Smartphones htc review models. HTC U Ultra smartphone review: think for me. squeeze me completely

HTC has long been, as they say, not the same. Once upon a time, the company fought on equal terms with Samsung, LG, Sony and - oh, there were times - Nokia, and it even not looked down on, but simply did not notice them. Now the company does not find itself among the largest smartphone manufacturers. Last year, the ice seemed to break a little, but did not have any impact on the situation (at least positively), but impressed journalists by entering all sorts of top smartphones of the year, and showed that HTC still knows how to make good smartphones ... but also did not bring any special dividends.

Is it time to take drastic measures? Maybe it's time. Should we consider the release of HTC U Ultra - an "additional flagship" as such a measure? Let's talk about that too. The company in it rests not on technical features (an additional display, an ultra-pixel front camera) or an atypical design, but on the software capabilities of the Sense platform and the Sense Companion virtual assistant in particular. HTC U Ultra immediately starts bombarding with endless updates and offering its help in various situations - HTC decided to ride on machine learning, which is now fashionable. Remembering the times when the Sense shell was really advanced and seemed like a real salvation compared to the very ugly “clean” Android, I still want to ask one more question at the start: does the user need a Google Now backup?

⇡ Specifications

	HTC U Ultra	HTC 10	Samsung Galaxy S8	LG G6	Honor 8 Pro
Display	5.7", IPS, 2560 × 1440 pixels, 513 ppi, capacitive multi-touch + second display, 2.05", 1040 × 160	5.2 inches, IPS, 2560 × 1440 pixels, 564 ppi, capacitive multi-touch	5.8 inches, AMOLED, 2960 × 1440 pixels, 570 ppi, capacitive multi-touch,	5.7 inches, IPS, 2880 × 1440 pixels (18:9 aspect ratio), 564 ppi, capacitive multi-touch	5.7 inches, IPS, 2560 × 1440 pixels, 515 ppi, capacitive multi-touch
Safety glass	Corning Gorilla Glass 5	Corning Gorilla Glass 3	Corning Gorilla Glass 5	Corning Gorilla Glass 3; Gorilla Glass 5 on the back	Corning Gorilla Glass 3
CPU	Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 MSM8996 (Dual Kryo Cores @ 2.35GHz + Dual Kryo Cores @ 1.36GHz)	Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 (Dual Kryo 2.2GHz + Dual Kryo 1.6GHz)	Samsung Exynos 8895: eight cores (4 × Cortex-M1, 2.5GHz + 4 × Cortex-A53, 1.69GHz)	Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 MSM8996 (Dual Kryo Cores @ 2.35GHz + Dual Kryo Cores @ 1.36GHz)	HiSilicon Kirin 960 (four ARM Cortex-A72, 2.4GHz; four ARM Cortex-A53, 1.8GHz)
Graphics controller	Adreno 530, 624 MHz	Adreno 530, 624 MHz	Mali-G71 MP20, 850 MHz	Adreno 530, 624 MHz	ARM Mali-G71 MP8, 850 MHz
RAM	4 GB	4 GB	4 GB	4 GB	6 GB
Flash memory	64/128 GB	32/64 GB	64 GB	64 GB	64 GB
Memory card support	There is	There is	There is	There is	There is
Connectors	USB Type-C	USB Type-C, mini jack 3.5 mm	USB Type-C, mini jack 3.5 mm	USB Type-C, mini jack 3.5 mm	USB Type-C, mini jack 3.5 mm
SIM cards	Two nano-SIMs	One nano SIM	One nano-SIM / two nano-SIMs	Two nano-SIMs	Two nano-SIMs
Cellular 2G		GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 MHz	GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 MHz	GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 MHz	GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 MHz
Cellular 3G	HSDPA 850/900/1700/1900/2100	HSDPA 850/900/1900/2100 MHz	HSDPA 850 / 900 / 1900 / 2100 MHz	HSDPA 800/900/1700/2100	HSDPA 850/900/1900/2100
Cellular 4G	LTE Cat. 11 (up to 600 Mbps): bands 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 12, 17, 20, 28, 38, 39, 40, 41	LTE Cat. 9 (up to 450 Mbps): bands 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 20, 28, 32, 38, 40, 41	LTE Cat. 16 (1024 Mbps, 150 Mbps), bands 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 17, 20, 28	LTE Cat. 12 (up to 600 Mbps), bands 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 12, 13, 17, 20, 28, 38, 40	LTE Cat. 6 (300/50 Mbps): bands 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 20, 38, 40
WiFi	802.11a/b/g/n/ac	802.11a/b/g/n/ac	802.11a/b/g/n/ac	802.11a/b/g/n/ac	802.11a/b/g/n/ac
Bluetooth	4.2	4.2	5	4.2	4.2
NFC	There is	There is	There is	There is	There is
Navigation	GPS, A-GPS, GLONASS, BeiDou	GPS, A-GPS, GLONASS, BeiDou	GPS, A-GPS, GLONASS, BeiDou, Galileo	GPS, A-GPS, GLONASS, BeiDou	GPS, A-GPS, GLONASS, BeiDou
Sensors	Light, proximity, accelerometer/gyroscope, magnetometer (digital compass), Sensor Hub	illumination, proximity, accelerometer/gyroscope/pedometer, magnetometer (digital compass), Sensor Hub for fitness apps that track physical activity	Light, proximity, accelerometer / gyroscope, magnetometer (digital compass), Hall sensor	Illumination, proximity, accelerometer/gyroscope, magnetometer (digital compass)	Light, proximity, accelerometer/gyroscope, magnetometer (digital compass), IR sensor


The fingerprint scanner	There is	There is	There is	There is	There is
Main camera	12 MP, ƒ/1.8, hybrid autofocus (contrast laser-illuminated + phase detection), optical stabilization, LED flash, 4K video recording	12 MP, ƒ/1.8, contrast autofocus with laser illumination, optical stabilization, LED flash, 4K video recording	12 MP, ƒ /1.7, phase detection autofocus, optical stabilization, LED flash	Dual camera: 13 MP, ƒ/1.8 + 13 MP, ƒ/2.4, phase detection autofocus, optical stabilization	Dual module, 12 MP, ƒ / 2.2, phase detection autofocus, LED flash
Front-camera	16 MP, fixed focus	5 MP, autofocus, optical stabilization	8 MP, autofocus	5 MP, autofocus	8 MP, fixed focus
Nutrition		11.4 Wh non-removable battery (3000 mAh, 3.8 V)	11.4 Wh non-removable battery (3000 mAh, 3.8 V)	12.54 Wh non-removable battery (3300 mAh, 3.8 V)	15.21 Wh (3900 mAh, 3.8 V) non-removable battery
Size	162.4×79.8×8mm	145.9×71.9×9mm	148.9×68.1×8mm	148.9×71.9×7.9mm	157×77.5×7mm
Weight	170 grams	161 grams	155 grams	163 grams	184 grams
Hull protection	Not	Not	Yes, IP68	Yes, IP68	Not
operating room system	Android 7.0 Nougat, HTC Sense native skin	Android 6.0 Marshmallow, HTC Sense 8 skin	Android 7.0 Nougat, custom shell	Android 7.0 Nougat, LG UX skin	Android 7.0 Nougat, native EMUI skin
Current price	48,000-54,000 rubles	50,000 rubles (version with 32 GB of memory)	55 000 rubles	52 000 rubles	35 000 rubles

Design, ergonomics and software

Today, smartphones with a metal back cover can also be found in the “I’ll take it for change” price category. Serious companies have switched to an active study of the topic of glass - they cover their Samsung and Huawei (Honor) models on both sides, and now HTC has pulled up. The front glass closer to the edges is slightly sloping - 2.5D. The back panel is curved even more noticeably - all for the sake of less visual thickness. The camera, which strongly protrudes above the body, slightly disrupts the plan - by the way, we are already starting to wean from such tricks. This is all the more strange because the smartphone itself is actually not too thin - 8 mm. Many competitors are balancing on the verge of seven millimeters.

The problem of glass devices is traditional - glossy surfaces collect fingerprints very actively. This also applies to the white version, which we got for the test, and even more - the most spectacular blue, which flickers on all advertising brochures. Live, it is also very, very impressive - we managed to look at it closely at MWC 2017. But it is also impressive how quickly the glass gets dirty - you have to constantly wipe it.

But this is half the trouble. Much worse is the situation with the front glass. For him, it seems that they forgot to make an oleophobic coating - I have not come across such soiledness in recent years.

