HTC just recently showed off their new Android flagship, the HTC One. After last year's HTC One X, S, V, SV, XV, XL, and many other variants, HTC decided to try again at making a single flagship. HTC is taking some bold steps with the One by introducing their four megapixel "UltraPixel" camera, and the new BlinkFeed home screen. Is the HTC One the Android phone that we have been waiting for? Are these bold new features enough to keep HTC a known brand? Scroll onward to read our scoop on it.
The HTC One is the most beautiful Android phone on the market. Period. While the One X had a unibody polycarbonate design, the One has a machined aluminum design with polycarbonate accents. It has a back similar to the pyramid/upside-down smiley face back of the Droid DNA and J Butterfly, but the similarities end there. This rounded back design makes the One better and more comfortable to hold in your hand. The front is also made of machined aluminum, and it has dual front-facing speakers. The edges are have the same shiny look of the iPhone 5's chamfered aluminum edges. The One's button layout is also different from previous HTC phones and any Android phone by including
two capacitive buttons instead of three or four. HTC killed the multitasking button on the One to put their logo in the middle. Now, the multitasking button is buried underneath a double-tap of the home button. We think that HTC made a bad decision on taking out the multitasking button. HTC could have put their logo on top of the display, or they could have just not had it on the front. The logo being on the bottom also looks very tacky and obtrusive. The HTC One has a very unique, premium, and beautiful design. HTC's new flagship is one of the best looking phones ever.
HTC took a very bold step with the camera on the HTC One. The One has a four megapixel "UltraPixel" camera with very nice optics. HTC is branding the camera as UltraPixels, because the pixels are bigger than your average smartphone. These new pixels are as large as some point and shoot camera's pixels. These new larger pixels let in more light than average smartphone pixels, which results in better low-light and daylight pictures. While this camera will probably satisfy camera buffs, we do not think that the average consumer will pick this camera over a lesser eight megapixel camera from a different smartphone. Most people do not know much about camera optics, so they do not realize how great this four megapixel camera is. Since the camera has four megapixels, some people might think that it is worse than an eight megapixel camera. Needless to say, HTC is taking a huge gamble with the One's camera, but the camera will probably be one of the best cameras on a smartphone.
On almost every Android device on the market, you are getting the same experience. You'll have an app drawer, notification tray, and a couple of home screens to pin your favorite apps and widgets. HTC's trying to change this by giving you a BlinkFeed home screen, but only two traditional Android home screens by default. BlinkFeed is a Flipboard/Windows Phone-like home screen that brings your social media together. BlinkFeed can show you your Twitter, Flickr, LinkedIn, Zoe Share (Zoes are little three second videos that the One can produce), Facebook, and many other different social networks. The BlinkFeed may sound useful, but it can't do anything that your previous news aggregator could do. If you do not want the BlinkFeed to forever be your home screen, you can change a setting to have the normal set of Android home screens. If you do not think BlinkFeed is enough of a software merit, what HTC has done with Sense 5 will satisfy you.
HTC's Sense skin has usually been very thick and obtrusive. In the beginning, Sense was very useful and looked nice. Sense 2 and Sense 3/3.5, however, was rather ugly and thick. These versions of Sense took away from Android's sleekness, and you could barely tell that it was Android underneath. With Sense 4, HTC made their skin light, fresh, and somewhat
enhance Android. Now with Sense 5, HTC has a really powerful skin. Sense 5 takes away all the gaudy, round, 3D aluminum elements from sense, and a design closer to stock Android. The configurable onscreen buttons are now flat (somewhat like if Windows Phone 8 had app buttons), and the Roboto font is used more throughout the operating system. There is also a new black and white weather widget that is more flat and less gaudy than the Sense weather widgets of yore. Just in case you were one of the people that liked the old weather widget from Sense 4, us included, you can still add it to your home screen. Overall, Sense 5 is now even closer to stock Android, and it is even more pleasant to look at.
The HTC One is quite simply a fantastic Android device. It has the best design of any Android phone with its inclusion of aluminum and polycarbonate accents, it has the super powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 processor, and it is powered by Android Jelly Bean 4.1.2. The HTC One rightfully succeeds the One X by being the best Android device on the market. Others might have stock Android, a bigger display, be easier to use, or include a stylus, but the One is the overall best. The HTC One can go to-to-toe with the iPhone in terms of design, the One is probably better than it performance wise, and the One has a vastly superior display. We can not give a complete thumbs up on the One yet; you should wait till the reviews come out before buying one. The HTC One is the chosen One, and the droid you have been looking for. Want more news on HTC's latest and greatest? Hit-up the source links below for more information.
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