HTC One - Complete Review

The HTC One is the latest HTC flagship smartphone announced just before MWC at a press conference in NYC. Some say it is the last hope for the sinking ship named HTC, while soem feel it is the best android device till date and probably best smartphone ever. So How Good is it. Read More to Find out.

HTC ONE

So where do I Begin. Simply put, the One is one of the most beautiful smartphones that I have ever held in my Hand. In a market dominated by Apple's Premium feel phones and Samsung's Powerful yet less premium 'Plastic' phones, it is good to see a phone that is drop dead gorgeous, pack Android and can deliver some serious performance too.  Here is a Quick look at the specs

HTC One : Technical Specs

Feature	Details
DISPLAY	4.7-inch, 1920 x 1080 pixel display (469 ppi)
OPERATING SYSTEM	Android 4.1.2 (at launch)
PROCESSOR	1.7GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 600, quad-core
RAM	2GB
STORAGE	32GB
	64GB
EXTERNAL STORAGE	No
MAIN CAMERA (BACK)	BSI sensor, Pixel size 2.0 μm, Sensor size 1/3' 4 MP
SECONDARY CAMERA (FRONT)	2MP
NETWORK	CDMA: 800/1900 (BC0/BC1/BC10, Sprint)
	GSM/GPRS/EDGE: 850/900/1800/1900
	LTE: 1900 (B25, SPCS)
	WCDMA: 1900/2100 (B2/B1)
WI-FI	802.11 a/b/g/n/ac
BLUETOOTH	Bluetooth 4.0
BATTERY	2300 mAh
NFC	Yes
CONNECTIVITY	3.5mm Headphone jack
	DLNA
	Micro USB
SENSORS	Accelerometer
	Ambient light
	Gyro
	Proximity
GPS	Digital compass
	GLONASS
	GPS
HEIGHT	137.4 mm (5.41 inches)
WIDTH	68.2 mm (2.69 inches)
DEPTH	9.3 mm (0.37 inches)
WEIGHT	143 g (5.04 oz)

HTC One :Hardware and Product Design

There's no doubt about it -- the HTC One is a fine piece of kit. I am always of the belief that in Smart phones, First impressions are everything, and the HTC One delivers on that front. In fact, it was the most stunning device that I’ve picked up since the first iPhone 4. It's particularly beautiful when viewed from the back and sides, with a semi-pyramidal shape reminiscent of HTC's own J Butterfly and phones like the Xperia Ion. The front is more staid and channels the BlackBerry Z10. Look a little closer and the attention to detail is staggering -- this is a product that stands shoulder to shoulder with the latest iPhone 5 in terms of materials and build quality.

So how Did HTC get to build this awesome and equisite device. First of all, HTC begins construction of the One from a solid piece of aluminum. Two hundred minutes of CNC cuts later, a finished One chassis emerges. Plastic gets injected into the chassis between cuts during machining for the antenna bands and side of the case, which also gets machined. The result is what folks at HTC like to call 'Zero Gap' Technology. 

HTC even sourced custom-grade aluminum that's harder than what's found on the iPhone 5. The polycarbonate forms a ring around the edge of the device, covers the top and bottom ends and bisects the back with two lines, one of which flows around the camera lens below

On the front side, you will find the two speakers placed on the brushed aluminum stripes at the top and at the bottom of the display, which allows for stereo sound. The HTC logo is printed in silver between the capacitive soft keys below the screen, the back button is on the left and the home button on the right. A matte, white plastic frame runs around the edges, which adds to the premium feel.

Speaking of its edges, the One's power button sits on top of the hidden infrared blaster (more on this later) next to a 3.5-mm audio jack at the top of the phone, the microSIM door (requires a key like the Nokia Lumia phones) is on the left, the volume buttons are on the right, and a microUSB port is at the bottom of the phone. Sadly, we did not see any microSD slots for side-loading content but that's par for course with HTC phones.

HTC One : Display

1080p has become the new standard in screen resolution since the announcement of a new generation of Smartphones at CES. HTC was the first manufacturer to launch a phone with a 1080p display with the introduction of the Droid DNA. I thought the HTC Droid DNA slash Butterfly was probably around the highest we would see pixel density go for a smartphone, turns out the HTC One is even higher. 