HTC U Ultra, rear panel: protruding camera lens, laser-assisted autofocus unit and dual-LED flash. Another microphone is visible below

Another feature of the HTC U Ultra is that it is very large. Yes, this is expected for a device with a 5.7-inch display, but here the situation is aggravated by the presence of a hardware Home button and an additional screen. Well, and a negative background for U Ultra in the face of the LG G6 and Samsung Galaxy S8, where the frames, on the contrary, were almost completely abandoned - and smartphones, in fact, can be used with one hand. U Ultra, on the other hand, I would like to call the word "phablet", but still we will not stoop to such meanness.

Getting used to the size of a smartphone, you pay attention to its specific features - for example, an additional display a little higher than the main one. We have already seen a similar solution in the performance of LG - on models, and X View. Here the idea is implemented in the same way - the screen is located on the side of the front camera.

When looking for a good mobile gadget, you should pay attention to HTC phones, all photo models and prices of which can be found in almost any online store.

Each of them combines a fairly powerful processor, good cameras and stylish design.

And many models were either included in the list of the best before, or are still in the top of their category.

And unlike many brands, HTC offers mobile devices in almost all price categories - from inexpensive devices under $100 to options that will cost almost $500.

Let's see what fans of htc smartphones most often choose ...

Modern and productive HTC 10

One of the latest models of the manufacturer is the HTC 10 smartphone.

The 5.2-inch screen with QHD resolution (which gives a pretty good picture for a display of this size) is complemented by 12 and 5 megapixel extensions.

With their help, you can shoot 4K video and save RAW photos with the maximum amount of image information.

Another advantage of the model is a powerful processor with 4 cores and 4 gigabytes of memory - quite sufficient characteristics to run powerful applications and games.

While it allows HTC 10 to work throughout the day with active use and up to a week in standby mode.

And you can charge your smartphone battery using the Quick Charge 3.0 quick recovery function, which provides a 50% charge in just 30 minutes.

HTC phones: an overview of the most popular models of 2019

Device parameters:

screen: 5.2", 2560 x 1440 pixels;
Processor: 2.2 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 820, 4 cores;
Memory: 4 GB RAM, 32 or 64 GB flash (expandable up to 200 GB);
cameras: 12 megapixels (protected by sapphire crystal) and 5 megapixels;
battery: non-removable, 3000 mAh;
cost: from 27 thousand rubles. for a model with 32 GB of memory and from 46 thousand rubles. for the 64 GB version.

HTC One (M8) - outdated but still good

In 2014, the HTC One M8 model was one of the best models in the smartphone market.

Now on sale you can meet with similar parameters - however, this device remains quite powerful and in demand.

And while 16 GB of built-in memory may not be enough for user requirements, it is easily expandable with flash cards.

High image quality(brightness, clarity and contrast) are provided by the use of a Super LCD3 matrix with FullHD resolution. The model works in 3G and 4G networks, and a 2600 mAh battery makes it possible to use it for 6-8 hours.

The parameters of the main camera (4.1 megapixels) are not impressive, but the quality of its shooting is not inferior to a 5-megapixel selfie device and, thanks to a large sensor, allows you to take bright photos with reduced sharpness.

HTC phones: an overview of the most popular models of 2019

Main characteristics:

screen: 5-inch, resolution 1920 x 1080;
battery: 2600 mAh;
processor: 4 cores, Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 2.3 GHz;
Memory: RAM 4 GB, built-in 16 GB, expandable up to 128 GB;
cameras: main 4 megapixels. (with flash), front - 5 megapixels.
gadget price: from 26 thousand rubles.

Rice. 2. Model HTC One M8 is a good device with mediocre photography parameters.

HTC One (M9) is the best for photography

The flagship model of 2015, HTC One M9, is a 5-inch screen with a metal case.

Its differences are a powerful video accelerator that runs the latest generation of games, and an 8-core processor that can process a huge amount of data.

RAM and built-in memory, which are quite large for the year of manufacture of equipment, are now fairly common features for gadgets costing from 20 thousand rubles.

Full HD screen Protected by durable Gorilla Glass. A camera with a 20-megapixel sensor, effective autofocus and dual flash provides high quality shooting. However, as testing of the device showed, some photos turned out a little worse compared to camera phones from competitors - Sony, Apple and Samsung. Although this only applies to shooting indoors - in natural light, the camera gets quite high-quality images.

HTC phones: an overview of the most popular models of 2019

Specifications:

screen dimensions: 5 '', 1920 x 1080;
resolution: FullHD;
RAM: 3 GB;
flash memory: 32 GB;
chipset: octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 810;
battery: non-removable, 2840 mAh;
cameras: 20.3 megapixels and 4 megapixels;
cost: from 22500 rubles.

Rice. 3. HTC One M8 is the brand's model with the best camera.

HTC Desire 526G - simple, practical and inexpensive

HTC Desire 526 is a budget segment . What's more, its cost is in line with that of the lesser-known manufacturers.

Among the features of the gadget, it is worth noting a case that is not bad for such a price (the plastic practically does not crunch when used) and the ability to work or play right while charging, thanks to the offset microSD input.

The smartphone is not distinguished by high image quality, which does not reach not only FullHD, but even HD.

Both the battery and the Desire 526 processor are weak.

Decent quality is only in the main camera - and although modern models are practically not equipped with 8-megapixel sensors, it is capable of shooting at a resolution of 1080p.

And even a two-megapixel front selfie camera allows you to shoot 720p video.

HTC phones: an overview of the most popular models of 2019

Smartphone options:

display parameters: 4.7", 960 x 540;
processor: 4 cores at 1.3 MHz;
Memory: 1GB/8GB;
battery: 2000 mAh;
shooting quality: main camera - 8 megapixels, additional camera - 2 megapixels;
price: about 5500 rubles.

Rice. 4. HTC 526G is one of the most affordable models.

Read also:

HTC One X9 - good sound, good photos

One of HTC's 2016 models, the One X9, is priced under $250.

The screen of the mobile gadget also has good characteristics - FullHD quality and a diagonal of 5.5 inches provide the ability to use a smartphone not only to perform its main task, but also for convenient watching movies, surfing the Internet and reading books.

All-metal body, protected from drops and shocks, made in a stylish design.

And a 13-megapixel camera with next-generation optical stabilization technology and a powerful flash makes it possible to take high-definition photos.

Additional advantage of the model- the presence of the BoomSound system for reproducing high-quality and clear sound. The proprietary audio processing algorithm is especially noticeable in games, although it makes it possible to make listening to your favorite music more comfortable. Moreover, 32-gigabyte built-in memory is enough to record 3-4 thousand songs with a bit rate of 320 kbps.

HTC phones: an overview of the most popular models of 2019

Main parameters:

display: 5.5", resolution 1920 x 1080;
processors: main - eight-core MediaTek MT6795 2.2 GHz, graphics - PowerVR G6200;
memory: 3 GB/32 GB;
battery: 3000 mAh;
cameras: main 13 megapixel, selfie camera 5 megapixel (with the ability to shoot FullHD video);
smartphone prices: from 15 thousand rubles.

HTC One M7 802W - metal device with a bright screen

The One M7 802W model cannot be called a flagship.

However, the smartphone is far from outsiders - the ability to work in 3G networks, a processor with 4 cores, 32 gigabytes of internal memory and 2 GB of RAM provide convenient and fast networking and running modern applications.

A thin monoblock in a stylish metal case hides the characteristics common for the modern smartphone market and relatively weak cameras with a resolution of 4 and 2 megapixels. Although, if you use a smartphone to play video, its parameters - maximum FullHD resolution, high brightness and clarity, as well as high-quality sound thanks to the BloomSound system - are enough for comfortable viewing of any movie.

HTC phones: an overview of the most popular models of 2019

Model characteristics:

chipset: quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 APQ8064T;
memory: 2 GB RAM, 32 GB built-in;
screen parameters: 4.7", 1920 x 1080, Super LCD 3 technology;
battery capacity: 2300 mAh;
cameras: 4 megapixels and 2.1 megapixels;
the cost of a smartphone: from 10 thousand rubles.

HTC One (A9) - stylish and well protected

The A9 smartphone from the model range of the manufacturer HTC belongs to middle price category, possessing the same parameters that fully meet modern requirements, but have not been impressive for a long time.

The difference between the model is the presence of a fingerprint scanner and a 13-megapixel camera with high definition shooting.

The metal case protects the gadget from falling onto the back cover, and the Gorilla Glass 4 glass protects the screen from mechanical impacts.

The five-inch screen with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 provides high-quality video viewing. The new Android 6.0 Marshmallow operating system makes it easy to use your phone.

A processor with support for 24-bit sound allows even avid music lovers to enjoy listening to music.

HTC phones: an overview of the most popular models of 2019

Specifications:

screen: 5″, FullHD;
camera: 13 MP/4 MP;
memory: 2 GB / 16 GB;
CPU:
battery capacity: 2150 mAh;
price: from 15 thousand rubles.

