HTC Inspire Stock
...and the Inspire rooted and installed with Cyanogenmod.
For awhile, I enjoyed my iPhone. It did what I wanted it to do, the task manager really helped the efficiency and battery life (as opposed to Android 2.2/2.3), and I already had an ecosystem that fit the iPhone well. There were some things that I missed from the Android realm, so I tried to accommodate myself by jailbreaking my device. While that fulfilled my software end of my Android envy, companies such as Samsung, HTC, and Google were starting to release excellent devices. These devices, along with the very excellent Android 4.1+ Jelly Bean made a very awesome combo, and my envy was starting to consume me. Backtrack to late March/early April when HTC revealed their new flagship (today's subject) and Samsung revealing and releasing the S4. These two devices propelled to much success (obviously), so it left me some choices. Knowing that Apple isn't releasing a wide-body, big screen phone this year (for reasons I can't begin to fathom), as well as the upcoming but lackluster iOS 7, my next device was clearly going to be an Android device.
I thought about what I really used my device for on a daily basis, and started weighing all the options. Would I need more than the provided storage available? Would I need an extra battery? How is it going to hold up in the long run? I almost gave in and got the S4 Active, which is a water and dust resistant variant of the vanilla S4, but I realized that I don't find myself derping into a body of water; not often enough to justify buying it. Eventually, I came to the conclusion that the One was THE ONE! So what did it for me? I like to blare music or share videos. What do you need to do either of these activities? Speakers... and the HTC One has two front facing speakers (as opposed to the S4's single rear facing speaker). Not only were they front facing, stereo speakers, they were Beats-powered speakers. Yeah, I may have not fell for it back when I had the Inspire (which was labeled with the Beats branding, but wasn't that great), but the Beats label on the One is not just another form of free-advertisement. There is a distinct difference between sound levels with it on and off. It's hardware-tied, so it handles the equalizer differences at the software and hardware levels. Filming it doesn't give the One justice. You just have to hear it for yourself.
Other factors: screen performance in direct sunlight; the HTC One performs superbly compared to testimony of AMOLED performance under direct sunlight conditions. Sense UI; which is much better than the previous version, but moreover, has less pointless gimmick features that are most likely battery hogs (like the S4 and its Touchwiz stuff). Overall construction and feel; The One is a very rigid, aluminum-cased design that fits naturally in my hand. The S4 (which I had the pleasure of playing with for a good 4 hours), doesn't feel as rigid, and it felt like I was going to drop it due to its straight-through design. The feel is ultimately minor since I would have got a case for it, but it is a factor, nevertheless.
So without further delay, I bring to you my review of the HTC One.
HARDWARE
Here are the Specs, at a glance:
CPU: Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 Quad-Core @ 1.7Ghz
GPU: Adreno 320
RAM: 2GB DDR2
Capacity: 32/64GB
Expansion: US/Euro model (I think) None. Japan/Asia model: MicroSD (up to 64GB)
Display: 4.7in SuperLCD 3 w/RGB Matrix @ 1080p, Full HD. 468ppi
Battery 2300 mAh LiPo
Connectivity: Bluetooth 4.0 w/aptX, Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac, DLNA, AGPS+GLONASS, NFC,
LTE band, HSPA+ band, you know what? Lets say there is a shit-ton more.
Camera: HTC UltraPixel Camera (but, essentially, 4 Megapixels), Front facing 2.1 Megapixel. Both capable of 1080p recording
Well, now that we got that out of the way, lets talk about performance.. when this phone released back in March/April, this phone and the S4 were the only devices equipped with these monster quad-core CPUs, and while this gives the device room to breath with heavy hitting apps, at the same time, I don't see too many (if not, any) apps coded to utilize more than two cores. At the most, there must be some games that utilize more than one core, and a rare title that would utilize all four (like how Dead Trigger utilized the Quad-core Tegra 3-equipped Nexus 7). Besides a rare app here and there, the cores are not being used, and thus a waste.
