HTC debuts new One smartphone
If there’s one thing Android smartphones need, it’s a device that can be held alongside the iPhone as a thoroughly premium, beautifully crafted handset. A device that silences the naysayers who see Samsung’s Galaxy devices and think all Android phones are cheap and plasticky. It just so happens that, last year, HTC launched such a device: the One. A smartphone crafted from aluminum and polycarbonate, which placed an emphasis on design, functionality, quality and top-notch specs. It was every bit the Google-ified iPhone, a device users could pull out of their pocket and feel smug that it was as beautiful as Apple’s own.
Fast forward a year, then, and it’s time for the One to get a thorough refresh. Eschewing additional numbers or nomenclature, it is again simply titled the HTC One — though its official codename and differentiator is M8, to last year’s M7. This time around, there’s more metal, more glass, more power and even more focus on streamlining the user experience of HTC’s Android skin, dubbed “Sense.” HTC has taken the One and smoothed out any rough edges on a phone already known as one of the best of 2013.
For starters, the entire handset is larger. Taller, wider, heavier — thanks to the increased amounts of metal — though it manages to remain as thin as the outgoing model. The handset is a unibody aluminum construction with polycarbonate strips to aid wireless signal. It features a more curvaceous body than its older brother, 20 percent more aluminum — the handset is now 90 percent metal — and has a brushed metal finish which required HTC to develop a unique manufacturing process to achieve. Move to the front and you’ll be greeted with a bigger display, 5-inches instead of 4.7, a 1080p S-LCD3 screen that boasts impressive brightness outdoors, deep blacks and rich colors, all coated in scratch-resitant Gorilla Glass 3.
Notably absent from last year’s model are any capacitive buttons under the display, replaced instead with on-screen keys — a welcome change, given how well Android works with on-screen buttons. Speaking of Android, the One launches with the latest version, 4.4 KitKat, coated in HTC’s in-house Sense 6.0 UI. That brings Blinkfeed, located to the left of the main homescreen, which aggregates social media updates, news articles and other content into a swipe-able feed — much like Flipboard. HTC has also tweaked various UI elements and updated the One’s standard font to bring a cleaner, more modern look which takes better advantage of the 5-inch screen real estate. The big new feature is Motion Launch, which constantly “listens” for movement by the user to activate a series of prompts. With the phone locked, swipe in a specific direction to unlock the phone and jump straight into a specific app or function. Hold the volume rocker and turn the phone to a landscape orientation to open the camera app. Answer a call by lifting your device to your ear — all without unlocking it.
Powering all of this is the latest Snapdragon 801 processor, clocked at 2.3GHz and mated to 2GB of RAM and an Adreno 330 GPU. Memory comes in at 16 or 32GB, though the One supports MicroSD cards up to 128GB. On top of that, HTC has teamed up with Google to offer an additional 50GB of online storage through Google’s Drive service. Worried you’ll drain the battery before you get home? The One has a 2,600mAh battery rated for 20 hours of talk time or 40 days of standby time with Extreme power saving enabled.
Last year’s One had two rather unique features: BoomSound speakers and its Ultrapixel camera. Both have been updated for the new handset. BoomSound involves a pair of front-facing, stereo speakers placed at the top and bottom of the screen, which direct rich, loud audio at the user for watching movies and listening to music with. HTC claims that the new speakers utilize a dedicated amp and a more powerful DSP chip, which should offer richer audio and better low-end sounds.
Ultrapixel is the name HTC gives their camera technology, utilizing a 4MP camera — which sounds relatively paltry compared with competition that has reached 20- and 41-megapixels. HTC’s mantra is power over pixels, however, with a large one-third-inch BSI sensor combined with 2µm pixels that pull in 330 percent more light than other smartphones that typically use 1.1µm pixels. A new image processor, 28mm f/2.0 AF lens and software-based image stabilization round out the main lens’ feature set. Why did I say main lens? The One has a new, second camera, located just above the first. HTC calls it the Duo Camera, and it is essentially a depth-sensing camera which scans whatever scene the main camera is pointed at to pick out specific focal points. Users can snap an image and then readjust the focus of the main image, or edit specific areas of the photo. Want to drop your subject into another image? You can. Want to blur the background and focus on one object? You can. The dual-camera set-up should give users many more fun and creative ways to share their snaps. Of course, for selfie addicts, there’s a 5MP, wide-angle front-facing camera, to make sure you capture every detail of that perfect duck face.
HTC’s new One launches today in the U.S., with Verizon selling devices in their brick-and-mortar stores now. AT&T and Sprint will gain the handset in physical stores on April 11th, while all three are selling the One online as of today. Prices range from $199 for 16GB of storage to $249 for 32GB and up to $649 for the contract-averse, while it’s available in gray, silver and gold.
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