Rice. 7. Line of colors for HTC A9.

HTC Desire 620G - powerful processor, weak memory

Mobile phone HTC Desire 620G can be called a sufficiently productive model for the requirements of three or four years ago. Now model parameters are quite budgetary, as well as its price.

HD resolution and 1 GB of memory will not allow you to work with many modern applications - especially games, despite the powerful eight-core processor.

However, these parameters are quite enough for normal networking, reading, listening to music and watching videos - especially considering the bright screen made using IPS technology.

HTC phones: an overview of the most popular models of 2019

Gadget options:

display parameters: 1280 x 720 pixels, 5 inches;
processor: 8 cores, Mediatek;
Memory: 1GB/8GB;
battery: 2100 mAh;
camera: 8 megapixels / 5 megapixels;
cost: from 6 thousand rubles.

Rice. 8. Model HTC Desire 620G - despite its good power, it is not suitable for gamers.

HTC Desire 628 - a budget option with a lot of memory

Another model from HTC is the Desire 628, which is distinguished by a good design and a favorable price.

With its rather serious characteristics even compared to modern flagships (3 GB of RAM, 32 GB of flash memory and a processor with 8 cores), the model turned out to be in the budget segment, and can be a profitable purchase for both a simple user and a fan of resource-intensive games.

An additional advantage of the gadget is high-quality BoomSound stereo speakers, which are a hallmark of the brand. The controversial characteristic of a smartphone is its size.

Due to the large margins at the top and bottom, the five-inch Desire 628 is not much smaller than phones with a 5.5-inch display.

Model Capable of capturing high quality Full HD video and take good photos. While the screen resolution only allows you to view HD videos.

Perhaps, saving on the display is one of the reasons for the favorable cost of the smartphone, since most of the other parameters are not inferior even to some flagships.

HTC phones: an overview of the most popular models of 2019

Device Specifications:

display: 5 inches, resolution 1280 x 720;
main processor: MediaTek MT6753 (8 cores, 1.3 GHz);
memory: 3 GB/32 GB;
cameras: 13 megapixels / 5 megapixels;
battery capacity: 2200 mAh;
gadget price: from 9500 rubles.

Rice. 9. HTC Desire 628 - Good value for the price.

HTC Desire 630 – average parameters, average price

Not a bad purchase for a person who prefers to use, the parameters of which are not much inferior to models from the middle price category, will be the HTC Desire 630.

With a quad-core processor and a good graphics chipset, 2 GB of RAM and 16 GB of internal memory, this gadget will cost three times cheaper than the flagships of the HTC brand.

Although it has a good 13-megapixel sensor as the main camera, you can shoot selfies on a 5-megapixel device.

It is possible that the reason for the quite affordable price of the smartphone, just like the HTC 628, was the screen with HD resolution and the battery that allows you to work no more than 5-6 hours in active mode.

Rice. 10. HTC Desire 630 is an ordinary model with today's standard parameters.

HTC Desire 820g is a good option for selfie lovers

Slightly outdated (which can be seen by having only 1 GB of RAM and 16 GB of flash memory), but still with a number of interesting characteristics HTC Desire 820g comes with a powerful processor and a medium-sized battery.

The display resolution of 5.5" is slightly lower than expected for such sizes (only HD, despite the fact that modern flagships have long switched to FullHD and QHD), the body is made of plastic.

And the main advantages of the model can be called a selfie camera that takes photos with a resolution of 8 megapixels. - although to get a clear frame it is worth providing bright lighting.

HTC phones: an overview of the most popular models of 2019

Specifications:

display: 5.5", 1280 x 720 pixels;
battery: non-removable, 2600 mAh;
processor: 8 cores, MediaTek MT6592;
RAM: 1 GB;
built-in memory: 16 GB;
cameras: 13 megapixels main, 8 megapixels;
price: from 10500 rub.

Rice. 11. HTC Desire 820g - a phone for a good "selfie".

Which one to choose?

Thanks to the wide range of smartphones offered by HTC, each user has the opportunity to choose and buy a device that suits him in terms of price and functionality.

Moreover, there are still flagships from two or three years ago on the market, more favorable in price, but still meeting the requirements of even modern users.

And if there are financial opportunities, you can choose the latest models that are not inferior to the best smartphones from other well-known global manufacturers.

Introduction

I usually start reviews of flagships with a story about what happened to the company shortly before the release of the model in question. This time there will also be such a story, but in a short version, because we have already examined HTC One from several different angles and the site had materials from Eldar Murtazin and from me about this device even before the release of the novelty. I suggest you read them if the topic is of interest.

For HTC, the previous year, and partly also 2011, turned out to be a crisis. At first, the company, along with the growing popularity of the Android platform, stood on a par with brands like Samsung, Apple and Nokia, and then lost a tangible part of its loyal audience in a few years. The rave reviews from the IT press and individual users for some HTC products did nothing to improve the brand's position in the market and sales. All this time, the situation has not changed much, despite HTC's various statements that the company will focus on top products, everything continued in the same spirit. The release of a new smartphone, and then many variations of it, conditionally, then middle-class devices one after another without any differences. At the same time, HTC has never been a large company and did not become one in an instant after the success of its first Android smartphones, however, within HTC, a decision was made to expand the lineup and since then we have all been witnesses of this process.

With the announcement of HTC One X, it seemed that the situation began to change and the company would once again focus all its forces around one, top-end device without any compromises, but the release of this model and the subsequent flurry of simpler devices and variations of the HTC One X itself showed that the situation is not changing. The release of the HTC One X + smartphone only six months after the start of sales of the original HTC One X looked especially strange on the part of the company. Both flagships were unsuccessful in the market and the difficulties within the company only worsened.

And now, the beginning of the next year, the Taiwanese manufacturer presents another flagship - HTC One. Again, a lot of hope, a lot of joy and some surprise, all this was after the release of HTC One X and is repeated again. With the difference that HTC One really looks more interesting than its predecessor in terms of design and body materials, and this model really takes into account some of the mistakes of the previous one. But there are also new controversial and incomprehensible points. In this review, I will not answer your question whether the HTC One will become a globally successful and popular "people's smartphone", but I will try to answer if I will buy it for myself when I have a choice between HTC One, Samsung Galaxy S4 and Sony Xperia Z?

Design

The last few years HTC has been growing in terms of design in my opinion. This can be clearly seen on the example of the flagships HTC Desire HD, HTC Sensation, and then HTC One and HTC Butterfly. The manufacturer is not afraid to experiment with materials and the shape of the case, it is not always successful, for example, a glossy Butterfly was brought to Russia for some reason, but in general it is hard not to notice the progress.

Despite the large size and boring colors, the HTC One is available in silver and black (maybe red in the future), the device looks beautiful and interesting. This is achieved due to different details - the shape of the case, the curved back, unusual for a smartphone, symmetrical speakers located relative to the screen. You can talk about the similarities between HTC One and Blackberry Z10, but only a person who has not held both smartphones in his hands can do this. In reality, there is no similarity between these models.

It seems to me that HTC One demonstrates the modern capabilities of companies in terms of the design of their smartphones in the best possible way. On the one hand, we hear universal phrases that every smartphone with a large touch screen is certainly a display and body in the form of an appendage and that nothing new can be invented here, on the other hand, there are vivid examples of the opposite - Sony Xperia Z and HTC One. However, if everything is not so simple with Xperia Z, because the glass used in a smartphone is a material that is far from universal and, more importantly, not quite familiar to smartphones, then in HTC One the combination of design and materials is simply a win-win - a lot of metal, familiar classic colors and no bling.

Housing materials

The main body material is aluminium. The basis of the smartphone is a completely aluminum “bath”, cut from a single piece of metal, it contains electronics, a display and other elements, there are aluminum inserts above and below the screen, they are attached to the main part (in the picture - elements with slots for speakers).

Black smartphone - painted aluminium. In two weeks of active use, my black HTC One has not lost its marketable appearance at all, no scratches or chips have appeared on it, and I still cannot find areas with peeling paint. On the other hand, two weeks is not too long, so I won’t speak confidently about the slight wear of the case.

Below you can watch a video that briefly shows the process of manufacturing the aluminum base of the HTC One case:

A separate task for HTC engineers and developers was the issue of placing antennas in a smartphone, because the case is all-metal, and the only pair of holes in it are for the camera and a slot for a microSIM card. As a result, the placement of antennas outside the case was recognized as the best solution. They were taken out into small grooves on the outside of the back of the smartphone and filled with plastic. Thus, those two decorative plastic inserts that we see on the smartphone are precisely the antennas hidden here for the operation of wireless interfaces.

The side faces of the device are also filled with plastic, here it is painted in the color of the case. The screen is protected by a layer of Gorilla Glass 2 glass, there are practically no prints left on it, and those that are are invisible. In order to take a picture with prints on the display, I had to try hard.