Now, why would I say that? Maybe I don't understand exactly how this device is using 4 cores, but I do know that for the week that I have used this phone, 99% of the time, it's been on Power-Saver mode. Power-Saver mode does everything it can to turn your device into a power-sipper. It reduces the screen brightness, turns off the vibration feedback, puts unused data connections to sleep, and it conserves CPU-usage. In other words, it shuts the other cores down. It may even be running on a single core, but lets play it safe and say that it goes into dual-core mode. The device is still wicked fast without using all 4 cores, and it'll be fine for those who would use this phone as the Daily-Driver, and mostly uses the phone for texting, surfing and social-media-ing (like the majority of would-be users). Lets just say that it's plenty fast, with a lot of space to get faster, if you want it to.
Speaking of Power-Saving, when I have the Power-Saver mode enabled (again, 99% of the time), this phone lasts well beyond a typical day. Keep in mind that throughout this week alone, I have a commute time 2 hours (1 hour to and 1 hour from). I was surfing the web, facebooking, checking the feed board for news, watching YouTube and listening to Rhapsody (which streams content). Then, while I'm at work, aside from the occasional re-checking of the web, I also blasted my super awesome speakers with Beats enabled (which I'll talk about in a bit). By the time I got home, it was anywhere between 5:30 to 9:30, and my battery life was only halfway drained. Maybe I'm not that much of a heavy user, compared to some, but it sure seems like a lot. In fact, I have to use it more with Power-Saver off just so I can drain the battery before I start my nightly charge. Again, something else that runs well (for now), but has room to breathe. Maybe i'll comment on battery life a year from now..
So aside from the fact that this device is HTC's flagship, one of the most noticeable features is the dual-Stereo front-facing speakers, which are unmatched by well, all other cell devices. They call the speakers BoomSound and they're equipped with Beats Audio driver onboard. Now, the Beats is not there for looks or free-advertising. It makes a big difference to the listening experience of this device. At the same time, the "Beats" label and reputation of such has been the subject of this phones selling point. Unfortunately, there is a lot of misinformation about what exactly Beats is in this capacity. In a nutshell, all Beats is on the One (or any other cell phone device or Hp laptop) is a equalizer setting. It sets its profile to deliver a boost for the lows and highs. In the case of the One, we have two settings: On and Off. Turn off Beats and you get the standard sound as if you have everything set on a equalizer to flat 0. In a nutshell, whether you prefer the option to be on or not, the speakers are louder than any other handset I have seen in the market. I swear, at times, I think the speakers are louder than my Macbook Pro Retina 15." I used to leave my volume all the way up on my iPhone and other previous devices (Inspire and Captivate)... I have to turn the volume down on the One to about halfway because it wakes me up with extreme prejudice! This has become the standard; the boombox that Radio Raheem would be carrying if Do The Right Thing was set in 2013. The device for all obnoxious hikers to use to ruin it for all the other hikers (inside joke).
SOFTWARE
Now before I begin, maybe some are wondering "wait, what about the cameras?"Well, the camera's deserve a dedicated section, due to the fact that while its ultimately hardware, these cameras rely heavily on the provided software and the performance of the camera adversely changes by varying software-related options.
So as of now, the One with stock software is equipped with Android 4.1.2 Jelly bean. As of a couple weeks ago, we're officially on 4.3. It's also worth noting that all the other devices in the same class are shipping with Android 4.2.2, which does have significant changes other than the "2." Like other devices, manufactures also build their own software and integrate them into their build of Android. In HTC's case, we have Sense 5. For the record, I never really liked the Sense UI. It was pretty bloated and poorly optimized. Of course, this was when I had the Inspire and Sense was only at 3.0. Top the fact that Android 2.3 couldn't properly do multitasking, and apps weren't under the data-mining regs that Google put out when they unified everything in the Play Store, Sense was a disaster, IMO.
