If it's a quad-core Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) smartphone you want, then add the HTC One X to your list. Announced on day one of Mobile World Congress, the One X is the flagship phone in HTC's new 'HTC One' family of devices.
The One X features Android 4.0 ICS, the most up-to-date (and coveted) version of the Android operating system, topped with a revamped version of the HTC Sense interface, Sense 4.0. Unlike the buttonless Samsung Galaxy Nexus, the One X features three touch-sensitive buttons below the display, for back, Home and pulling up recent apps.
Specs are appropriately vaulted on this handset, with a large 4.7in. Super LCD 2 display that features a 1,280-by-720-pixel HD resolution and Gorilla Glass. With a 9.27mm profile, the black or white One X is a pretty big device, the same size as the HTC Titan and the Sensation XL.
The One X features Android 4.0 ICS, the most up-to-date (and coveted) version of the Android operating system, topped with a revamped version of the HTC Sense interface, Sense 4.0. Unlike the buttonless Samsung Galaxy Nexus, the One X features three touch-sensitive buttons below the display, for back, Home and pulling up recent apps.
Specs are appropriately vaulted on this handset, with a large 4.7in. Super LCD 2 display that features a 1,280-by-720-pixel HD resolution and Gorilla Glass. With a 9.27mm profile, the black or white One X is a pretty big device, the same size as the HTC Titan and the Sensation XL.
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| HTC One X |
HTC One X: quad-core CPU, 4.7in. HD screen, Android 4.0, HTC Sense 4.0
For multimedia, the One X sports an 8-megapixel camera with five levels of LED flash and automatic focus, plus recording and playback support for 1080p HD video. There's a 1.3-megapixel camera on the front that's capable of shooting 720p HD video. There's also Beats Audio on-board, and a music hub that automatically pulls together your music apps.
Sure, the 8-megapixel rear-facing camera produces half the image size of the 16-megapixel camera we saw at CES on the Titan II bound for AT&T, but HTC swears this is its most advanced yet, thanks to a new lens (f/2.0), better image sensor and an imaging chip dedicated to processing photos and videos. |
| One X has an 8-megapixel camera at the back |
Under the hood is that 1.5GHz quad-core Nvidia Tegra 3 processor we mentioned, one of the first phones to fire on four cylinders, as well as an 1,800mAh battery. The HTC One X has Bluetooth 4.0 as well. There's 32GB of user-accessible storage but no expandable memory slot; instead, HTC and Dropbox are offering 25GB of online storage, similar to Microsoft's setup on Windows Phone.
My take
I personally like the phone's look a lot (especially the white colour) — it's clean and sharp, and it's big without feeling overly bulky. Maybe I'm becoming more conditioned to phones with larger screens, but the size still won't win everyone over. However, the look and feel, and the tech specs are certainly capable of doing so.
Aesthetics is one of HTC's strengths, and the company once again scores points for software visuals like the card motif in the recent apps tray, the car dock and music hub. I appreciate how HTC incorporated some of the best features and design cues of ICS, and toned back the HTC 'look', which in truth, was beginning to feel like more of the same.
Much of HTC's back-end work was done on the camera, and while it's hard to comment on the quality of the low-light shots without thorough testing, I will say that shutter speed in my tests was fast. HTC amended some of the on-screen icons and controls. I really like separating the camera and video buttons and making them equally accessible, but I do think some of those other icons were a tad overdesigned. Still, that's more a quibble than a serious reason to steer clear.
Beats Audio is quickly becoming a signature feature, and the difference between songs playing with it and without it is noticeable, so it's nice to see it taking a central role; however, the audio quality alone won't sell phones.
Speed, pricing, availability
As far as speeds go, this unlocked global version we're seeing here is capable of GSM HSPA+ 42 speeds. Americans waiting to get their hands on the device will be happy to know that AT&T has snagged the One X with LTE; however, the US version won't come with quad-core, since Tegra 3 isn't LTE-capable just yet. Instead, it'll pack a dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor.
There's no pricing or availability yet, but the company expects to make it available to its first regions within the next 60 days.
Overall, HTC's efforts in the One X show — and this is by far the most technologically advanced of the three phones in the HTC One family. The One X is a global win for quad-core, at a time when customers are bound to associate more cores with speed, but a loss for claiming it as the first quad-core phone in the US market. I should mention, though, that it isn't necessarily true that a dual-core phone made by one chipmaker would be necessarily slower than a quad-core processor made by another. This is another instance where we'll need to get our hands on both versions for some benchmarking.
Editor's Note
In the UK, the HTC One is available to order SIM-free from Clove Technology for £410 (ex. VAT; £492 inc. VAT), with delivery expected on 5 April. Network operators Orange, Three and Vodafone have announced that they will be carrying the One X, although no pricing or availability details have been released yet.