As for possible scratches, everything is as usual here. On paper, the glass is very resistant and can be scratched with a knife, scissors and other objects - there will be no scratches. However, after a month of operation, small scratches on the device may still appear. So it is worth remembering that even Gorilla Glass or its equivalent is not a 100% guarantee that the screen will be like new throughout the entire time of working with a smartphone.

Another topical issue is the soiledness of the body as a whole. I don’t know how things are with the silver HTC One, but the black device gets dirty surprisingly quickly and traces and stains on the back of the device are clearly visible. Especially greasy fingerprints. You can wipe it or put up with a constantly dirty smartphone - everyone decides for himself. From time to time I wipe the body of HTC One with anything (about my sweatshirt, for example).

Assembly

From the fact that the HTC One uses a unibody body without removable elements (except for the microSIM card slot), it follows that the assembly of the device is excellent. Yes, I understand that this rule does not always work, it’s enough to remember HTC One X with peeling off glass during a “monolithic” assembly, but HTC One doesn’t seem to have such a problem (pah-pah-pah), and it’s hard to think of others. The case looks very reliable and monolithic.

Dimensions

Unlike its main competitors, which are equipped with 5” screens, the HTC One retained at least a little “humanity” in relation to users, it has a 4.7” screen, which is good in terms of device size.

Dimensions HTC One - 137.4 x 68.2 x 9.3 mm, weight - 143 grams. This is smaller than the dimensions of the HTC Butterfly. Below are the dimensions of other popular smartphones for comparison:

Apple iPhone 5– 123.8 x 58.6 x 7.6 mm, 112 grams
HTC Butterfly– 143 x 70.5 x 9.1 mm, 140 grams
– 137.4 x 68.2 x 9.3 mm, 143 grams
Nokia Lumia 920– 130.3 x 70.8 x 10.7 mm, 185 grams
Samsung Galaxy Note II– 151.1 x 80.5 x 9.4 mm, 183 grams
Samsung Galaxy S4– 136.6 x 69.8 x 7.9 mm, 130 grams
Sony Xperia Z– 139 x 71 x 7.9 mm, 146 grams

It should be noted here that, despite the 0.3” smaller diagonal compared to SGS 4, the smartphone from HTC still has dimensions comparable to it, but the Sony Xperia Z is already larger.

By modern standards and against the background of some other smartphones (SGS 4, Meizu MX2, LG Optimus G Pro), HTC One has a thick frame between the screen and the edge of the case, it is almost half a centimeter, while for the above models it is about 3-3.5 mm. In practice, I don’t think that reducing the thickness by a couple of millimeters would give a tangible gain in size, but the smartphone would definitely look more spectacular. Although in terms of design, and so everything is fine.

Carrying the HTC One in your pants pocket is quite comfortable, it's still a smartphone that fits in one hand and just takes some getting used to. More precisely, to its dimensions.

Controls

Once again, HTC is reshaping the control system. This time, two buttons remain below the screen, to the left and right of the HTC logo. The button on the left is "Back", the button on the right is "Home". If you hold down the Home key for a couple of seconds, the Google Now application launches, if you quickly press it twice, the utility of the last opened applications is launched in the form of a matrix of thumbnails.

Both buttons are comfortable, they vibrate when touched and are backlit, but the main question is this: who is the smartest "designer" inside HTC who was able to push the idea that the HTC logo between two keys instead of the third is cool and beautiful ? To be honest, I really want to see at least some logical explanation for this decision, because so far it seems absolutely useless to me. And not only me, xda-developers is already actively discussing this problem and looking for solutions.

At first, they decided what to make a full-fledged key out of the area on which the logo is located, and even a picture of one of the smartphone’s spare parts went into the topic:

Screen

The HTC One has a Super LCD3 display. The screen specifications look like this: a diagonal of 4.7”, a resolution of 1920x1080 pixels (FullHD), a dot density of 469 ppi, which is higher than any other smartphone on the market.

Traditionally, I can describe the impressions of the screen of the next HTC smartphone in one capacious word - amazing. The display has maximum viewing angles, no matter what angle you reject it: diagonally, edges or ends - the picture is not distorted. There is a good margin of brightness and the screen remains readable in the sun. The color reproduction is close to natural, the colors are moderately saturated and juicy, but not overly contrasting and not acidic.

Viewing angles

Automatic brightness control does not work correctly in all situations, but in general, I had no particular complaints about its work. In the screen settings, you can choose the font size for menus and programs.

The only gripe is maybe not quite deep blacks when compared to AMOLED screens, but personally I am ready to forgive this moment for the HTC One display, because in return I get calm colors and a picture on the screen that does not tire my eyes and do not leak on the floor after half an hour of using the device.

Camera

The main camera is perhaps the most sore point of the new HTC flagship. There is hardly a person who has not yet joked about the 4 megapixel module in the 2013 flagship. Of course, now you need to take into account that the smartphone software has not been perfected, and as far as the camera is concerned, as HTC notes, there will be more serious improvements in future firmware, but we are still working with what we have. The main series of pictures below was taken on HTC One with the penultimate stable firmware - 1.28.401.7, most of the reviews on the net, both foreign and in other languages, were made on it. I also got another sample with more recent software - 1.29.401.5. Examples of pictures from HTC One on this firmware can be found in the comparison section with HTC Butterfly. Looking ahead, I’ll say that there is no particular difference in quality (or rather, none) between the pictures, so we continue to wait together for the final firmware, with which the smartphone will go on sale.

Let's take a look at the specifications of the main camera module, available on the official HTC website.

HTC UltraPixel Camera:

Pixel size 2.0 micrometers, sensor size 1/3", back-illuminated matrix
Dedicated HTC ImageChip™ 2 processor
F2.0 aperture and 28mm lenses
Built-in multi-axis optical stabilizer for smooth, professional video
Smart flash: one of five flash levels is automatically selected based on the distance to the subject
Front camera: 88° lens with HDR
Full HD 1080p video recording from both main and front cameras
HDR Video
VideoPic function: shoot video and take photos at the same time
Slow motion video recording and playback with speed control
HTC Zoe™ Memorable Event Recording and Sharing Service HTC Zoe™ Share

First, I will briefly describe the software innovations of the camera, and then I will give the floor to Roman Belykh, who will comment on the quality of the pictures taken on the HTC One.

One of the main features of the camera in HTC One, in addition to the use of "ultrapixels" - HTC Zoe technology. This is a set of tools for taking and editing pictures. By turning on Zoe, you will receive frames a few seconds before and after the moment of shooting, so if the shot itself was not successful, you can choose from the images that have been stored in memory thanks to Zoe. Another interesting feature is image editing, in particular, if you take a series of frames, where, for example, there is a person who is present in each frame, then using a special tool you can completely remove the person from the frame. That is, the system glues different sections from different images.

There are other editing tools, in portraits or just pictures where faces are present, you can change the geometry of faces, make them a little plumper or a little longer, and so on. The most important thing is that these tools really work and you can use them to edit pictures on your smartphone. Yes, this will be a basic edit, but it's still possible and won't ruin your photos.

The camera interface is very similar to that for HTC Butterfly, all settings are available from a special pop-up menu, the more important ones are located on top, the secondary ones are below. The maximum image resolution is 2688x1520 pixels for widescreen mode.

The following settings are available:

Plot

Usual
Portrait
Scenery
Backlight
Text
Macro

Modes

Usual
Expanded panorama

By the way, the expanded panoramas HTC One does very well, in my opinion. Look at this example of such a snapshot:

It also adjusts the ISO value (Auto, 100-1600), white balance, exposure, contrast, saturation, and image sharpness. There is burst shooting with a very high rate of fire, up to 20 frames can be taken at a time.

Just in case, I remind you that you can see our comparison of the cameras of HTC One, Samsung Galaxy S4 and Apple iPhone 5.

And now I give the floor to Roman Belykh.

Camera Comparison (Roman Belykh)

Before we briefly describe the quality characteristics of the HTC One camera and video camera, it is necessary to note an important thing: HTC says that the smartphone software will still be updated (before or after the start of sales is unknown), so we will prepare material on the One camera now and we will try to update it as soon as the update is released.

UltraPixel Technology

Naturally, this technology has a minus, and a significant one. The fact is that the sensor was so physically large that the Nokia 808 smartphone had a camera module on the back side: the thickness at the thickest point was as much as 14 mm. Yes, and it affected the weight (169 grams).