Fast forward to today, and we have a version of Android that has eliminated just about every multi-tasking/background running issue that plagued 2.3 and below. So where does this leave Sense? It uses a minimalistic design which doesn't seem to pull resources heavily like the last encounter I had back in 2010/2011. Aside from the better optimization, Sense 5 introduces a news aggregator called BlinkFeed which is essentially a board that posts whatever news or social media-related content you desire. It well... works, and it has been well received by users. You can build up to 3 home pages in addition to BlinkFeed and comes with a suite of widgets. The lockscreen is also pretty nice and simplistic with the option to either unlock the phone in general, or unlock into an app on your dock.
While I do like this new version of Sense, it's still not my ideal launcher to use. I seen better (and I'll talk about that in a bit), but I do know that based on playing with this and Samsung's Touchwiz UI, I have to pick Sense 5. Its minimal, optimal, and not stuffed with "wow gimmick" features that are impractical (for instance, that eye-scrolling/tilt feature.. smh) and ultimately bogged down the phone (although, I heard recent updates to the S4 has seen a significant performance boost.. that's good).
My preferred launcher is Nova Launcher. Its free but you can also drop $4 for the "Prime" version and get a lot more power-user features. I am currently running the free version, and its already feature-packed. It builds on the simplistic but optimal UI of Stock Android and it's just a lovely, fluid experience. Even if you own an Android device that's not a One, I highly recommend that you have this installed and set as your default launcher (even if you're running Stock Android). Another great thing is that it runs back-to-back with Sense and they integrate really well with each other. This is how I know that Sense is better optimized because both launchers are running, and yet I get the battery life that I described earlier. I have to imagine what the battery life would be if I wasn't using Nova or if I just had Stock Android installed.
Other notes and criticisms: The Google software suite is pre-installed (G+, Maps, Hangouts, YouTube, etc), as well as AT&T's software suite. The multi-tasking page is easily accessible by double tapping the home button, and for all you Google Now users, long pressing the home button will bring up the app. The biggest criticisms I have is the waste of space the One has on its screen. The entire screen is a touch-capacitive screen, but for some reason, they decided to only make use of two buttons. The HTC logo is completely capable of being the home button and the multi-tasking can be where the home button is currently located. In this case, I think the minimalist design is a bit too much. Another issue is well... the usual beef I have with buying a phone from a carrier: the bloatware. The AT&T software suite always has at least one app running in the background constantly. In particular, AT&T Locker services... which I NEVER use because Google Drive is much better to begin with. Regardless of whether you would use it or not, it runs in the background. There is no way to disable this and you can't uninstall the software. Unless you find a way to do so without rooting the device, let me know!
PERFORMANCE
I don't have much to say, other than what I already said earlier. Usually other reviewers look at the Performance section of a phone review and they think of benchmarks and performance during gameplay. I barely play games. The last game I have played was Candy Crush Saga and I now refuse to install it on my One (or else I'm gonna kiss my day goodbye. lol). While there are much more graphic-intensive titles out on the Play Store, I don't see myself installing or playing them. The only real performance test that I done was with Minecraft PE, and it runs damn smooth with all the fancy settings on.
As far as day-to-day performance is concerned (to include antenna-related performance), the One is excellent. I have no slowdown surfing the net and other typical activities that the average user would do on a daily basis. Antenna strength is actually better than when the phone was released, due to the recent update that enabled all antenna bands to be utilized (don't ask why this wasn't the case, in the first place). I mostly have LTE connection with a Speedtest result ranging anywhere between 11MB/s to as high as 25MB/s down and 5 to 15MB/s up. I never seen the phone drop below HSPA+. An issue with the antennas is that since the phone is built on an aluminum frame with two plastic bands stretching across, antenna strength may also depend on your grip. The advantage of the S4's plastic design choice is that antenna strength is immense. It doesn't take away from performance, but it's something to be aware of. One major antenna issue is the GPS. If you're in a wide open area, the GPS is fine. As soon as you're in a building or a shopping mall, the GPS goes on the fritz. It'll never be exact but in the One's case, as soon as you're in a area where GPS signals are weak, the correction radius can be as far as 50 meters. A good note is that it seems that the GPS is running independently and when there is a good signal, it works well and is battery efficient (I ran GPS for 7 hours hiking for 7 miles, from an elevation starting from 300 feet to 2700+ ft... worked like a champ).