The screen is crisp and inviting to look at at all times. It measures 4.7-inches in size and as it packs the same 1920 x 1080-pixel resolution as the larger 5-inch DROID DNA, it means you’re getting a sharper pixel density (468ppi) on the One versus the 440ppi pixel density on the Droid DNA. HTC One display is gorgeous as it delivers crisp and well contrasted images. Additionally, it provides great viewing angles and better performance in direct sunlight when compared to devices with Super AMOLED displays such as the Galaxy Note 2. I also feel 4.7 inches  to be a nice middle ground in terms of display size — it’s close enough to 5 to not seem small, and not absurdly huge.

HTC One : Buttons and Navigation

Under its 468ppi bright display are two Android virtual keys: the back key on the left and the home key is on the right with the HTC logo in the middle.My first impression was that the buttons are a bit awkwardly placed around the phone. There isn’t a multitasking key, for example, instead you’ll need to double tap the home button. Because we've gotten used to the three-button design of other Android phones, such as the latest Samsung Galaxy line, we kept hitting the back key on the One when we were looking for the contextual one for more options, because it is usually on the left side on the S III and Note II. However, An hour palying around with the phone,I can say that I have got pretty much used to it. except for probably my first hour, I am yet to inadvertently tap the HTC logo once, nor is double tapping on the home button to access the multitasking screen difficult to internalize. I found the virtual keyboard on the One gives a gentle, rumble-pack like shake every time a key is tapped. It's a nice change from the zappy feedback we get on some other Android phones. The keys look a bit skinny when the phone is in portrait mode, but it is surprisingly free of typos.

HTC One: Software

HTC added its latest custom skin to the HTC One and it’s aptly named Sense 5 as the fifth iteration of the software. Sense 5 is more about the entire user experience than just the software, however, and that means the hardware/software behind Boom Sound, the Zoe camera and more.I particularly appreciate the visual enhancements it provides to the regular Android OS while keeping it efficient. The general look and feel of the home screen and the secondary screen that gives access to the apps is very sleek and minimalistic, which fits well the elegant design of the chassis.

The home screen is automatically set to a new feature called “BlinkFeed” that pulls in news stories and images based on your tastes. The news feed is developed in collaboration with Mobiles Republic, a well-known news aggregator, and users can add news sources and social networks from the BlinkFeed settings. If you love sports, you can filter it to all sports. If you love politics and entertainment, you can have those stories populate as well.  A nice addition to may users, I personally didn't like it too much but know people for whom it will be Game changer.

HTC One: UltraPixel Camera

HTC put a lot of effort in the camera module and the camera application. UltraPixel is one of the most important new features launched by HTC with the One. It is one of the most daring and also the most interesting part of the phone which separates it from the plethora of smartphones that we have now. The short list of features on the HTC One camera that make it unique are an F/2.0 system with larger than the norm 2.0 micron pixels, optical image stabilization (OIS), and a new revision of imagechip.

For years now, smartphone manufacturers have been moving to smaller and smaller pixels to increase the resolution of their cameras. The UltraPixel concept is simple: fewer, larger pixels producing higher quality, less noisy shots—especially in low light. This improved image quality is helped by the HTC One's more advanced 1/3-inch CMOS sensor, ImageChip 2-optimized image signal processor, and optical lens system. Thus each pixel should capture over 300 percent more light than comparable 8- or 13-megapixel cameras such as the iPhone 5, Nokia Lumia 920, and Samsung Galaxy S III. This debunks the so-called "megapixel myth," which says that more megapixels equals a better image.


The famed UltraPixel doesn’t work alone. Pleasing images and video are also properly focused and exposed, evenly lit, and noise free. And that’s where HTC’s ImageChip 2 technology goes to work providing continuous auto focus, real-time video HDR, lens color shading compensation, and de-noise processing. HTC promises that its algorithm boosts focusing speed to an almost instantaneous average of less than 200 milliseconds per full distance scan. Video dynamic range can be boosted to match the human eye. The sensor captures interlaced frames up to 60fps with high and low exposure values, while the HTC ImageChip 2 hardware processes the frames in real time to create the HDR frames.

Image blur is a perpetual problem with smartphone shooting of both stills and video, and the HTC One seeks to improve photographic sharpness and clarity for both. Its camera can capture full size photos at a shutter speed of up to 1/48 of a second, compared to 1/30 of a second of competitors and its own 2012 HTC One X. The company has installed a physical optical image stabilizer into the HTC One, technology already found in dedicated digital cameras, but not, thus far, in smartphone cameras.