The next experimenters in the field of mobile “save moments” were “HTC-ishniks”. A few days before the Mobile World Congress (MWC 2013), traditionally held in Barcelona, the Taiwanese smartphone manufacturer introduced the HTC One. He became the first device to receive a new technology with the loud name UltraPixel. At the presentation, they tried to convince us that “happiness is not in the number of megapixels”, so the pictures from the One camera are only 4 MP, but what! In part, the developers are right: the user does not always need a huge resolution of frames, especially if the pictures were taken thanks to cell phones, and even, often, of mediocre quality.

The main feature of the technology is the large pixel size on the matrix: it is 2 micrometers. For comparison, the average pixel size of a 13 MP camera is 1.1 micrometers.

Thus, each pixel of the matrix captures 300 times more light. In theory, using UltraPixel technology coupled with fast optics (F / 2.0) and with a special second-generation ImageChip processor, HTC One should produce excellent pictures in low light conditions.

In addition, do not forget that the new camera has a multi-coordinate optical stabilizer (slightly different from the stabilization in Nokia Lumia 920). The other features of the One camera are the sensor size (1/3") and wide-angle optics (28mm).

Photo quality

Good level of lighting

Positives: correct white balance detection and high sharpness. Negative: despite the excellent level of illumination, specific color noises are still noticeable (more like artifacts of their suppression), a rather narrow dynamic range, often excessive contrast.

Separately, it is worth mentioning that before photographing, it is necessary to wipe the camera eye, since the surface of the protective glass of the lens is quickly covered with fingerprints, and the frames around the edges are a little blurry.

Digital zoom operation:

Insufficient lighting level

Shooting shots in such lighting conditions is the HTC One's strong point. It does an excellent job of reducing noise thanks to UltraPixel technology, slow shutter speeds, image stabilization and a cool fast lens (F / 2.0). Focusing is fast and accurate, color reproduction is natural, white balance is almost always correct.

If we talk about operating modes, it is worth noting the "night mode". In it, the frames come out a little lighter, with the correct BB and even sharper.

Normal and night modes

Usual	Night

Portrait and macro photography

Shooting portraits and small subjects is always interesting. This device produces just excellent results: nice bokeh, fast focus, good sharpness.

HTC cameras have recently begun to have a "cool" HDR (High Dynamic Range) shooting mode: shadows are brightened, and bright areas are darkened. No other device can boast of such results. It’s hard to describe in words, so it’s better to take the shots yourself once and appreciate the beauty of the HDR mode.

Usual	HDR

Comparison of pictures taken on HTC Butterfly and HTC One

Judging by the received photos, HTC Butterfly copes well with automatic selection of white balance, which cannot be said about Van. The detailing is about the same, with the only difference that the Butterfly has a higher resolution, so, sadly for One, some small details are better distinguishable on Butterfly. If I were HTC, I would not be smart: I would use a camera from Butterfly and “cheat” with image processing algorithms.

Night shots of HTC Butterfly (Auto mode) and HTC One (Auto/Night mode):

Home lighting photo of HTC Butterfly and HTC One:

Macro HTC Butterfly and HTC One:

HTC Butterfly and HTC One text:

Comparison of pictures taken on Nokia 920 and HTC One

The first thing to note is the different viewing angles: Nokia has 26mm, while HTC has 28mm. "Nokiev" optics is slightly less high quality, so the edges are easily noticeable weak blurring of details. The second is saturation: Nokia “embellishes” the image a bit, HTC, on the contrary, tries to adjust the camera settings to more natural shades, but somehow it doesn’t work out very well: the image lacks color, which is why it looks a little dull.

As for the detail, it was about the same if HTC had an 8 MP camera. In this case, the images from the Nokia Lumia 920 come out a little more detailed: if you zoom in to 100%, you can see the smallest details.

In general, the shots taken on HTC look like an 8 MP or 13 PM shot has been resized to 4 MP and contour sharpened.

Night shots on Nokia Lumia 920 and HTC One

The white balance is cheated by one device, then another, but a little more often HTC. A Nokia smartphone in night mode increases the shutter speed regardless of the level of lighting, so often the frames come out overexposed.

Sharpness is marginally better on HTC shots as it doesn't try to turn night into day by slowing down the shutter speed. Therefore, pictures on the Lumia 920 are often blurred by hand shake.

Video quality

Traditionally, flagship smartphones shoot video at a resolution of 1920x1080 pixels at 30 frames per second (maximum 20 Mbps). There is an additional HD mode at 60 PFS (maximum 12 Mbps). Below specifications:

Format: MP4
Video Bitrate: AVC, 20.0 Mbps
Resolution: 1920 x 1080 (1.778), 30 fps
Audio Bitrate: AAC, 192 Kbps
Channels: 2 channels, 48.0 kHz

The most interesting thing is that the image stabilizer works in video mode as well. The picture is quite smooth. But we must not forget that it was difficult to make a stabilization mechanism in a miniature case, so the video quality is not ideal: the image is slightly blurred at the edges during strong camera shaking.

The sound is recorded very clearly, but its volume is low. The stereo base is extended, i.e. You can clearly hear which side the sound is coming from.

Comparison of video recorded on Nokia Lumia 920 and HTC One

The image looks much sharper on Nokia, the focus is not as much "floating" as on HTC. However, the choice of automatic exposure is depressing: the picture looks much darker than on HTC.

The stabilizer, let's say, works more pleasantly on the Lumia 920, since the One, as I said earlier, slightly lathers the picture on the sides.

The sound is definitely better on the HTC One: it's louder, you can hear the stereo perfectly (the sound is mono on the Nokia 920), the automatic recording level control works well, i. harsh sounds are muffled.

It is worth noting that the firmware on HTC One is not final, but the latest. So, there is hope that the developers will still do everything possible to improve the final result as much as possible.

Sound

Beat Audio. In addition to the traditional Beats Audio logo on the back of the smartphone, the company offers users a few more improvements on the HTC One. But I'll start with Beats. On the first HTC smartphones, where the so-called “improvers” from Beats Audio were responsible for the sound, the situation was as follows. When you plugged in your headphones and listened to music with Beats turned off, the sound was normal. As on previous smartphones of the company. That is, it was a good sound and, for example, I used to listen to music with Beats turned off. The inclusion of this thing made the musical compositions more bassy or, I don’t know how to describe it better. In general, with the inclusion of Beats, low frequencies prevailed in the music and it was noticeable.

Gradually, the situation changed so that it was impossible to listen to music in a standard HTC player without Beats turned off - the sound was just strange and incomprehensible. The clearest example of this situation is just HTC One. When you listen to music with Beats turned on (and it is turned on by default), everything is fine. As soon as you turn it off, the sound becomes simply terrible, as if turning off Beats will activate the most clumsily tuned equalizer “preset”. I don't know how things really are, but even my poor hearing allows me to hear this difference. One gets the feeling that HTC simply left the normal playback mode and called it Beats, and then severely spoiled the player programmatically and made it so that when you turn off Beats, you hear some kind of mess in your ears. I would like to think that I am wrong, but I don’t know how else to explain that with the Beats turned off, the sound in the smartphone is so terrible. Again, this was not the case before.

By the way, with Beats turned on, the smartphone sounds great, to my simple village ear.

boom sound. Above and below the screen on the front side are two speakers of very high quality for a smartphone. Together they produce an even, deep and pleasant sound, as if you are listening not to a smartphone, but to some compact, but still separate and real speaker. There is a stereo effect and depth. The speakers sound especially great if you listen to instrumental music or tracks with pronounced vocals on your smartphone.

I want to note that in terms of volume, the HTC One's call speakers cannot be called excessively loud. Yes, they really have a volume margin, but not excessive, while the most important point is not the volume, but the quality of the sound produced by the speakers.

SenseVoice. Another sound-related feature implemented in HTC One is the SenseVoice noise reduction system and two microphones for voice recording. In practice, the work of these two technologies is clearly visible if you use your smartphone as a voice recorder. The device writes the voice very high quality and cleanly, without extraneous noise, even if they are present near the source of the voice. At the same time, the voice is clearly distinguishable on the voice recorder, even if the interlocutor was at a distance of 2-3 meters from the smartphone during the recording. This is if you listen to the recording on the smartphone itself, when listening to the PC, it seemed to me that the recording does not sound so loud, although, maybe I'm just so deaf.

Music player. The audio player in HTC is traditionally with good functionality and beautifully executed in terms of interface. Music can be presented in the form of a library with albums, artists and genres, or you can choose a simpler view - folders. Using the Gracenote service, the player uploads album art and artist photos for the library.

When the player is turned on, it is displayed in the notification bar with album art and control buttons.

If you select a lock screen with a player, you can not only flip through tracks and pause music without unlocking your smartphone, but also choose one of several albums to play.

Offline work

The smartphone uses a non-removable Li-Pol battery with a capacity of 2300 mAh. Compared to the HTC Butterfly, we see another step forward, the battery capacity has slightly increased, but there are no significant differences in real-time operation between these two smartphones.

