26 of 27 people found the following review helpful.
By The Gun
I have been waiting for some news on the Verizon version of the HTC One and thankfully it came out just as my upgrade date rolled around. I have owned 8 other smartphones over the past several years and the HTC One is the best that I've used. It is ultra-fast with a very slick interface.
I chose the HTC One over the other offerings out there due the quality of the construction and the hardware. I have never liked the Galaxy series, as they feel cheap with their overuse of generic plastic. I have not had good experiences with Motorola hardware. I really liked the HTC Rezound that I had years ago and it's clear that HTC has put a lot of thought and research into the development of the HTC One. It is constructed on par with the iPhone. Clean lines, aluminum frame, it looks great and fits well in the hand.
The hardware is blazing fast and I like the Sense software enhancements. I even find Blinkfeed a great collection of news and my social media updates. It would never replace Flipboard for my news reading, but for a quick scroll through everything that's going on, it's very helpful. HTC has gone with clean menus, great fonts that look great on the 1080p screen.
I have had zero complaints with the phone. I'm a power user when it comes to smartphones and I have been overwhelmingly impressed by the HTC One. The one thing that continues to astound me is that phone makers don't wake the phone up when you receive a text. Thankfully there's an app, SMSAwake that solves that problem. The camera takes good pictures; I have not seen pictures from any phone (except maybe the new Nokia line) that are better than a decent point and shoot camera, but the HTC One camera will capture the moment just fine and the Zoe camera function is pretty cool.
I recommend the HTC One without hesitation. The design is flawless, the hardware is cutting-edge and the software brings it together in a great package.
36 of 40 people found the following review helpful.
By ToeKnee_TM
I've been an HTC user for a LONG time (all the way back to the HTC Herald/T-Mobile Wing Windows 6.1 phone). In front of me on my desk, I currently have four generations of HTC Android devices: The HTC Droid Incredible, the HTC Rezound, , the HTC Droid DNA, and finally, this HTC One all for Verizon. When I first picked up my new phone, I was highly impressed by the feel of it in my hand. It was such a pleasure to hold, that I was very reluctant to put my normal case on it that slides into a holster, but I knew I had reservations about this newest HTC unit so I forced myself to put on the case. First off, the phone is an only marginal upgrade from the DNA in many respects. The One is slimmer and shorter than the DNA (One: 5.41 x 2.69 x 0.37 inches vs DNA: 5.55 x 2.78 x 0.38 inches), but the DNA weighs slightly less (One: 5.04 oz vs DNA: 4.87 oz) With the same overall resolution (1080 x 1920 pixels) the One has a lightly better Pixels per inch (PPI) than the DNA (468 vs 441). I think this is because of the slightly larger screen size of the DNA. While I had to look VERY closely, the screen on the One is slightly sharper, but I prefer the larger real estate of the 5 inch DNA screen over the 4.7 inch One.
The One is made of aluminum which stands out to be the sexiest Android phone I've ever seen. It just looks and feels awesome! The slightly newer version of Android (4.2.2) seems to be a step in the right direction, and Sense 5.0 seems to be even smoother than the older Sense, although I've always had an affinity for HTC's Sense GUI. I am pretty annoyed by the Blinkfeed feature on the One that you can't get rid of, although you CAN set another panel as your "Home Screen" and tuck the BLinkfeed panel out of sight.
The stereo front-facing speakers on the One are one of the other features that REALLY set this phone apart from the others I've used, tested and played with over the years. I was actually able to hear EVERYTHING clearly, even at full volume. OF course, the bass isn't earth-shattering, but at least you can hear that it's there. Watching a movie or TV show was actually enjoyable, and it was much clearer than on the DNA. As with all Beats-by-Dre enabled HTC phones, I was not impressed by this feature on the One and found that it muddied the sound on the stereo speakers.
The HTC One also sports a handy infrared remote control feature. The power button on top doubles as an IR remote blaster and the phone can "learn" to control many different devices. The stock software is pretty good although it wants you to set up a TV every time, and I only have a projector (Although it did learn most of the functions from that remote). It was still pretty cool. On a side note about HTC power buttons, they sure like to move them around: The original Incredible has the power on the left, the Rezound is on the right, the DNA has it in the middle, and the One brought it back to the left....
Now we come to the epic, and I mean EPIC failure of HTC with the One: The camera. I mean, COME ON! 4.0 "ultrapixels"???????? This is where I made my final decision to return this handset to Verizon. I take a lot of pictures with my phones, and I just can't get over how HTC made such an awesome phone and then ruined it with some gimmicky camera stuff. The DNA has 8 megapixels vs the 4 "ultrapixels" and the DNA takes superior pictures in all conditions. I read many places that the One was awesome at taking indoor pictures in low light and no flash, but my comparisons between the two phones produced better pictures on the DNA. Because of the larger number of pixels, edges were sharper, clearer, and the colors more natural. Sorry HTC, you dropped the ball here.
All this aside, if you are looking to come from an older phone and don't ever plan to print an 8X10 photo from a phone picture, the HTC One is the sexiest Android phone on the market. It is very fast, sleek, the screen is second-to-none, and the front facing stereo speakers are the best on any smartphone I've ever played with. However, if taking pictures is a high priority like me, you'll want to either wait and see if HTC fixes this issue or try another phone (if you can find a DNA, they are nice units). My last thought has to do with manufacturing quality control. I've read a lot of complaints about durability of the One, and the unit I have (had) has some slight manufacturing defects where the top piece of the phone (the border around the screen) does not line up very well on the top and the bottom of the phone. There are definite ridges on those bezels....the fit and finish is not world class.