CAMERA
Again, the One's rear camera is a 4 "ultrapixel" camera. Essentially, its just a 4mp camera, but the tech (I believe) is that the sensor, compared to devices w/ 8, 12, 13mp sensors, is much bigger and filled with more colors. The results are... nice. The camera still takes some great shots, and they take excellent low light shots. The camera also utilizes the onboard enhancing software to make the pictures come out better, as well as Instagram-like filters and features that I honestly never use (like Zoe). Still, compare a day shot with a day shot from a 13mp S4 camera, and you can notice a big difference. The S4 camera is much more sharper throughout while the Ultrapixel camera washes out as you zoom in. Overall, though, the camera is sufficient for the average user.
Video is also something that is sufficient, but underperforms when put up against the S4.
The front facing camera is a 2.1mp sensor that performs well in daylight shots, and Skyping, but underperforms in low light. The sensor is particularly wide, so you can fit all your friends for all those selfies you want to take.
Software wise, the cameras seem to be most effective with the provided stock software. I used to use Camera Zoom FX, which is an excellent camera app, but I find the performance of this app using these cameras underwhelming. Don't even bother taking pics with the Facebook apps camera feature, and the performance of the camera with Instagram is moderately good to okay. I just use the regular phone app to take the best possible pics and upload them independently. There are numerous preset modes for both the camera and video.
I have also seen the camera being used on Stock Android's camera app, and while the performance is sufficient, it's still a degraded experience. Hopefully, there will be an update to better utilize the cameras. (click the following pics for full resolutions)
FINAL WORDS
So I been using this phone for about 9 days, now. Usually when I get any new device, the wow effect wears off in only a couple days; that's a couple days of constant use and tinkering. With the One, that wow effect has not worn off. There is so much more to be had. I'm still debating whether to root and flash Stock Android, but it seems that I'll be sticking with what I currently have because everything runs so efficiently to begin with. We'll see how this device performs over the next two months, but as it stands, the One is THE flagship device to get. We know Apple ain't coming with something groundbreaking this year (hardware and software-wise), and unless Samsung's upcoming Note III knocks it out of the park, the HTC One stands out among me and many others (and more official/professional reviewers.) as the device to get, this year. If only people weren't so smitten by Samsung's advertising blitzkrieg (which is laughably similar to how Apple hooked customers into getting an iPhone, though hardcore Samboys will never admit that).. Anyone who either is eligible for an upgrade or is gonna use the new upgrade plans, I RECOMMEND this phone. Keep in mind, a mini version will be released very soon and a giant Note-like version will be released towards the end of the year, so if you want a form factor smaller or larger than what you're already seeing, hold yer horses for a bit! The HTC One is available on AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint. A Verizon version is also being released but as of now, the release has been delayed!
Here are the Specs, at a glance:
CPU: Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 Quad-Core @ 1.7Ghz
GPU: Adreno 320
RAM: 2GB DDR2
Capacity: 32/64GB
Expansion: US/Euro model (I think) None. Japan/Asia model: MicroSD (up to 64GB)
Display: 4.7in SuperLCD 3 w/RGB Matrix @ 1080p, Full HD. 468ppi
Battery 2300 mAh LiPo
Connectivity: Bluetooth 4.0 w/aptX, Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac, DLNA, AGPS+GLONASS, NFC,
LTE band, HSPA+ band, you know what? Lets say there is a shit-ton more.