If HTC Butterfly in video mode (playing a video in a circle as 720p) worked for me for 6 hours and 49 minutes, then HTC One - 8 hours. Yes, the difference is more than an hour, but in actual use there are almost no differences in operating time between HTC Butterfly and HTC One.

My sample HTC One averaged until 19-20 pm with the following load: 40-60 minutes of calls, 10-20 text messages, Gmail in push mail mode, 3-4 hours of music listening and about 1-2 hours of active using mobile Internet (photos on Instagram, reading the feed on Twitter, Facebook, browser). In a similar mode, HTC One X ran out of battery for me in the middle of the day, that is, around 16-17 hours, so the progress is huge, at least in my mode of using a smartphone.

The smartphone has a power saving mode, enabling which you can significantly save battery power. This mode lowers the brightness of the screen, turns off data transmission when the display goes blank, and turns off vibration.

platform, memory

The smartphone is built on the latest platform Qualcomm APQ8064T (Snapdragon 600) with a 1.7 GHz quad-core processor, graphics subsystem (GPU) - Adreno 320. HTC One has 2 GB of RAM and 32/64 GB of internal memory for storing user data. In Russia, only a model with 32 GB will be sold, of which approximately 25 GB is available for downloading data, the rest of the space is occupied by service files, the system and Sense. So we can talk about the 25 GB version of the smartphone, there is no slot for a memory card in HTC One.

If in the case of HTC One X and HTC Butterfly the lack of a slot for a memory card could still be perceived like this:

Then the lack of a slot in the next flagship, HTC One, I only have this reaction:

In my opinion, 25 GB for an android flagship is not enough. Now, many popular games on Google Play take up 1-3 GB of space on your smartphone after installation, the size of each photo taken with the HTC One camera is approximately 1.5 MB, and the size of a 1080p video about 5 minutes long is 1 gigabyte. And this is not taking into account the fact that many people download their favorite music to their smartphone and watch movies and series on it. Needless to say, a two-hour 1080p movie is rarely less than 5-10 GB in size?

Performance, tests

The overall speed of the HTC One is excellent: desktops are flipped instantly, there are no delays and lags when launching applications and switching between them. With a large number of running programs, the smartphone does not start to slow down or think. Below are the results of testing HTC One in various benchmarks.

To evaluate performance in games, I ran GTA: Vice City, Nova 3, Dead Trigger and a couple of other toys on HTC One. All games on the smartphone run smoothly, without slowdowns and freezes. When downloading games to your smartphone, you need to be prepared for the fact that some of them (I think there are still many) are not optimized for such a high resolution and the picture in them will simply be stretched by the system to full screen.

Now a little about video playback. I ran a few 1080p movies on the HTC One to see which clips it could handle. As a result, the picture is as follows - movies with a resolution of 1920x800 or 1920x1080 pixels, a bitrate of 10-12 Mbps and a weight of about 10-15 GB, the smartphone plays smoothly on the whole, there are some delays on very dynamic scenes, but in general, video in this quality can be watched comfortably. Accordingly, any video of lower quality (bitrate or resolution) is also played by the device without any problems. The standard video player on HTC One is very simple and you shouldn't use it if you're going to watch videos on your device. It does not support track selection or subtitles, it is better to install something like Dice Player or MX Player.

And one more point related to performance. If you play for a long time on a smartphone, 10 minutes or longer, the device heats up very much. At the same time, if you measure the temperature of the battery at the time of heavy load using the Stabilty Test program, then it will be about 47-48 degrees, this is not so much, an indicator comparable to Google Nexus 4 and other devices. For example, after 30 minutes of load using the Stability Test, the Google Nexus 4 battery heats up to 57 degrees, in Sony Xperia Z to 47 degrees, Meizu MX2 to 52 degrees, in Samsung Galaxy S3 to 42 degrees (heating data taken from video portal Mobiltelefon.ru).

However, in the hand, the smartphone feels very, very hot, I don’t even have anything to compare it with in this parameter. Holding the device in your hands becomes a little uncomfortable. I don’t know if this moment can be corrected or not and how, but so far the situation is exactly like this. The use of aluminum has an effect, when HTC One is heated, its entire cover is a heat sink (and not just the frame, as in Meizu MX2, for example).

Interfaces

The smartphone works in GSM (850/900/1800/1900), HSPA (850/900/1900/2100) and LTE (800/1800/2600) networks, the LTE network is also supported in the version of the smartphone for Russia. You can turn interfaces on and off through the settings or by adding one of several widgets to the home screen. Unfortunately, a convenient tab with interface switches was removed from Sense in the latest versions, and who did it only interfere with?

For synchronization with a PC and data transfer, the included microUSB cable is used. USB 2.0 interface. It takes about 55-60 seconds for a 1 GB file to be copied to HTC One's memory. In the connection settings, you can select the Internet modem mode (access to the Internet via a smartphone) or end-to-end Internet connection. There are no more Disk Drive, HTC Sync and other modes, when connected to a PC, the smartphone is defined as a portable device and you can work with its memory either through Explorer or any other file manager of the system, or using the HTC Sync program.

The microUSB connector in HTC One supports USB On-The-Go (USB OTG) – you can connect flash drives and other storage devices to your smartphone via an adapter, for example, a camera to transfer pictures from it to the device’s memory. The system in HTC One allows you to read and copy information from flash drives formatted in FAT / FAT32 / NTFS file systems (I did not check other file systems).

There is a funny point to note here. On the one hand, you can connect a USB flash drive to HTC One via an adapter, on the other hand, you cannot read data from it using standard means, because the smartphone does not have a file manager, you need to install it separately from Google Play. HTC is one of the last companies that still does not equip its smartphones with a conductor out of the box.

Bluetooth. Built-in Bluetooth 4.0 with A2DP support. Information about the bluetooth profiles supported by the smartphone could not be found.

Wi-Fi (802.11а/ac/b/g/n). HTC One uses a dual-band WI-FI module. You can leave it to work in automatic mode, or you can manually specify the operating frequency band for Wi-Fi - only 5 GHz or only 2.4 GHz.

The Wi-Fi module works flawlessly. In advanced settings, you can set the maximum performance mode, as well as enable or disable automatic connection to the last saved active network. During the operation of the module, the device does not heat up.

wifi router. HTC One has the ability to "share" 2G/3G/4G Internet connection via Wi-Fi. In the wireless interfaces menu, select the option “Mobile Internet Sharing” and then “Wi-Fi router”. Here, at the first start, you need to select the network name, password, and connection type (WEP, WPA, WPA2). Also here you can set the maximum number of connections to the smartphone (1-8) or separately prohibit or allow each new connection. When the utility is enabled, you can connect to the Internet, “distributed via Wi-Fi by a smartphone, from any device, be it a laptop, another smartphone or tablet, and so on.

DLNA, HDMI. The smartphone supports DLNA technology, so if you have a DLNA-compatible media server and other devices at home, you can use Butterfly with them. For example, output sound or video from the device directly to the TV. The HTC One device also has HDMI support, the connector is combined with microUSB (MHL), so in order to use HDMI, you will first need to buy a special cable.

NFC. As in the two previous models, HTC One supports NFC, but so far there are not so many scenarios for using this module, and HTC does not equip its devices with special NFC tags. But with the help of this interface, you can check on your smartphone the number of remaining trips in the metro pass!

Navigation

HTC One has GPS/Glonass support, it takes a minimum amount of time to search for satellites, from 5 to 15 seconds. The device comes pre-installed with Google Maps and Google Navigation. Google Navigation is used as the main program for navigation, the application with maps based on Route 66 data was abandoned. This, on the one hand, is for the better - Google navigation is now developing very actively, besides it is free; on the other hand, now you can’t use offline navigation, because Google Navigation requires a constant Internet connection to work. Therefore, if you decide to go somewhere and use HTC One as a navigator, it is better to take care of searching for navigation software in advance.

For convenient work with a smartphone when it is in a car in a mount, there is a special mode “In the car”. When you turn it on, you see large icons on the desktop, there are also special enlarged versions of the main applications: address book, music, settings, dialing. If desired, shortcuts to other programs can be added to this menu. In this mode, you can use a special assistant, a utility that performs voice commands like "Call + contact name", "Play + track name" and some others. It is worth paying attention to this program if you are going to use HTC One while driving, it really works and recognizes commands well if you pronounce them more or less loudly and clearly.

Text and voice input

The HTC One uses HTC's traditional on-screen QWERTY keyboard. And it still remains one of the best keyboards available for Android, in my opinion. And it also has one important drawback that has persisted for many centuries ... The fact is that when you enter text in Latin, you see on the keyboard the markup not only of the letters themselves, but also of additional characters. And to add a dog symbol, a pound sign, a percent sign or something else to the text while typing, you do not need to go to a special menu, just hold one of the letter buttons for a couple of seconds.