HTC One Pros:
The aluminum frame makes for a VERY sexy phone
The Front-Facing Stereo Speakers produce awesome sound for a phone
The screen resolution and pixel density make for a very nice viewing experience
The 1700 MHZ Quad-Core and 2GB of RAM make for a snappy phone
HTC Sense 5.0 does appear to be an improvement over earlier versions of Sense
Built-in IR remote control
32 GB Internal Storage
Decent Battery (2300 mAh)
HTC One Cons:
The gimmicky and (to me) useless 4.0 "Ultrapixel" camera
Fit and finish
Blinkfeed that can't go away
The loss of zooming out the home screen to see all panels at once
No SD card
Non-Removable battery
Did I mention the camera?
HTC One Notables:
Beats by Dre is still "meh" to me
The included headphones weren't impressive and lacked any Beats branding
If the camera didn't suck, this would be a 5-star phone hands down.
31 of 37 people found the following review helpful.
By Makoto Schoppert
My first smart phones were HTC, back in the days of Windows Mobile 5, and my first Android phone has been HTC. A few years ago, I decided to try out Motorola's Droid RAZR Maxx HD, and then the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 which is my current daily driver. I decided to see what HTC has been up to and give the their flagship phone, the HTC One, a try.
Pros:
* The unibody aluminum frame gives it a nice sturdy feel that doesn't feel cheap like plastic bodies do.
* The "ultrapixel" camera does give it better shots in lower lighting, but then you do trade off megapixels. If you are just shooting for sharing on social networks, this may not be a big deal but if you plan on printing photos, I'm still not 100% convinced of their strategy of using a lower megapixel camera (albeit bigger pixels).
* The HTC widget on the home screen is pretty nice. Gives you a consolidated view of news and social network status updates.
* One of the nicest pros for me is having stereo speakers in the front. I never understood why smartphone manufacturers decided to put the speakers in the back.
* A nice bonus is the IR emitter that can be used to control your TV/DVR/Receiver. You can view channel listings on your phone and use it as a remote.
* Integration with Zoodle's KidMode is nice, especially if you have a toddler that you would like to entertain.
--Update 2013-09-13
* I just noticed a feature that this HTC phone has, much like my previous HTC phones had, which is built-in support for SIP (used for VoIP calls). My Samsung devices do not have this built-in and I have to use a third party app. This is useful if you would like to use a SIP provider to make and receive calls.
* The Zoe camera mode is pretty neat. Essentially what it does is it will continuously take video in Zoe mode, but when you press the button to take a picture, it will create a 4 second long video that has 1 second of video prior to when you pressed the shutter, a point in the video of when you pressed the shutter, and 3 seconds after the button was pressed. You can then create a photo from anywhere within this timeframe.
Cons:
* When typing, the Home button is right underneath the period, so I've found myself exiting an app a few times while trying to type a period.
* I like the buttons on Samsung devices better, which consists of "Back", "Home" and "Menu". On the HTC One, there are only two, "Back" and "Home". Without the "Menu" button, apps either have to provide their own menu button, or an extra row is added below the app which is the Menu button and takes away a little bit of real estate from the app.
* No SD card expansion
* No wireless charging, which I suppose is the tradeoff to having an aluminum body since the aluminum would interfere with the wireless charging.
* Included e-mail client does not support S/MIME encryption. On Samsung devices, the built-in e-mail client does support S/MIME encryption however. Most people may not care or use this feature, but for corporate use, this may be more important.
Neutral:
* The BeatsAudio enhances music but I wish it was more customizable like an equalizer.
* There isn't a built-in flashlight widget/app like there is with Samsung's Assistive lighting widget
* Doesn't perform quite as fast as the Galaxy S4, but still runs plenty fast enough, so not marking it as a con.
* Camera app doesn't seem to be as full of features like the S4.
* I don't like the curved back. This may appeal to some people but I would actually prefer a flat back. When I have it laying on my desk and want to use it, I end up making the whole phone wobble back and forth every time I press the screen.
* The Ir blaster feature is neat, which essentially allows your device to be a universal remote control. It downloads TV schedules as well so you can get an idea of what you'd like to watch. Personally, I haven't found myself using this a lot but this could be handy if you're somewhere, like a waiting room, or in your company break room and would like to change the channel.
Overall, I think HTC did a great job of building a nice phone. With Verizon's lineup of Android phones, HTC faces competition with Samsung's Galaxy S4 and Motorola/Google's Droid series (like the Ultra and the Maxx). The hardware is really nice (with the exception of buttons in my opinion) but the software is lacking in some places. Both Samsung and Motorola do a better job of packaging useful software with their devices, whereas this one doesn't.
Also, worth noting is that this phone still uses MicroSIM cards and hasn't switched to using NanoSIM cards yet like with some other new phones. I actually like this since my other phones are using MicroSIM as well and I can switch my SIM card around from one phone to another. Had this phone switched to NanoSIM, I wouldn't be able to do that.
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