During the time I had the HTC One, I shot a few pictures under different lighting conditions and I compared it against other high-smartphones such as the iPhone 5, Nokia Lumia 920 and the Samsung Galaxy Note 2. I can say, It keeps up with all these smart phones in noraml light conditions. The only problem you can have is if you want to bring a particular portion of the picture in focus, the low Mega-pixel count will cause you some problem. I tried to just use a face cutoff from a group phot for facebook timeline photo and was not impressed as some Grains were visible in the picture.  

For the  low light test, I added the Nokia Lumia 920 and Lumia 808 to the equation, since they deliver the best performance when shooting in the dark. The HTC One delivers really good results, especially in low light. It is way ahead of Any Galaxy (I  haven;t tested S4 though) and is almost equal to Lumia 920. 

HTC One: Performance

The HTC One packs 2GB of RAM and a 1.7GHZ quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 processor. That’s in Qualcomm’s family of brand new chips. The new platform for any flagship Android smartphone is Qualcomm's recently announced Snapdragon 600. At the heart of the Snapdragon 600 platform are four Krait 300 CPU cores and an Adreno 320 GPU. 

In general, Qualcomm claims we should expect a 15% increase in CPU performance at the same frequency for Krait 300 vs. the og Krait. Factoring in clock speed improvements and you're looking at 25 - 30% at the high end. Is it really the case? To find this, I turn to my Swiss army knife of benchmarks to find out the truth.

Antutu:  AnTuTu Benchmark is a comprehensive Android Benchmarking application. It includes "Memory Performance", "CPU Integer Performance", "CPU Floating Point Performance", "2D 3D Graphics Performance", "SD card read-write speed" and "Database IO" performance testing.

Antutu Score : 22772

Given that it is equipped with the latest Snapdragon S600, the HTC One ranks high up there and it the highest score that I have on a phone till date. However, keep in mind S 4 has antutu around 26,000 as per some reports. 

GLBenchmark : This test has been designed to “stress” the graphics processor (GPU) by running a game-like demo which features a fight between various characters in many different environments (indoors, outdoors…)

GL Benchmark 2.5 Egypt Classic - 61 fps
GL Benchmark 2.5 Egypt Classic(Offscreen 1080p) - 87.2
GL Benchmark 2.5 Egypt HD - 34.3
GL Benchmark 2.5 Egypt HD(Offscreen 1080p) - 34

Its a truly remarkable performance and it beats Iphone 5 on 2 out 0f 4 and Xperia z on all 4. Here are the complete scores:

SunSpider 0.9.1 - Javascript performance Test. Here the lower scores are better. HTC one does not offer any significant over similar phones and also over nexus 4. It clocks a time of 1102 ms in stock and 1123.4 in chrome which is better than nexus 4 which is around 1400 but still less than Iphone 5's score around 900.

GeekBench 2:  Geekbench tends to focus on synthetic floating point calculation performance rather than multi-core scalability. This is a good measure for general computing and generating accurate physics in games. HTC one clocked a score of 2232, an impressive performance over Xperia Z's 2013 and Nexus 4's 2001.

Real World Perceived Performance: In terms of actual Real world performance, it is lightning fast. No lags whatsoever.Things are fluid and snappy, and overall, it is a pleasure to use from a performance standpoint.

HTC ONE : Sound Quality

The front-facing stereo speakers are incredible, and HTC is calling the experience “Boom Sound.” We found audio to be very rich when played through the speakers. HTC also added a twin-microphone setup that allows you to record audio during loud concerts and play them back through the speakers without too much background noise. I tested headphone sound with my Denon and creative Earphones and they are really good. 

I didn't get time to test it fully, from from what I tested, I can conclude that Speaker Sound is best on any smartphone and Headphone sound is on par with other flagship smartphones

HTC One Conclusion

The HTC One is a great smartphone, with a terrifically powerful processor, a stonkingly good screen and pretty good camera. It is the first smartphone in a long time that I’ve seen and completely fall in love with. It is drop dead gorgeous and have a few tricks up its sleeve that cannot be found on most other Smartphones. From the stellar camera and its highlight reels to the aluminum body and stellar screen, the HTC One offers a truly first-class experience.  Now to the all Important question - Is it the best Android phone ever? Well I haven't reviewed Galaxy S 4 yet and I'll say that even though  S 4 will have a slight performance advantage over HTC one, overall HTC One is indeed the best Android smartphone in the market currently.  S 600 is more than capable of handling anything in the near future. So my Final words - Go and Pre- Order Now as even though HTC made one hell of a product, I still don't trust their supply chains to be convinced that it will be in stock!