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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Tegeril - Friday, November 1, 2013 - link
I love the way that his opinion (that's a component of reviews) that build quality suffers when SD cards are involved (particularly in the context of *this* device) is not valid but yours is?Spunjji - Thursday, November 28, 2013 - link
The point is that neither is more valid, but Brian's claiming his is. Ta-daaa!bairlangga - Monday, October 28, 2013 - link
Dear Brian,Other manufacturer had the solution towards the door and build quality tradeoffs, it is called sd card slot with flap. Pretty please do a review on Xperias line.
chizow - Monday, October 28, 2013 - link
I've read most of them and still find them off-base. Your arguments about a small demographic are based on what? The entire smartphone market? Honestly, this means about as much as Nokia claiming they held the majority of the cell phone market up until a few years ago, it means very little out of context. It's all about what part of the market you are targeting, for flagship phones and high-end power users, features like microSD and changeable batteries make all the difference that can be a deciding factor in which phone to purchase.Similarly, people who care about aluminum unibody construction are a vast minority, imo, when all I see are people obscuring these case materials in protective cases made of polycarbonate or rubber.
In any case, it is good to see phone makers like HTC One are not taking your opinion as gospel, and instead, listening to their customers in deciding their hardware approaches. It is clear to me that HTC saw how the One was losing to the S4, despite positive reviews declaring the One superior in many categories only to lose in sales due to features like microSD, removable battery, 802.11AC. Coincidentally, I just named the 3 big reasons I bought an S4 instead of the One a few months ago. I fully expect the next iteration to follow the One Max and offer a microSD and removable battery, but we shall see.
rituraj - Wednesday, October 30, 2013 - link
May be HTC were stupid that they had to open the entire phone's back to put that microsd card. What about a slot from the sides. I believe a phone this big has quite a long side. I guess quantum geometry supports me. But yeah, that 1cm slot will destroy the build quality too just like the sim card does.Samwise - Monday, October 28, 2013 - link
Anandtech, please include the Droid MAXX in you battery life comparisons. Thank you.tuxRoller - Monday, October 28, 2013 - link
Why don't you have the iDevices storage benched?VengenceIsMineX - Monday, October 28, 2013 - link
Pretty disappointing product really. No OIS, lesser SOC, and nothing really innovative or even a great price. I'm in the market to optimize down to 1 device from a phone & small tablet to just a phablet but I don't think I'll bother considering the HTC compared to either the Sony or the Lumia 1520.sherlockwing - Monday, October 28, 2013 - link
The lack of S800 and OIS are very disappointing, to add the SD slot but not the S800 SOC to enable UHS-I speed for SD card is pretty silly.mregan - Monday, October 28, 2013 - link
Brian,Did you notice the problem that Zoes included in a highlight video now only show 1 second of motion and then freeze? I've seen that on my One when I upgraded to 4.3 and others have reported the same issue. It really seems like a bug. The highlights become much more static. All the other highlight changes are great but this is a step backward.
Mike R