Camera: HTC UltraPixel Camera (but, essentially, 4 Megapixels), Front facing 2.1 Megapixel. Both capable of 1080p recording
Top of the device, showing the IR blaster/power buttion, the headphone jack and the 2.1mp front cam
Bottom of the device with the MicroUSB input, and the touch button layout (HTC logo is NOT a button)
Right Side: with the textured Volume rocker.
Back side: with one of the antenna bands exposed, and the 4 Ultra-Pixel rear faced camera w/flash.
For the device itself, its very nice to hold. the concave shape fits my hand very well, and my thumb can reach one end of the screen to another (horizontally, of course). At times, it felt like it was too thin, and I felt like I was gonna drop the phone because of it. Luckily, I got a low-profile case for it and now it feels perfect to hold. Unfortunately, that's where the perfection ends. While I don't see it, there have been reports of a gap between the top and bottom portions of the screen and the frame of the phone. Major peeves is the layout. the power button got something to use to. I feel like it's not prominent enough so I use to always miss it, or don't press down hard enough (that problem has since been fixed with my case). A personal peeve that I have is the volume rocker. While its a nice, pronounced feel, it sits on the wrong side, for me. I am sort of ambidextrous. I write and eat with my left hand. I throw and shoot (guns) with my right. Using a cell phone, I typically been using my left hand. I use my thumb to raise or lower the volume. The rocker is on the right. Fortunately, my case came with a clip, so I clip it to my right side so I can get used to accessing my phone with my right hand. I'll let you know how that goes, but besides that little spill, this phone is excellent to hold!
Well, now that we got that out of the way, lets talk about performance.. when this phone released back in March/April, this phone and the S4 were the only devices equipped with these monster quad-core CPUs, and while this gives the device room to breath with heavy hitting apps, at the same time, I don't see too many (if not, any) apps coded to utilize more than two cores. At the most, there must be some games that utilize more than one core, and a rare title that would utilize all four (like how Dead Trigger utilized the Quad-core Tegra 3-equipped Nexus 7). Besides a rare app here and there, the cores are not being used, and thus a waste.
Now, why would I say that? Maybe I don't understand exactly how this device is using 4 cores, but I do know that for the week that I have used this phone, 99% of the time, it's been on Power-Saver mode. Power-Saver mode does everything it can to turn your device into a power-sipper. It reduces the screen brightness, turns off the vibration feedback, puts unused data connections to sleep, and it conserves CPU-usage. In other words, it shuts the other cores down. It may even be running on a single core, but lets play it safe and say that it goes into dual-core mode. The device is still wicked fast without using all 4 cores, and it'll be fine for those who would use this phone as the Daily-Driver, and mostly uses the phone for texting, surfing and social-media-ing (like the majority of would-be users). Lets just say that it's plenty fast, with a lot of space to get faster, if you want it to.
Speaking of Power-Saving, when I have the Power-Saver mode enabled (again, 99% of the time), this phone lasts well beyond a typical day. Keep in mind that throughout this week alone, I have a commute time 2 hours (1 hour to and 1 hour from). I was surfing the web, facebooking, checking the feed board for news, watching YouTube and listening to Rhapsody (which streams content). Then, while I'm at work, aside from the occasional re-checking of the web, I also blasted my super awesome speakers with Beats enabled (which I'll talk about in a bit). By the time I got home, it was anywhere between 5:30 to 9:30, and my battery life was only halfway drained. Maybe I'm not that much of a heavy user, compared to some, but it sure seems like a lot. In fact, I have to use it more with Power-Saver off just so I can drain the battery before I start my nightly charge. Again, something else that runs well (for now), but has room to breathe. Maybe i'll comment on battery life a year from now..
