It was touted to be HTC M7 everywhere. I did a tiny research as to where the name came from. On Nov 29 last year, Taiwanese news channel, Focus Taiwan published a story in which was mentioned about a flagship HTC phone to be released in the first quarter of 2013, before the launch of Samsung Galaxy S IV. They called the device M7.
Later on, we identified M7 could just be a codename for the smartphone within HTC circles. During the time when the launch date was confirmed (Feb 19), there were news about the actual name of the phone to be HTC One. No, not One X, just One!
HTC One was released yesterday in an event by HTC in Taiwan. We will check out the details of HTC One and see how great a buy it is.
Technical Specifications
Here are the basic tech specs of HTC One.
| Feature | HTC One | |
|---|---|---|
| Display | 4.7 inch SLCD 3 FHD (1080p); 468 ppi | |
| Processor | Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 quad-core 1.7 GHz | |
| Operating System | Android Jelly Bean 4.1.2 | |
| Camera | UltraPixel with 1080p video & image capture | |
| Battery | 2300 mAh | |
| RAM | 2 GB | |
| Storage | 32/64 GB | |
| Connectivity | HSPA/WCDMA (Europe & Asia edition) | |
| Dimensions | Height | 137.4 mm |
| Width | 68.2 mm | |
| Depth | 9.3 mm | |
| Weight | 143 g | |
| Other features | Optical image stabilization (see Nokia Lumia 920) NFC depending on the carrier and location HTC BoomSound and Beats Audio HTC Sense UI 5 apt-X audio codec HTC Blinkfeed customizable home screen HTC Zoe photo gallery application 25 GB Dropbox account for 2 years | |
HTC One comes with amazing build quality, with aluminum unibody design and Gorilla Glass 2 for screen protection.
HTC One also sports other features like apt-X audio codec for better compression, BlinkFeed (a home screen app that makes the home screen like Windows Metro UI, and a photo gallery app called Zoe
About the display, 468 ppi is a little bit overdoing it, although it is pretty much necessary if you want full HD in 4.7 inches. What HTC could have done is making the display bigger, to about 5 inches. That would still make a good phone to carry around. With its slightly curved back, similar to Windows Phone 8X, One is amazingly easy to handle.
HTC One is a fully power-packed phone. If you have read about our review of Snapdragon 600, you may know it is one of the fastest upcoming mobile processors.
Benchmark scores in Geekbench ranks shows the following results. LG Google Nexus 4 with Snapdragon S4 Pro (quad-core 1.5 GHz) scored 2027 points, while Samsung Galaxy Note II (Samsung Exynos 4412, 1.6 GHz quad-core) scored 1936. Clearly the Qualcomm Krait CPU of Snapdragon is miles ahead of the competition (processors based on ARM Cortex-A9).
Snapdragon 600 will come with much better performance than S4 Pro.
The Camera
There is a specialty with the camera of HTC One. It is only about 4 megapixels. Weirdly retrograde, don’t you think? It will be a misnomer if I said ‘megapixels’; the camera is actually 4 UltraPixels. That is definitely a new marketing term that HTC invented. However, it has some important technical aspects to it.
UltraPixel is a physically larger pixel. In HTC One’s case the size of the pixel is said to be about 2 microns. This is as opposed to iPhone 5’s 1.4 micron pixels. The significance according to HTC is that this UltraPixel camera can capture light much better than regular camera, and thus it produces more lively images (like the HDR images; HDR [High Dynamic Range] is a technology by which images are combined together to form a better one).
It is late, but HTC is actually embracing the correct notion here. Larger megapixel count doesn’t give better quality image. 8 MP is the maximum you may ever require. Smartphone manufacturers were locked in a predicament for some years by the consumers who were after high-MP cameras. HTC is the first to end the frenzy with One. Note that a few months back, we saw Nokia PureView 808 that sported a whopping 41 megapixel camera. The images taken by that camera would be unnecessarily enormous.
On the other hand, UltraPixel technology will provide regular images with better light capture. We will see how the camera performs in real life conditions and how it competes with the best cameras among smartphones today—Nokia Lumia 920, iPhone 5, Galaxy S3, etc.—in the coming days.
The Sound
We know about HTC’s long-standing relationship with Beats Audio. In 2010, HTC acquired a chunk of Beats Audio shares and remains as the top investor in the company. This was before the launch of Beats Audio equipped handsets, Sensation, Incredible, One X, 8X, etc.
Beats Audio on various HTC phones has received great reviews for its sound quality.
The Gallery
Here are a number of images of HTC One for you to view. It is definitely one of the best looking of upcoming phones.