GB phone with faster native storage for a total four year price of $3760.Can't you see why it's absolutely ridiculous how you microSD shills freak out over such a pointless little feature? Just buy the overpriced flash storage and forget about it, it's barely a bump in the road for someone who's paying for a smart phone data plan anyway.
Spunjji - Thursday, November 28, 2013 - link
Nice work, that straw man was totally asking for it and boy did you give it to him. You're such a big man.tipoo - Monday, October 28, 2013 - link
I do like the cheating table of shame there, but I also worry that this would just make the cheating more sophisticated, with phones being able to detect apps even with renames and hide their clock speeds etc.FalcomPSX - Monday, October 28, 2013 - link
just how big are phones going to get before people realize how absolute ridiculous it looks holding a tablet sized device up to your ear? Something the size of the original htc one is just about right.AssBall - Monday, October 28, 2013 - link
Its more ridiculous watching someone hold a tiny phone 8 inches from their face so they can see what it says and push the tiny buttons. I'll take a larger phone any day. Easier to use, harder to lose, good battery, nice screen size.MikePCUser - Monday, October 28, 2013 - link
Comparison videos between the One Max and the One on YouTube also show the MICROPHONE is decidedly inferior on the One Max. I wish you had tested that as well!chizow - Monday, October 28, 2013 - link
Brian, while you are certainly entitled to your opinion of every aspect of the smartphone market, I think you need to take a step back and realize not everyone is in your situation and receives free phones for review or a product budget for AT to buy review samples.I think your comments with regard to SD cards in particular are off target, as it is an important feature for many users who do not want to pay exorbitant amounts for miniscule increments of storage. 128GB models if some popular phones like the iPhone 5S literally double the on-contract price vs a 64GB SD card that sells for 50 bucks.
Contrary to what you have said, the fact the One Max's inclusion of an SD slot along with myriad other Android and Windows tabs and phones illustrates SD slots are NOT going the way of the dodo. Hopefully companies do not take your opinions on the matter as fact.
Brian Klug - Monday, October 28, 2013 - link
Please read my above comments about SD cards, the reality is that the demographic that uses them is a lot smaller than you'd think.Also there's no 128 GB iPhone 5S, just 64 GB.
The context everyone is missing is that I would not trade an SD card slot for the removable door and build quality tradeoffs it brings.
-Brian
10101010 - Monday, October 28, 2013 - link
What you present regarding SD cards and build quality tradeoffs is largely a false dichotomy based on your own biases regarding particular aspects of "build quality".Take for example, the Sony Xperia Z Ultra. It's about the same size as the One Max and offers SD card expansion. Many reviewers have positively commented on the build quality of this device, even noted that it offers water and dust resistance. A more insightful reviewer would realize that it isn't the SD card that is responsible the particular issues you have with build quality, it is the fact that the phone wasn't designed well to begin with.
Of course, you would probably still disparage all the purchasers of this device for wanting flexible affordable local storage and find some way to disparage the device for poor build quality anyway. After all, biasing people away from flexible and cheap local storage and towards expensive and easily data-mined in-cloud storage is what your corporate masters want, isn't it?
If we look at your shallow view of "build quality", then it becomes even more obvious that there is a false dichotomy. You don't spend much time balancing how easy it is to repair a device vs. how it is built. You don't balance the fact that many phones with removable back covers have replaceable batteries. Nor do you balance the additional radiation going into someone's head because a phone is made of metal. Essentially, you are looking at a few aspects of something that resonate with your biases and proclaiming some judgment that SD cards are bad for phones and that the people who want SD cards are some sort of small, unimportant, and obnoxious minority.
Even if you continue to push your biases in your "reviews", maybe it's time for a bit more honesty? You can still write a good review if you say "I just don't like SD cards because it's hard for me to manage removable local storage".