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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steven75 - Thursday, October 31, 2013 - link
You realize that Google itself dropped SD support from Android, right? Something Brian has mentioned numerous times, yet here you are again making the claim that "Apple is perfection" like a true troll.PC Perv - Tuesday, October 29, 2013 - link
And you have no issue with OEMs charging extra $100 per each incremental storage size? Sure you get free phones and lots other perks so perhaps that is why you are so understanding of the OEMs. But have you thought about this nonsense from consumers' point of view?I am guessing no. Every other pages are filled with the author's worry and concern about OEM's margins or market share. Why do you care? Why should I care about their cost savings? This has been the trend of this site for a long time. Unbelievable amount of corporate favoritism plus unapologetic ignorance on users.
rabidkevin - Tuesday, October 29, 2013 - link
I'm sorry, but you make zero sense.sherlockwing - Monday, October 28, 2013 - link
You can purchase 13000 mAh External battery packs for $37 weighing 0.9lbs, a far better option than a extra battery for GS4.Dentons - Monday, October 28, 2013 - link
And I can purchase 4, 3100 mAh Galaxy Note II batteries for about half that. All 4 together weigh just .47 pounds (54 grams each, 0.11 lbs each)All together, the four of them take up less space than any external battery pack I've ever seen. If I'm only going to be gone overnight, I need only take 1 spare. With all 4 and the battery in the phone, I can usually operate for a solid week without recharging once.
A user replaceable battery is also a hedge against the planned obsolescence of built-in batteries. Batteries wear out, the have a very finite number of cycles. A battery that will no longer hold a charge is one of the leading reasons consumers buy new phones.
User replaceable batteries and micorSD are as much about reducing consumer costs as anything else. It isn't difficult to see why reviewers awash in a torrent of new, free, phones aren't particularly enamored in these features. They don't use phones for 2+ years. They don't pay for the larger memory models. They don't wear out batteries.
chizow - Monday, October 28, 2013 - link
Agree with pretty much everything you've written in all of your replies. The fact that this comment section is dominated by comments disagreeing with Brian's position on microSD should say something, but I doubt it will have any lasting impact on his opinion of the matter.It's a good thing device makers seem to be going in the opposite direction, all I see now are devices adding the functionality.
superflex - Tuesday, October 29, 2013 - link
Alinsky tactics.Attack the messenger when the message is not what you want to hear.
Grow up.
Gadgety - Monday, October 28, 2013 - link
It's funny - when reading negative comments on HTC phones these days I can't help but think it's Samsung sponsored comments (BTW I have a Samsung phone).ddriver - Monday, October 28, 2013 - link
I wish samsung paid me :) Dunno about paid comments, but there sure are a lot of paid reviews, and I don't mean paid by samsung,I think negative comments towards this device are well justified, it goes beyond the reasonable size and hardware is ... previous gen at best. Given all this space to cram components in, this phone should have been much, much better. Alas, htc is no samsung that produces everything and no apple to exploit fanatical brand loyalty, so the only way to keep profit margins decent while keeping the price "reasonable" is to offer cheaper and slightly out-of-date hardware.
Sm0kes - Monday, October 28, 2013 - link
He's not talking about the validity of the criticism, but instead the relentless "shill" type comments that constantly bring up Samsung in every discussion.FYI - Samsung was being investigated by the Taiwan's FTC back in April for paying student "shills" to slam HTC and advocate for Samsung on tech review sites. Google for the link. It's pretty clear Samsung's marketing is pretty scummy.