Hi guys welcome back to Its Dan K reviews. Today we are looking at the HTC One, the phone that shouldn’t be able to receive WiFi, Bluetooth or LTE signals but does so due to some pretty brilliant engineering.
The phone reeks of desperation, financial desperation
that is. Quite a few balance sheets and the last three quarterly results
suggest that this may just be HTC’s last throw of the dice. The CEO even came
out to say that if this phone isn’t a runaway success, he will personally step
down from his position. So, if HTC are willing to bet a single phone on the
company’s entire future, you’d expect this phone to be at least decent.
I think I’ll start at the design because
it’s the most obvious place to start and by now I’m getting use to people
asking asking to hold the device, almost as if they’ve never seen a mobile
phone before. It’s a large phone but it doesn’t feel large, the curved back
fits nicely in the palm and the sand blasted aluminium reminds me of the
macbook pro. Of course, this phone was designed to convert a few i-sheep here
and there and HTC have made no secret of this either, they’ve even coupled a
lovely itunes contact sync app into the sense launcher, a smart software
decision, something I’ve rarely ever said when it comes to HTC.
The diamond cut chamfered edges, laser cut
speaker grills, CNC machined unibody and milled polycarbonate make this phone a
looker, it’s certainly a welcome departure from the sea of plastic fantastic
Galaxies and all too common iphones available on the market. The Camera is a
4MP ultra pixel shooter that features larger pixels for greater low light
performance and it’s got optical image stabilisation to assist in making your photography
experience largely blur free. The speakers are large and front facing, HTC
calls them “boomsound” speakers, one of the few marketing terms that actually
lives up to the hype. All of this and I haven’t mentioned the screen which is a
4.7 inch super lcd 3 panel of full hd resolution, it lays claim to being the
most pixel dense screen on any mobile device ever with a mental 469 pixels per
inch.
So after a week with the device, what do I
like? What don’t I like? How have I adapted the phone to suit me?
Well for starters, I like the camera. I
like it, a lot. I’ve been waiting for the day where I could use a phone to
start my own Video blogging and that’s exactly what I’ve been able to do with
this phone and in fantastic quality as well. You can check out those HTC One
filmed videos out in full by visiting my personal channel or heading down to
the bottom of my itsdankreviews youtube page.
Pictures with the rear facing camera look
great, indoor shots look even better thanks to the pixel size but where this
phone really excels is in the low light shots it’s capable of although be
warned, that only applies to the rear facing camera, the front facing camera is
actually quite full of noise in most of the shots I attempted either indoors or
in low light. The default camera is quite good in that it’s actively designed
around the touch to focus and shoot principle, which, mostly reduces camera
shake at the expense of a delay in shooting. If you don’t want to miss a second
though, there is the Zoe mode which takes a combination of burst stills and
video.
On to the IR blaster and I never thought
I’d use it but here I am, I don’t even want to go back to my traditional
remote. It’s great for turning the TV on and quickly accessing all the shows
that are currently showing and going to be on. It’s useful. I like it. A lot.
Now onto the software and you’ll see that
I’ve replaced blinkfeed and quite a large part of the sense interface with Nova
launcher. Blinkfeed, for one, was just bulky and made it harder for me to
access the content I wanted to upon unlocking my phone. RSS feeds are also not
supported so good luck finding the type of news you actually want if you are in
any way source picky (which I am). There are some positives though, the phone
app is in my opinion, much improved over previous versions and I actually
prefer it to the stock phone application that I’ve been using on my galaxy
nexus. The reasonis simple, I can predictive text reveal contacts just by
dialing. This is something that’s been around since Nokia 3310’s and it’s a
shame that stock android never adopted it.
The colour reproduction on the screen is in
my mind, excellent, it’s easily one of the best viewing experiences I’ve had on
LCD. Viewing angles are good and 4.7 is big but I would have preferred a 5
incher on a phone of this size. The button arrangement is new for HTC, a double
tap opens the multitasker whilst a long press gets you into google plus. I
still would have liked to have the HTC button bring me home but it’s okay, it’s
not hard to get use to.
On the subject of getting use to things,
there is one, massive, design flaw that has existed on every single HTC device
since forever and it’s even worse with this phone. It is. The power button. HTC
have flat refused to bring the power button to the location that makes the most
ergonomic sense, the right thumb. The power button is placed on the top left of
the device. This makes unlocking your phone a largely uncomfortable one handed experience
as you attempt to shuffle a finger to the top left whilst using your thumb to
swipe up to unlock.
If you can get past that design flaw then
maybe, just maybe this is the phone for you. As far as battery life goes you’ll
easily get a full day of use although your own mileage may vary. The phone
additionally features AC Wireless which, when coupled with an AC router will
turn your 4G LTE outdoor experience into a 5G WiFi experience when at home.
In conclusion, I highly recommend this
phone if you want the best in hardware design and one of the most satisfying photography
experiences that you can get on any android device available.
It’s been Dan K, don’t forget to subscribe
by clicking the middle of your screen and more importantly, like the video up!
Ask any questions in the comment section below and I’ll see you guys, next
time!
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