Review: HTC One X - Is this the winning formula?

I am sure you have probably read a few dozen reviews of the HTC One X. 

I had the good fortune of using the HTC One X for over two weeks, which gave me enough of a chance to get the use and feel and see what they have done this time with their latest Android offering. First things first - Google released the ICS, a few centuries ago but I just got a chance to try out, - which is Android 4.0 - and this has probably been the best thing to happen in that sphere. The SuperSmartPhones now come loaded with a nice comparatively bug-free baseline OS. This is Compared to Froyo (OMG) and Gingerbread (Are you kidding me?) :)

 

HTC immediately used this update to upgrade the OS on their range of smartphones - I think the Sensation range got it's upscale new look quite quickly. Hot on the heels of this they announced the One series. I got invited to this launch.. read about that here. 

 

If you see that article, my initial comments already cover most features. But what does this mean in terms of actual usage? Let me break it down for you!

 

Form

The Unibody design is gorgeous. The Polycarbonate material does not give the phone a cheap plastic-y feel which some other phones, that use the same material, exude. It feels rather full and gives you the sense that you are, in fact, holding a >$500 Smart Phone! The let down is that you cannot remove the back - to remove the battery, but that may not be considered a flaw if you look it. This design was to ensure integrity and if the phone fell (I did not let mine fall even once, nor did it give me the feeling that it would) it would remain unharmed. HTC designers took this into consideration when they made the phone and reinforced the Polycarbonate with a metal frame and Corning Gorilla Glass 2.0 for the display making it, for the most bit, resistant to small dings and dents. Surface scratches are no longer bothersome.

The phone felt like it was meant to be held. It fit snugly in the palm of my rather large podgy hand and make no mistake, I am very fussy and never like holding a phone for a long period of time. When I am done with a phone call, I immediately stow away my phone except to check email and social media. This phone however, was firmly placed in my hands comfort zone and I liked holding on to it. (Enough about my hands already :P)

 

Display

The next thing you notice is the Display. The brilliant 4.7" inch LCD display is really quite superb. What I really liked is the reduced bezel. Most older phones have a pronounced bezel which gave the phone its larger form. With a reduced Bezel, the handset lost a lot of its baby weight and focused on what was important, the display. This also gave me better access with a single hand across the phone and reduced the strain on my thumb joint. 

Move past the thin bezel and the screen responds beautifully to every touch. The phone showers your visual sense with dazzling rich, deep, colours on a bright vivid HD display. Camera shots are no longer trial and error, because what you see is precisely what you get. Of course, the camera has a major role to play, but you get my point. Watching a movie is really a treat. I had a HD quality movie (Avengers) which I saw on the One for the last half hour. Let's just say, that the phone may be puny in size, but The Incredible Hulk lost no granduer!
 
Camera
This phone boasts of an "AMAZING CAMERA". That is far from being an exaggeration. The camera, truly, is amazing. They had features listed against camera in my briefing pack, so let me tick them off the list there and tell you my experience from that.

1. 8MP camera on the back. CHECK! :) With a really high resolution, those 8MP are really being used to the max. High quality of photographs really filter through and HD video is quite amazing :)
2. 1 second startup time. SEMI CHECK! Why semi-check? Well I did not really TIME it... but it was faster than any other phone unlocking straight to the camera I have seen EVER. So yea, semi check.
3. Burst mode. CHECK! Just press the shutter, hold it and move around the room REAL SLOW. This reduces blurring. This burst saves each photograph as a single group for you to use as a group or you could use...
4. Best Picture mode (CHECK!) and pick the best picture and delete the rest.
5. HD Video Recording - CHECK! This is pretty self explanatory.
6. Video mode with photo inlay. Take a nice print quality photograph while you record video at HD. That is like Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Icing

 
Interface
HTC Sense 4.0 came preloaded, and I upgraded to 4.01 in the middle of my review cycle. There were multiple things that I looked at when rating this particular portion of the handset experience. 

