REVIEW OF HTC ONE X

GENERAL  2G Network GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
           3G Network       HSDPA 850 / 900 / 1900 / 2100
Announced  2012, February
Status Available
SIZE         Dimensions 134.4 x 69.9 x 9.3 mm
Weight 130 g
BATTERY  Stand-by Time not available
Standard battery, Li-Po 1800 mAh
MEMORY  
l GB RAM
 Internal 32 GB (26 GB user-available)
FEATURES 
OS  Android OS, v4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich
CPU  Quad-core 1.5 GHz
Chipset Nvidia Tegra 3
GPU ULP GeForce
Sensors Accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass
Speed HSDPA, 21 Mbps; HSUPA, 5.76 Mbps
Messaging SMS, MMS, Email, Push Mail,
SMS (threaded view)
Browser
HTML, Adobe Flash
Colors Black, White
Entertainment
 Beats Audio
- Active noise cancellation with dedicated mic
- TV-out (via MHL A/V link)
- MP4/H.263/H.264/WMV player
- MP3/eAAC+/WMA/WAV player
- Document viewer/editor
MP3 Player, Games, WMP (Window Media Player), TV Out, Photo editor
Voice Memo Yes
GPS Receiver Yes
Photo Editor Yes
Google Maps Yes
A-GPS support
- Java MIDP emulator
- SNS integration
- Google Search, Maps, Gmail, YouTube, Calendar, Google Talk
- Voice memo/dial/commands
- Predictive text input
DATA  NFC Yes
Bluetooth  v4.0 with A2DP Bluetooth Mobiles
USB microUSB (MHL) v2.0 USB Mobiles
GPRS Yes GPRS Mobiles
EDGE Yes EDGE Mobiles
WLAN Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, DLNA, Wi-Fi hotspot
DISPLAY Type Touch Screen, 16M colors
Size 720 x 1280, 4.7 inches (~312 ppi pixel density)
- Multitouch
- Protection: Corning Gorilla Glass
- HTC Sense UI
Super IPS LCD2 capacitive touchscreen
CAMERA Primary 8 MP, 3264x2448
Video Auto Focus, Video, Video Call
LED flash
- Features: Simultaneous HD video and image recording, geo-tagging, face and smile detection
- Video: 1080p@30fps, stereo sound rec., video stabilization
- Secondary 1.3 MP, 720p
SOUND Alert types
MP3 , WAV,
Type MP3, WAV ringtones
Vibration Yes
Loudspeaker - 3.5mm jack

The HTC One X brings the best processor, an HD screen and a sublimely thin chassis.To say the HTC One X has an attractive design would be completely underselling it. This single block of polycarbonate plastic is simply gorgeous and is without doubt one of the best looking phones. Like the Samsung Galaxy Nexus before it, the One X has a slightly curved profile that makes it both distinctive and comfortable to hold.

DESIGN

It must be difficult to come up with a phone which has a very large screen, beautiful and thin body, as well as a relatively reasonable weight, all at the same time HTC has done it.The HTC One X design isn't too different from that of its predecessors. The lines are basically the same and the elements are distributed in much the same way around the smartphone's body.This preference is easy to understand once you've held the One X in your hands. The attention to detail in construction and design is very impressive.The low overall weight is another huge advantage of the polycarbonate body. At 130g, the One X is impressively lightweight for its size and that's one of the first things you'll notice.

DISPLAY

The One X display offers arguably the best image quality of any LCD on the market. Not only is it remarkably sharp (at about 312 ppi, it's virtually impossible to distinguish individual pixels), but also has great contrast and nicely saturated colors.The screen uses the so-called Super-LCD 2 (it uses IPS) technology, which is said to bring better viewing angles and less glare, compared to traditional S-LCD panels. The blacks aren't as deep as those of the AMOLEDs out there, but still great in LCD terms. Sunlight legibility is close behind the market best, which is good enough to not cause any usability issues.Its colors might seem a bit too saturated, but in most of the cases the visuals that it produces are extremely pleasant.

INTERFACE

The main goal for HTC in terms of the interface has been to simplify it. Indeed, previous versions of the UI had so much options and personalization stuff, that it could easily throw the more inexperienced users into confusion.The new version of HTC's Sense has removed some fancy 3D animations and redesigned other UI elements to tie in better with the vanilla Android theme.

Everything from the lock screen, through the widgets, to the core apps has been skinned in order to get this typical HTC look.The HTC Sense has another customization option called Skins. Every skin changes the look and feel of most of the onscreen buttons, application screens, option menus, and other items. They also come with unique wallpaper each and use different colors for various UI elements.HTC have done a lot to streamline the lockscreen and the same goes for the homescreen. Gone is the scrolling indicator arc, gone is the three button dock that wasn't very useful,

Unfortunately, you can't download new lockscreens off the HTC Hub.

CAMERA

The HTC One X packs an 8MP camera that does stills of up to 3264x2448 pixels and records 1080p video @ 24fps. There's an LED flash / video light too.According to HTC, it has done some tremendous improvements to its camera technology. It has even given the whole camera package a name – ImageSense. Among the more important enhancements should be faster loading and focusing times, as well as overall better shots due to an f2.0 aperture and BSI sensor. Finally, a special chip called ImageChip is taking care of the necessary calculations before you're presented with the final result.HTC took the camera hardware seriously this time - an f/2.0 aperture and a dedicated image processing chip clearly show they mean business. However the image quality is not quite the best in the 8 MP league - the One X produces rather noisy, if nicely detailed photos. Colors are nice, but tend to be a bit over-saturated at times. Sharpening algorithm is a tad too aggressive, too, resulting in occasional artifacts.The quality of images captured by the HTC One X aren't going to replace a stand alone digital camera, but they will suffice for those who would only ever use an entry-level point and shoot.

