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
Obviously the highlight of the One max is its huge 5.9-inch 1080p display. After all, the huge display is literally the reason for the max moniker and its gargantuan size. It’s still an IPS LCD, and like the One, resolution is 1920x1080. Using the same resolution at larger size means lower PPI, but the One max is still high enough (373.4 PPI) that individual pixels shouldn’t be visible at all.
One interesting thing to note about the One max however is that the android display density is still set to 480 PPI, putting it in the same DENSITY_XXHIGH category as the One. This means that applications will look like scaled copies of what you’d expect them to look like on the One. There’s an interesting ongoing debate about what users really expect from these larger-sized smartphones and the demographic that’s buying them. Do users want scaled, larger applications which are easier to read, or the ability to display more content. HTC oddly enough seems to have scaled parts of their own UI, for example the widget panels are five row instead of four on the One max, and the launcher defaults to the 4x5 size instead of 3x4 which would look downright silly, further the status bar is also smaller.
HTC One (Left), HTC One max (Right) – Note the grid and icon size changes
I’m not complaining, it’s just interesting to see 480 in Android but the HTC apps scaled down to give more real-estate, which is what I’d prefer since I have good vision.
One improvement I’m really happy about in Sense 5.5 is a change to the auto brightness function. Rather than just have a checkbox, the One max will allow you to set an upper bound for the auto brightness algorithm. Ideally I would like a higher or upper bound, or a bias function (+/- some delta), but this is a step in the right direction.
The One max display goes very bright, up to 506 nits, higher than the One or One mini. White point is also a bit more controlled than the One, at 7301 K average. My biggest complaint about the One max is that like the One it has a dynamic brightness/contrast function that adjusts screen brightness as a function of the content being displayed. That alone isn’t a huge problem, it’s just that there’s no way to disable it in the UI, which would be great, since it’s distracting watching screen brightness change as you move around the UI. I would love to see HTC go the Google approach and restrict these functions to full screen video playback, and give the option to turn it off entirely.
Running it through our display tests, it’s clear that the One max also has a bit of the saturation boost we’ve seen popping up on other phones as well. The saturation curves are great until the second to last point, which is almost set to maximum saturation. I’d love to see even more emphasis on color accuracy for the next generation of phones, the One max seems to be in the general ballpark of the One, but slightly worse.
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GruntboyX - Monday, October 28, 2013 - link
I love how the dimensions are reported in mm. However the screen size is in inches.MercuryStar - Tuesday, October 29, 2013 - link
As an Australian, this is absolutely normal here - we use mm for dimensions of all things except for diagonal screen size which is pretty much always quoted in inches - for everything from laptops to TVs to smartphones.nerd1 - Monday, October 28, 2013 - link
I always liked Brian's review for the most part for this time it's getting ridiculous.iPhone 5GS 64GB: $399 w/contract
Galaxy 4S 80GB (16GB+64GB sdXC): $199 w/ contract
Isn't it obvious to see the advantage? If you always have a bunch of 64GB devices around to review (and unlimited LTE) for free you may not know but to us mortals the saving of $200 far exceeds any inconveniences (if all) of managing them.
It's like arguing having only a single SSD storage for laptop is better than SSD+HDD hybrid because the former is faster, lighter and more failproof. Problem is not everyone can purchase 1TB of PCIe SSD, and some people prefer 128 SSD + 1TB HDD setup at a fraction of the cost.
MercuryStar - Tuesday, October 29, 2013 - link
I don't think the author is claiming that SD cards slots are bad, just that very few people use them, or would use the added capacity they would provide, thus making them a lower relative priority compared to other things like, in the case of this phone, added thickness and weight of the removable back.Someone else was saying in another comment that carriers who bundled phones with a free SD card in the box found that the majority of people still didn't use the SD card.
chizow - Tuesday, October 29, 2013 - link
I guess it never occurred to them that the bundled SD card is basically useless due to it's capacity and not it's utility? I don't use them either but with 2GB storage I can't even use to load a Windows ISO. I leave them in the box too, but replace them with my own 32 or 64GB card.....chizow - Tuesday, October 29, 2013 - link
Exactly, it's like all the reviewers out there getting free 128GB iPads to review and totally understanding Apple's position about not including a microSD slot. Yet they don't realize, most people don't want to pay $800-$900 for 128GB of storage and Cellular over the base $500 model....Mr Majestyk - Monday, October 28, 2013 - link
Why is the Sony Z Ultra missing, much more compelling device to me than One Max? Also why use 4 decimal places on the max brightness? Really, we don't even need a single decimal place for this measure, just round it to nearest integer. Human eye can't tell minute changes in brightness at the bright end, like it can at the dark end.piroroadkill - Tuesday, October 29, 2013 - link
Sony are killing it at the moment, in my opinion.By FAR the best mid-range handset for the money is the Xperia SP. At the high end you have the Xperia Z1, then for people who have gorilla hands, the Z Ultra.
All better phones than their counterparts by other manufacturers like HTC or Samsung. Yet, where are the reviews?
synaesthetic - Monday, October 28, 2013 - link
The amount of logical fallacies being committed in this comments section is staggering.Personally I'd prefer sdcard slots in my phones, but the reality is most people don't care or don't know or aren't familiar with their use. They're going away, slowly but surely. Samsung and Sony are really the only holdouts, with the exception of bargain-basement budget devices that cut internal eMMC down to 4GB or smaller to keep BOM cost as low as possible.
Those of us who want our phones to be purely functional powerhouses of mobile computing are sadly in the minority, and the market is absolutely a tyranny of the majority.
bairlangga - Monday, October 28, 2013 - link
Agree. Just snapped a 64gb sdxc uhs1 on my xperia yesterday. Couldn't be much happier ;-)