1. The Home Screen - managing the shortcuts, apps and widgets on the home screen is easier now with everything available with a simple long press anywhere on the home screen. Customizing the lock screen means reassigning what appears on the home screen app dock on the bottom and the two are not mutually exclusive. The widgets are varied including some that are HTC Sense designed and the others available on the app market as well. Function and Customisation are now standard for this range of phones, so nothing impressive there, just useful.
2. Messaging - here there are a few things that really count to me. First, the format of the messages displayed - with the larger display, there was no complaint. Second, the keyboard. I had a few issues here.. there is a inbuilt "Swype" like keyboard but it is not as effective and kept missing my words, or suggesting changes that had nothing to do with what I "swyped". Downloading a 3rd party keyboard will solve this issue effectively. No harm no foul.
3. App Switching - for a phone that is so "well-endowed" technically, app switching was not really a problem. There was a fair bit of lag in the switch where the Sense UI decided that it should make the person wait for a second more before switching to the active app selected. The updated UI decided it should switch and then make the person wait. I felt that version 2 was a better choice :) The process, however, is the slickest - using the OS's inbuilt app switching ability to it's best advantage and creating a special shortcut for JUST that! Brilliant. No more long presses for app switching anymore.

 

Sound

HTC boast about amazing sound. With or without earphones, this phone was very clear, and fairly loud as most phones go. Nothing tinny or missing in terms of depth. With a Beats headset (I had one, did not get it with the review unit) the sound is great, but I think it had more to do with equalizer settings (something 3rd party applications can attain - no biggy) but it was still quite good. I tried using my Skull Candy headset with it - and was pleasantly surprised to hear the clarity not change. So beats or no beats, you are bound to have a great aural experience :)

 

Performance

Let's bring it down to the heart of the matter. The HTC would not be as awesome externally without having some major tech support internally. For you tech's out there, I will copy paste some Wiki text here and then attempt to Anglicize it for the layman :) Wiki Text in Italics for reference. Please bear with me.

The One X features a NVIDIA Tegra 3 SoC with a 1.5 GHz quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 CPU, (which makes it faster than most phones available in the market - the only other phones to reach this level of performance are the Samsung Galaxy S3, the Sony Xperia S and the Nokia Lumia 900 to name a few.) 1 GB of RAM (for an android phone, the more the RAM, the better the app performance and the more you can achieve on the cloud. Unless you have a light OS and there is no bloatware - very rare scenario that); a 1,800 mAh battery (the battery is the most powerful in all the HTCs and boasts of fairly long usage time - I managed to clock a work shift on a single charge - about 15 hours with moderate usage - i had active use of Data, BT, WiFi, GPS and at least 6 apps - I was listening to at least 25-30 minutes of music a day, and randomly using the internet browser for searches and stuff) , a dual-band 802.11n WiFi radio, Bluetooth 4.0 with apt-X (I have no idea what apt-X is and I could not be bothered to search but the BT connection is definitely faster and better. I could transfer photos and songs from my phone to the laptop via bluetooth faster than my Nokia E7), GPS, NFC (read about NFC here), and 32 GB of internal storage (This is plenty and in addition to the space that Dropbox gives you with your phone, this is very good). The One X also features a standard array of sensors including a digital compass, proximity sensor, gyroscope, accelerometer and ambient light sensor (they all work well and are on constant power saving mode which means that they consume less battery, but are instant to respond when needed.

The One X has three physical keys; a power button on the top and higher and lower volume buttons on the right side. On the front of the One X are three capacitive touch keys for the Back, Home, and Recent Application functions. On the left side of the One X is a Micro USB 2.0 port. This port doubles as a Mobile High-Definition Link (MHL) interface, allowing the One X to output1080p content to an external display via HDMI through the use of an adapter. A 3.5 mm headphone jack is located on the top of the One X as well as one of the two stereo microphones. The second microphone is located on the bottom. The One X has two speakers, a loudspeaker on the rear of the phone and a speaker above the front display, serving as the earpiece. The front speaker grill also houses the notification LED, which flashes green for notifications, flashes red for low battery, and illuminates red when the phone is charging

My Verdict

It is a good phone to invest in if you are looking for a good looking phone that can replace your camera, your mobile phone and your planner. The phone is powerful so will not let you down. There is definite value for professionals who are looking for mobile productivity in a small package.

I recommend buying an HTC One X if you are looking for an all rounder.