The One X offers HDR mode too. Here's a comparison of a scene with HDR off and on

VIDEO RECORDING

The One X records 1080p or 720p videos at 24fps and it can snap photos while at it. You can also use touch focus and even toggle the video light.The colors are a tad oversaturated and while noise is decently low, the One X is hardly the best smartphone for shooting video on the go.

There are a number of cool features on the HTC One X when it comes to video recording: for instance, you can capture in slow motion, or while shooting in Full HD at 30 frames per second you can take pictures while recording.This is a really awesome feature when you want to both film and photograph at the same time.The 720p videos captured by the Once X are decent. They only use half the bitrate (makes sense since 720p is about half as many pixels as 1080p). You should keep in mind their field of view is narrower than the 1080p videos.

The HTC One X also shoots slow-motion videos but the resolution drops significantly - you get 768x432 at 2.4Mbps bitrate.The video quality is good but not great.

CONNECTIVITY

The HTC One X packs quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE and quad-band 3G with HSDPA speeds up to 21Mbps and HSUPA up to 5.76Mbps and it also  has Wi-Fi b/g/n and full DLNA support (both client and server, for images, videos and music) and Bluetooth 4.0.There`s also a NFC feature brought in to take advantage of Google's Android Beam service. Right now it's a pretty rudimentary offering - all you can realistically do is tap the One X against another Ice Cream Sandwich-enabled phone (with an NFC) and share things like Map directions, YouTube videos and contact details.

The HTC One X comes with an MHL port, so if you plug a MHL dongle in, you can output HD video over a standard HDMI connection. The phone's UI is mirrored on the TV and with the HD resolution of the display, watching on an HDTV.

INTERNET

HTC One X comes with the latest version of the Android web browser. Coupled with the HD display and powerful processing power of the One X, the stock  web browser performs reasonably well.

However, the first thing you'll notice is the rendering speed of the One X internet browser isn't particularly stellar.Most of its UI is out of sight, leaving the entire screen to the web page and even when it does appear it consists of a single bar, which holds a back button, a read button and the standard Menu dropdown on the right. The read key aims to show some text-heavy web pages in a distraction-free mode to facilitate reading.Overall loading speed of most websites was around a couple of seconds quicker than usual, which is what you'd expect with the Tegra 3 processor running things. But in terms of the time it took to actually see the words on the page of the site we were navigating to it wasn't quick.The HTC One X has full Flash support and playing Flash videos was a walk in the park. Flash games work like a charm as well.

MULTIMEDIA

VIDEO PLAYER

Watching video on the HTC One X's 4.7” screen is epic. The large diagonal, incredibly high resolution, saturated colors and strong brightness output all contribute to the awesome video experience. Just make sure that your video source is of the needed quality.

The video player on the HTC One X is built into the Gallery app - there's no dedicated shortcut inside the app drawer.The One X played most files like AVI, MP4, MKV - though it did choke on some old XviD AVI videos. Codec support on the video side is excellent - all popular video codecs run at up to 1080p resolution easily. Sound is more problematic and AAC or DTS wouldn't play.Theres`s another great feature which is DLNA connectivity which means you can stream the videos wirelessly to your TV.

MUSIC PLAYER

The HTC One X also comes with Beats Audio in order to deliver an impressive audio output as well.

The One X has the Beats Audio monicker stamped on the back, which means your sound is enhanced to boost the sonic experience - you can use it with any headset you want. You can choose between multiple presets - Beats audio, classical, bass boost and so on. HTC finally allow you to turn the effects completely off.The stock music player itself is rather simplistic. It gives you the standard options to filter your content, displays large album art, and is easy to use. Its most interesting feature is that it's integrated with SoundHound, so you can get more info about the song with just a quick tap.

BATTERY LIFE

The HTC One X comes with an 1800mAh battery that's unfortunately sealed within the chassis of the phone - meaning no chance of being able to swap it out in the event of a power-outage on the go.

You've got two choices: use the One X sparingly (such as not turning the screen on too much, keeping app frivolity to a minimum) and you'll get two days' usage out of the phone. It's really rather good on standby.

FINAL VERDICT

 With such advanced and expensive devices like the HTC One X, though, you have to demand top-notch quality in every aspect. That's not what we got with it. For the most part, there's nothing wrong with the handset. It has a big and beautiful screen, fluid UI and pretty much every hardware or software feature that a user may need.However, when you dig deeper  you begin to encounter its imperfections, most of which are software-related.

But battery is a key thing to so many users, and for that reason i have to be hard on this otherwise superb device. Sure, in idle mode the HTC One X survives just fine - but compared to the competition it still lags behind the rest.Its camera may not be the best in the business and the Sense UI might need some fine tuning, but  the HTC One X delivers where it really matters, providing as solid user experience as you can hope for and a picture perfect screen, which is a joy to both look at and use.

For now, the One X comes to prove that HTC is working actively to innovate its line-up, and while it's moving in the right direction, this is not the ultimate phone people were expecting it to be,