In this case, it is worth switching to Cyrillic, as the layout of additional keys disappears from the keyboard.

If we compare the sizes of the keys in both layouts, it turns out that the buttons in the English keyboard are slightly larger, but it seems to the eye that the markup of additional characters can fit on the buttons in the Russian layout. Judge for yourself:

Each time you press the on-screen button on the keyboard, the device vibrates slightly, which simplifies input, makes it more realistic, and helps you get used to the on-screen keyboard. Switching the language is done by pressing one key, quickly and easily. By holding down the key on the other side of the spacebar, you can call up the voice dialing of messages. Voice typing on Android works really well if you speak clearly, coherently and with pauses between words - it will be typed with almost no errors. The only disadvantage of the voice dialing system is the inability to put punctuation marks.

In order to move the cursor inside the text, you just need to touch any letter, after which a small “toffee” appears to move inside the text. There are also four directional keys at the bottom of the keyboard for moving within text. If you double-tap a single word in the text, it is highlighted, then you can select other pieces of text to copy or cut them.

In the keyboard settings there is an option "Entering with a stroke" (Trace keyboard). If you turn it on, you can enter words with one movement of your finger, without looking up to enter the next letter, this is an analogue of the Swype keyboard. In the settings, you can change the color of the line for the Trace keyboard.

The keyboard has a personal dictionary, where the device saves new words that you often use. The dictionary can be edited and synchronized with the backup on the memory card.

HTC BlinkFeed

The new flagship HTC One is the company's first device with BlinkFeed preinstalled. HTC is betting heavily on this service, judging by how much it's been talked about, and besides that, the default BlinkFeed screen is the main one in the system.

HTC BlinkFeed is a kind of news aggregator from various sources: websites and social networks. Why peculiar? The fact is that the news that is shown in BlinkFeed first passes through the HTC server, is compressed, reformatted, and only then gets on the smartphone screen. This was done to reduce traffic costs by the service, as well as to increase the speed of its work. News is displayed on the main screen in a tile format, almost like on Windows Phone. The tile can be larger or smaller, depending on the picture available for the news. The news feed as a whole looks nice and neat, subject to the selection of good sources. But, if in words the possibilities of HTC BlinkFeed seem interesting, then in practice this service is still of little use if you are going to read news with it. I'll try to justify my opinion.

First, HTC BlinkFeed now has some obvious shortcomings that will probably be fixed, but greatly spoil the first impression of it. When the screen with BlinkFeed is set as the main screen in the system, you can return to the latest news on it by touching the "House" key, which is convenient. But if you make the main screen any other, and shift the screen with BlinkFeed, then the house key will return you to the main screen, and not to the latest news in the feed. In practice, this means this: if you missed a day or even a couple of hours of viewing BlinkFeed, then in order to return to the latest news in the service, you will have to scroll through the entire feed with your finger for this period of time (per day, for example). It can be hundreds of news and a minute or even more time when you just mechanically scroll through the news with your finger, from bottom to top from bottom to top, from bottom to top ...

Secondly, and this is the strangest shortcoming of the service, in my opinion, you cannot add your own news sources to HTC BlinkFeed. The company says that the service uses complex compression algorithms and in the future HTC itself will try to add the most popular resources to the feed so that they can be selected, but the possibility of adding their own sources is not even considered yet. And this is in the flagship of 2013 on Android 4.1, on a system for which there are a dozen good RSS aggregators, and people all over the world read a variety of sites, so you definitely can’t please everyone. In my opinion, the inability to add your sites to BlinkFeed makes the service not interesting for so many people.

Thirdly, in BlinkFeed you cannot even choose to display sites in several languages. That is, even if you are approached by sites about technology that BlinkFeed offers in Russian (nomobile, vesti, russia today), but you also want to read news from Engadget, The Verge, and so on, you will not be able to add them to the feed. Either sites in Russian from the Russian-speaking segment, or in English or some other. We can only congratulate the developers who were involved in the creation of HTC BlinkFeed, they invented the news ghetto 2013 for Android smartphones, not otherwise.

Fourthly, even optimization and passage of news through “special HTC servers” before being shown on the screen does not save them from the presence of low-quality pictures. It's hard to blame HTC for this, because on a screen with a resolution of 1920x1080 pixels, most images will seem to be of poor quality, but they clearly had to foresee this. In the meantime, many news in HTC BlinkFeed are displayed with a mess of pixels instead of a clear image, simply because the news is published on the source site not with a 1000x1000 or higher image, but with an image something like 500x300, for example.

Fifth, and this is the strangest thing, in my opinion, HTC BlinkFeed cannot be completely removed. Yes, you can uncheck all resources so that the service does not consume traffic, but even in this case, you will still have one screen occupied by BlinkFeed and there is no getting around it. For most, this is probably a trifle, but there are users who love minimalism and try to place all applications on one or two screens, and I don’t think they will like it.

HTC Sense 5

The smartphone runs on Android 4.1.2, HTC promises to release an update to 4.2 soon, but the very fact that the OS is not the latest version is a little upsetting. Traditionally for HTC - the Sense shell is used, here it is HTC Sense 5 - the latest version of the company's proprietary interface.

I'll start with a brief description of the external changes in the interface. I, like many other HTC fans, at one time did not like the transition from the traditional Sense design, which we observed literally in the first version through the third, to something more “fresh” and airy in HTC Sense 4. Now the situation is reversed - I personally really I like Sense 5 precisely in terms of designs and graphics, with the exception of the font.

In HTC Sense 5, the base color scheme is dark gray with black elements, the standard combined clock and weather widget with sketchy weather icons looks very cool, for my taste, it is well read without being dazzling. Additional clock widgets, too, as a selection, beautiful and concise, there are plenty to choose from.

Separately, I want to note simply gorgeous desktop pictures from the standard set of HTC background pictures. For my taste, one image here is better than the other, for me personally, this is the first smartphone where I have been using only standard background images for a month now.

In HTC Sense 5, as in previous versions of the shell, you can choose one of several options for the lock screen: with clock and weather, with a music control panel, with photo albums, with recent events panels, or you can simply remove the lock screen. The disadvantage is that you cannot change the set of standard shortcuts on the lock screen, that is, as the labels "Phone", "Messages", "Browser" and "Camera" were down there, they will remain the same.

By the way, to change the shortcuts in the fixed bottom panel in Sense 5, you need to go to the program menu and drag icons into this panel from here, you can also remove icons from the panel only while in the "application menu" window. If you try to remove the shortcut from the fixed panel while on one of the shell screens, nothing will work - the shortcut will simply be duplicated on the desktop. Why the simple ability to change the set of shortcuts in this panel is made so non-obvious - I don’t know.

The program menu has been changed, if in previous versions of Sense it was a classic window with a fixed matrix of icons, then in Sense 5 you can choose the grid size: 3 x 4 or 4 x 5. Also in this window there is a clock and weather widget on top, remove it it is forbidden. In the program menu, you can sort them alphabetically or by recently added. And also easy to place in a convenient order for you. Another innovation in the application menu is that now you can create folders here.

In my opinion, if earlier the menu was just a “warehouse” for all shortcuts, now it is a full-fledged analogue of the desktop, only if a fixed number of elements fit on the desktop, you can place them as many as you like and move between them by scrolling up and down.

Standard Applications

Now let's briefly go through the standard programs preinstalled in HTC One. I will try not to describe each application completely, but only tell you about the interesting, in my opinion, the possibilities of a particular program.

The address book. The changes are mostly cosmetic - the look of the tabs has changed, the list of contacts has become more strict and accurate. In the contact card, half of the screen is still occupied by a photo of a person. With an incoming or outgoing call, the photo is also located about half the screen.

By the way - HTC came up with a very elegant solution to the problem of low-resolution contact photos. If you have contacts with such “photos” in your address book, then when you open the contact card or start calling him (or he calls you) - you see the photo also on half the screen, but with a special effect, as if you are looking at it through the bars (I don't know how to explain it better, see the screenshots).

Latest running applications. Double-tapping on the Home button launches the utility with the latest open programs, they are arranged in the form of mini-pictures in a 3 x 3 grid. Any application from here can be swiped up with a gesture up from the corresponding thumbnail.

Time, weather. These applications have hardly changed, except that their appearance has changed slightly, and more schematic icons have appeared in the weather program instead of the previous ones.

TV. Separately, we need to talk about the TV program. It combines several functions. The first is the schedule of TV programs for the selected operator in the selected country. That is, you specify a home TV provider and can watch the schedule of all programs and movies in the program. The second is a remote control for a TV, set-top box or video player. The type of equipment is selected, its manufacturer, model, and then you can manage this equipment using HTC One. The infrared port is built into the power key.

