It seems the company realized its mistakes. This year it seems to be focusing on quality. The result, for now, is One series of smartphones. According to HTC, One series represents the best the company has to offer. Of these phones, today we have One X with us. It's the flagship model and if HTC's claim is true, the handset is ought to be the best Android experience in the market at the moment. But is it so? Read on to know...
Stunning design
HTC rarely makes a badly designed phone. But in HTC One X, the company has pulled out all stops and has given it looks that are head and shoulders above everything else in the Android baazar. One X is a big phone but its curveous design and a thin profile means that it doesn't look intimidating. Unlike the earlier flagship phones from the company, One X is built using a polycarbonate unibody shell. While this keeps the weight down, the phone does feel a little fragile in comparison to something like HTC Sensation. Also, unibody design means the battery can not be accessed by users. There is no provision for adding any extra storage through microSD card. One X requires a microSIM.
One X sports an almost edge-to-edge 4.7-inch screen, which has a resolution of 1280x720 pixels, and three capacitive touch buttons - back, home and multitasking - under the screen. This makes the phone rather large and if you have smaller hands - girls, please note - you will find One X difficult to use with one hand.
Inside its beautiful body, One X packs state-of-the-art hardware. The phone is powered by Tegra 3, a processor with four main cores and one ninja core that only kicks in when the device doesn't need much horsepower. The processor runs at 1.5Ghz. There is 1GB RAM to make sure that multitasking is smooth. It has 32GB internal storage, an 8 megapixels (MP) primary camera and a 1.3MP front camera. In sum, we can say that if hardware is what turns you on, One X is the Android phone to get at the moment.
Fast & fantastic
Let's be clear about one thing. One X is the fastest and snappiest Android phone we have used. Much of this is due to the hardware - after all, not all phones have a ninja in them - and some is due to the way HTC Sense 4.0, the proprietary user interface that runs on the top of Android 4, handles animations. Scrolling is very smooth, web browsing is a blast, GPS locks in an instant and apps are installed or launch within a few seconds. Games - even demanding ones like Shadowgun - run smooth and the phone plays all sorts of videos in resolution up to 1080P.
At the same time, One X looks good while doing all this. Sense 4, unlike the Sense 3, is neither a show-off nor looks bloated. It looks right in terms of aesthetics, though we must add that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The only problem that we have with Sense 4 is that at the end of the day it's a custom user interface. While skins like Sense add to the phone's appeal, we suspect they also delay the Android updates. It's trade-off between functionality and beauty. But we believe that users, and not manufacturers, should be allowed to make this trade-off. Ideally we will like to see HTC, or for that matter any other phone manufacturer, giving users option whether they want a phone with stock Android or with custom user interface.
The 720P screen on One X is among the best we have seen on a smartphone. It has fantastic brightness, which really helps during outdoor use, and has very good colours. Also, the high resolution means it is very sharp, showing super clear text and images.
HTC has talked a lot about camera in One X. The phone has a dedicated chip for image processing and a lens with aperture of just f2, which should help in low-light photography. In our use we found the camera to be a mixed bag. The 8MP images shot with the phone had nice, though slightly oversaturated colours. But they did not have the kind of detail found in photos taken with iPhone 4S or Nokia N8. In the low light, though, One X proved to be an able shooter, producing usable pictures in situations where other smartphones would fail. Talking of camera, we must add that macro mode on One X seems to be broken. It can rarely focus on objects that are very close to it.
Battery life is very good, especially for a phone that has such a high-resolution and big screen. With moderate to heavy use - lots of browsing, photography, some gaming, calls, emails etc - the phone lasted 12 hours and a few minutes on 3G.
Is One X the perfect phone?
The answer to this question is easy: It is not. But then which device is.
One X is the one of the best Android phones ever made. It offers an experience that is polished, has a design that is beautiful and comes with the hardware that is not going to be obsolete any time soon.
We do have some complains about the device. We would have liked to see a dedicated camera button. The device is too big if you have smaller hands. Camera performance could have been better. But these are not deal breakers.
That said, price could be a deal breaker. At Rs 37,899 (market price could be lower) One X is an expensive phone, especially when seen in the context of Samsung Galaxy S2, which is available for around Rs 28,000. In many ways, One X is a better device than S2. But is the premium justified? That depends on how much you value design, aesthetics and big screen with better resolution. If price is no bar, One X is the Android phone to get at the moment.
Pros: Superb design, fantastic screen, powerful hardware, fast and good looking interface, good low-light photography
Conclusions: Expensive, no microSD slot, size could be an issue for many users.
Courtesy: Times Of India
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