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92
Criteria
Comments
Rating
- Reception and call quality Because my network drops calls more than I'd like
- Display This is the greatest and best screen I have ever seen on a mobile phone. That includes Retina iPhones.
- Battery life Lasts as long as I ever need it to before it dies, on average 18-24 hours
- Camera Takes great sharp pictures
- Ease of use Simple to use out of the box. I haven't found the need to use a custom ROM yet!
- Design and form factor Feels great in my hand and is incredibly wonderful to type on in landscape mode.
- Portability (size / weight) You have to like BIG phones. This is a light phone but a large phone.
- Media support Doesn't stream PS3 Media Server by default, other than that it's a pretty standard Media Player
- Durability I've dropped it a few times to no ill effect. My keys have beat up the screen a bit though.
- Ecosystem (apps, accessories, etc.) It's an Android phone and It has the Play store. You have a great selection of premium and some decent free apps.
Detailed review
Since I feel it is important to tell you where my subjective opinion is coming from my smartphone lineage is as follows:
Palm Pre CDMA Bell Mobility Version>HTC Hero GSM Telus Verison Unlocked>HTC Desire Z Bell Variant>HTC One X International GSM
Parallel to some of these I have been given at different times an iPhone 3GS for work and a BlackBerry Bold 9600.
What is it about this phone that makes me feel like I don't really need to upgrade immediately or even next year as the case has been for some time.
One thing I like about this phone is that everything I've liked about HTC has stayed the same and the things about HTC that I hated, are gone or better obscured.
So what do I like about HTC? The phones have always felt like the future when I hold them in my hand. They always feel solid, usable, stable and like someone put some actual thought in to why it should be how it is. Sense has always been something I've liked. That stupid flip clock. I love that. The stupid weather animations from the earlier versions of Sense really showed me what Android could be like and that the iPhone wasn't the only Jesus-phone with "Hey look I'm shiny" effects.
How does that bring us to the One X then? Well when I owned my Desire Z I used it stock for about 3 weeks and then immediately reverted to Cyanogenmod ROMS and/or MIUI ROMs. Which were great! It helped me overclock my phone but why the hell did I trouble and toil with a phone for 18 months when my iPhone-owning friends were just using theirs?
Fast forward to May 2012. A box arrives. I open it. I mangle the shit out of my SIM card to make it fit in the Micro-SIM slot. I boot the phone. The world changes.
First thing you'll notice is the screen is GORGEOUS. I mean glorious. This is the best looking screen I've ever seen and this is in direct contrast to a co-worker's Galaxy S3 and another co-worker's Galaxy Nexus. The colours really pop and watching video is positively delightful. Then after getting it set up and starting to pull down some apps, I really got a feel for what is still HTC and what is more pure on the Android side.
Then I began gaming and I found this thing gets HOT right under the camera bump. When I was simultaneously charging it and playing GP Story from Kairosoft, this thing began to just heat right up. Nvidia? Can we have that be lessened in the next Tegra SoC? Kthx.
Battery life with this phone is great. I use it to listen to podcasts on the way to work and then the same on the way back and it lasts all day. Sometimes, on weekends when I ignore my phone intentionally, it'll be close to dying come Monday, but never totally dead.
So what sucks about Sense? Well, I've used AOSP builds of Android 4.0.x and I really loved the dark, blue-accented Holo design. HTC, however, has spent 5 years branding their phones with Green and White when those were Android's primary colours and will be damned if they ever give that up. The battery icon? Green. The HTC built icons in the Settings menu? Green. Anything that uses the stock Android API calls however gets blue on dark grey Holo colours. Inconsistent and immersion killing in every sense. This is poor design and HTC should Evolve with the times and upgrade its colour scheme.
The little niggling nit-picks aside, however, this phone is great. This phone is greatness. The polycarbonate body feels really solidly constructed and has survived several drops with only minor physical damage to show for it. The screen is just unfathomably good. The device does everything I care about (web browsing, playing Kairosoft games and checking email) and more. It beats all expectations and the Beats audio doesn't even degenerate the experience like I thought it would. This is the best Android phone in 2012.
Palm Pre CDMA Bell Mobility Version>HTC Hero GSM Telus Verison Unlocked>HTC Desire Z Bell Variant>HTC One X International GSM
Parallel to some of these I have been given at different times an iPhone 3GS for work and a BlackBerry Bold 9600.
What is it about this phone that makes me feel like I don't really need to upgrade immediately or even next year as the case has been for some time.
One thing I like about this phone is that everything I've liked about HTC has stayed the same and the things about HTC that I hated, are gone or better obscured.
So what do I like about HTC? The phones have always felt like the future when I hold them in my hand. They always feel solid, usable, stable and like someone put some actual thought in to why it should be how it is. Sense has always been something I've liked. That stupid flip clock. I love that. The stupid weather animations from the earlier versions of Sense really showed me what Android could be like and that the iPhone wasn't the only Jesus-phone with "Hey look I'm shiny" effects.
How does that bring us to the One X then? Well when I owned my Desire Z I used it stock for about 3 weeks and then immediately reverted to Cyanogenmod ROMS and/or MIUI ROMs. Which were great! It helped me overclock my phone but why the hell did I trouble and toil with a phone for 18 months when my iPhone-owning friends were just using theirs?
Fast forward to May 2012. A box arrives. I open it. I mangle the shit out of my SIM card to make it fit in the Micro-SIM slot. I boot the phone. The world changes.
First thing you'll notice is the screen is GORGEOUS. I mean glorious. This is the best looking screen I've ever seen and this is in direct contrast to a co-worker's Galaxy S3 and another co-worker's Galaxy Nexus. The colours really pop and watching video is positively delightful. Then after getting it set up and starting to pull down some apps, I really got a feel for what is still HTC and what is more pure on the Android side.
Then I began gaming and I found this thing gets HOT right under the camera bump. When I was simultaneously charging it and playing GP Story from Kairosoft, this thing began to just heat right up. Nvidia? Can we have that be lessened in the next Tegra SoC? Kthx.
Battery life with this phone is great. I use it to listen to podcasts on the way to work and then the same on the way back and it lasts all day. Sometimes, on weekends when I ignore my phone intentionally, it'll be close to dying come Monday, but never totally dead.
So what sucks about Sense? Well, I've used AOSP builds of Android 4.0.x and I really loved the dark, blue-accented Holo design. HTC, however, has spent 5 years branding their phones with Green and White when those were Android's primary colours and will be damned if they ever give that up. The battery icon? Green. The HTC built icons in the Settings menu? Green. Anything that uses the stock Android API calls however gets blue on dark grey Holo colours. Inconsistent and immersion killing in every sense. This is poor design and HTC should Evolve with the times and upgrade its colour scheme.
The little niggling nit-picks aside, however, this phone is great. This phone is greatness. The polycarbonate body feels really solidly constructed and has survived several drops with only minor physical damage to show for it. The screen is just unfathomably good. The device does everything I care about (web browsing, playing Kairosoft games and checking email) and more. It beats all expectations and the Beats audio doesn't even degenerate the experience like I thought it would. This is the best Android phone in 2012.
good review!
0 people find this review helpful
review history
- 2012-08-23
-
Edited comment on Ecosystem (apps, accessories, etc.)
Updated detailed review
- 2012-08-14
-
Edited comment on Display