HTC promises to soon add Russian TV providers here, but so far there are none. I would like to believe that these promises will come true, but still we need to keep in mind the fact that we have been promised support for HTC Watch for several years.

Children's mode. HTC One has a so-called children's mode, enabling which you will limit the capabilities of the smartphone, reducing them to a certain minimum - you can run selected programs and perform some other actions. The operation of this mode is implemented simply - the Zoodles service is installed on HTC, which is the very "children's mode". Having turned it on, you first need to set up the rules and add allowed programs, as well as accounts (for several "children", for example).

Then it remains just to turn on the service every time you give the smartphone to your child for joy. In Zoodles, he will be able to run authorized programs, as well as draw, listen to audiobooks with pictures (information is downloaded from the network) and, of course, play games.

Flashlight and voice recorder. Two traditional programs in HTC - they are also here and work great. With the help of a voice recorder, you can write conversations, but at the same time you will only hear yourself well on the recording, but the interlocutor will be barely audible (the voice recorder does not write from the line).

Service htcsense.com

Along with the release of HTC One, the company is re-launching the Sense web service. Or rather, it restarts, because not so long ago Sense already existed, but then it was closed. The new Sense service should be prettier, better, and more useful, although I personally don't understand why HTC is launching it again. The main idea of the service is the ability to quickly remotely configure the device through the site.

In addition, HTC Backup can also be called part of the service - it can be used to save smartphone settings, account data, installed programs, bookmarks and a dictionary for the keyboard. An important point - HTC Backup stores data from a smartphone in Dropbox, and not on its servers, so using HTC backup you will depend not only on HTC, but also on the stable operation of Dropbox. The second important point is that by enabling HTC Backup, you automatically disable the data backup that was originally installed in Android and tied to your Google account. That is, you need to make a choice right away.

The third point - now the official website htcsense.com in Russian looks something like this:

I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t use a service that they couldn’t even translate normally (completely, not in pieces, and choosing the right fonts) into Russian before launch.

Conclusion

For almost a month of using the smartphone, I had no complaints about the quality of signal reception in HTC One. The device catches the network well, and the sound in the conversational dynamics is clear, without wheezing and extraneous noise. In addition, there is a good volume margin and you can talk on the phone even while in the subway. The vibrating alert in HTC One is powerful, it feels good even when walking when the smartphone is in your pants pocket. The loudspeaker volume is above average. I can’t say that it directly “yells”, but against the background of the volume of previous HTC smartphones, the difference is clearly noticeable with a plus sign.

The smartphone should go on sale in early April, the pre-order price will be 28,000 rubles (27,990), and in retail for the first time the device will cost 30,000 rubles (29,990). The start of sales has already been postponed several times, and this, of course, slightly overshadows the impression of the launch of HTC One, because initially the smartphone should have started selling food, or not along with the announcement of the Samsung Galaxy S 4.

Comparing HTC One with the company's previous flagship, HTC Butterfly, doesn't make much sense, I think. Especially if we are talking about versions of smartphones for Russia, because HTC Butterfly came to us completely castrated - without a slot for a memory card (only 16 GB), and even with a glossy cover. This smartphone can now be called an intermediate link between HTC One X and HTC One.

Let's take a look at the strengths and weaknesses of the HTC One.

pros:

Excellent display in all respects (brightness, viewing angles, color reproduction, contrast)
Moderately large dimensions (smartphone is comparable to HTC One X and more compact than HTC Butterfly)
Excellent design and use of aluminum (all-metal body and glass - what could be better?)
High speed in various modes (when working with the menu, in games, when watching videos)
High-quality stereo sound in call speakers
Good sound in headphones
Great video camera
Good battery life (compared to previous HTC smartphones)
The beautiful shell of HTC Sense 5 (if you close your eyes to the strangely elongated fonts)

Minuses:

Large size (modern flagships don't seem to get away from the "shovel" form factor)
Only 32 GB of internal memory without the possibility of increasing this amount (about 25 GB is available to the user)
Lack of a touch menu key (mono would be forgiven if HTC simply removed the touch button block, otherwise not)
Controversial 4 megapixel camera (yes, progress is visible and HTC's desire to untie users from the race for megapixels is commendable, but the first pancake turned out to be a small lump and the quality of the pictures is not particularly better than the average for the smartphone market, and in some situations worse)
Inconvenient power and volume keys (a trifle, but unpleasant)
Non-removable battery (when traveling you will have to take an external battery with a cable instead of a pair of compact standard batteries)
HTC BlinkFeed

As usual, HTC turned out to be an interesting smartphone in general and, as usual, it is a set of compromise solutions in many areas. If a non-removable battery or a 4 megapixel camera can be easily explained logically - in the first case, we are dealing with a non-separable case, in the second - with the company's desire to stand out and offer something new to the market, then the lack of a card slot surprises again. How surprising is the decision to abandon the menu button and stick the “htc” logo instead. Yes, this is a trifle, but it is the trifles in total that give us an idea of this or that device, and opinions about products are formed from such trifles: “HTC One doesn’t have a memory card, but Samsung Galaxy S4 does.” Isn't that an argument?

Probably the most important question before buying an HTC One is am I willing to put up with its flaws for its benefits? And the new HTC flagship has a lot of positive qualities, although the main thing, in my opinion, is the excellent design and case materials. When you take this smartphone in your hand, you feel the real thing, a device with a capital Y, which is simply pleasant to use and which is pleasant to hold in your hands. With each passing year, this is becoming increasingly rare for smartphones, the world has already been filled with plastic products of all sizes and textures, so the value of a solid aluminum case and a feeling of real quality can hardly be overestimated. And HTC One gives just such a feeling. Otherwise, this is a good, well-knit flagship with its own positive qualities and disadvantages.

I don’t know about you, but I have already chosen a smartphone for myself for the next six months - it will be HTC One.

Characteristics:

Class: flagship of the company
Form factor: monoblock
Housing materials: aluminum unibody housing
Operating system: Android 4.1.2, proprietary interface HTC Sense 5
Network: GSM/EDGE, WCDMA, LTE
Platform: Qualcomm Snapdragon 600
Processor: Quad-core 1.7 GHz, GPU - Adreno 320
RAM: 2 GB
Memory for data storage: ~25 GB (32 GB declared) without the possibility of expansion, there is also a 64 GB version, but they do not plan to sell it in Russia
Interfaces: Wi-Fi (a/ac/b/g/n), Bluetooth 4.0 (A2DP, aptX), microUSB connector (USB 2.0) for charge/sync, 3.5mm headset, HDMI (via microUSB), DLNA, NFC
Screen: capacitive, Super LCD3, 4.7” with a resolution of 1920x1080 pixels (FulldHD), 468 ppi, automatic backlight level control
Camera: 4 MP (maximum image resolution 2688 x 1520), using "ultra-pixels" 2 micrometers in size, autofocus, BSI, f/2.0, optical multi-axis stabilization, video is recorded in 1080p (1920x1080 pixels), LED flash (works like a flashlight)
Front camera: 2.1 MP, f/2.0, wide-angle (88 degrees), video recording in 1080p
Navigation: GPS/Glonass (A-GPS support)
Optional: accelerometer, light sensor, proximity sensor, FM radio
Battery: non-removable, Li-Pol, 2300 mAh
Dimensions: 137.4 x 68.2 x 9.3mm/4mm (max/min)
Weight: 143 grams with battery

Roman Belykh took part in the preparation of the material, for which many thanks to him!

Over time, battery life is in order, although the same Samsung Galaxy S7 turned out to be more tenacious. With fairly active use with adaptive backlight brightness, the owner of the HTC 10 can count on a full day of work - from early morning to late evening. But in addition to this, I note exceptionally fast charging with a proprietary adapter. The smartphone is fully charged in less than two hours. And a half-hour session next to an outlet will give you about half a day of battery life. But in all this you can see a small minus. The USB-C connector used on the HTC 10 is not so common yet, and if you forget to bring a cable with you, it will not be so easy to borrow it from friends or colleagues. But this is a temporary phenomenon - literally in a year or two there will be plenty of smartphones with USB-C, and you can find the appropriate cable at every turn.

Competitors

Samsung Galaxy S7/S7 Edge

The most obvious alternative to the HTC 10 is, of course, the Samsung Galaxy S7. It costs exactly the same money. If we talk about design, then I would prefer HTC. The all-metal body looks somehow more solid than the easily soiled gloss of the S7. But it also has its own flair. The performance is almost the same, and in terms of autonomy, HTC is slightly inferior. But if we compare smartphones for each individual parameter, then the latest Galaxy will be in the lead - it has a better screen and a built-in camera.

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