So aside from the fact that this device is HTC's flagship, one of the most noticeable features is the dual-Stereo front-facing speakers, which are unmatched by well, all other cell devices. They call the speakers BoomSound and they're equipped with Beats Audio driver onboard. Now, the Beats is not there for looks or free-advertising. It makes a big difference to the listening experience of this device. At the same time, the "Beats" label and reputation of such has been the subject of this phones selling point. Unfortunately, there is a lot of misinformation about what exactly Beats is in this capacity. In a nutshell, all Beats is on the One (or any other cell phone device or Hp laptop) is a equalizer setting. It sets its profile to deliver a boost for the lows and highs. In the case of the One, we have two settings: On and Off. Turn off Beats and you get the standard sound as if you have everything set on a equalizer to flat 0. In a nutshell, whether you prefer the option to be on or not, the speakers are louder than any other handset I have seen in the market. I swear, at times, I think the speakers are louder than my Macbook Pro Retina 15." I used to leave my volume all the way up on my iPhone and other previous devices (Inspire and Captivate)... I have to turn the volume down on the One to about halfway because it wakes me up with extreme prejudice! This has become the standard; the boombox that Radio Raheem would be carrying if Do The Right Thing was set in 2013. The device for all obnoxious hikers to use to ruin it for all the other hikers (inside joke).
SOFTWARE
Now before I begin, maybe some are wondering "wait, what about the cameras?"Well, the camera's deserve a dedicated section, due to the fact that while its ultimately hardware, these cameras rely heavily on the provided software and the performance of the camera adversely changes by varying software-related options.
So as of now, the One with stock software is equipped with Android 4.1.2 Jelly bean. As of a couple weeks ago, we're officially on 4.3. It's also worth noting that all the other devices in the same class are shipping with Android 4.2.2, which does have significant changes other than the "2." Like other devices, manufactures also build their own software and integrate them into their build of Android. In HTC's case, we have Sense 5. For the record, I never really liked the Sense UI. It was pretty bloated and poorly optimized. Of course, this was when I had the Inspire and Sense was only at 3.0. Top the fact that Android 2.3 couldn't properly do multitasking, and apps weren't under the data-mining regs that Google put out when they unified everything in the Play Store, Sense was a disaster, IMO.
Fast forward to today, and we have a version of Android that has eliminated just about every multi-tasking/background running issue that plagued 2.3 and below. So where does this leave Sense? It uses a minimalistic design which doesn't seem to pull resources heavily like the last encounter I had back in 2010/2011. Aside from the better optimization, Sense 5 introduces a news aggregator called BlinkFeed which is essentially a board that posts whatever news or social media-related content you desire. It well... works, and it has been well received by users. You can build up to 3 home pages in addition to BlinkFeed and comes with a suite of widgets. The lockscreen is also pretty nice and simplistic with the option to either unlock the phone in general, or unlock into an app on your dock.
Unaltered Sense 5 Home Screen
BlinkFeed with new Time layout, Weather, Calendar tasks, tweets, and tech news
Home Screen Selector and Widget menu
App menu with Google and AT&T suites
Lockscreen
While I do like this new version of Sense, it's still not my ideal launcher to use. I seen better (and I'll talk about that in a bit), but I do know that based on playing with this and Samsung's Touchwiz UI, I have to pick Sense 5. Its minimal, optimal, and not stuffed with "wow gimmick" features that are impractical (for instance, that eye-scrolling/tilt feature.. smh) and ultimately bogged down the phone (although, I heard recent updates to the S4 has seen a significant performance boost.. that's good).
My preferred launcher is Nova Launcher. Its free but you can also drop $4 for the "Prime" version and get a lot more power-user features. I am currently running the free version, and its already feature-packed. It builds on the simplistic but optimal UI of Stock Android and it's just a lovely, fluid experience. Even if you own an Android device that's not a One, I highly recommend that you have this installed and set as your default launcher (even if you're running Stock Android). Another great thing is that it runs back-to-back with Sense and they integrate really well with each other. This is how I know that Sense is better optimized because both launchers are running, and yet I get the battery life that I described earlier. I have to imagine what the battery life would be if I wasn't using Nova or if I just had Stock Android installed.
Nova Launcher Home Screen
Settings
Other notes and criticisms: The Google software suite is pre-installed (G+, Maps, Hangouts, YouTube, etc), as well as AT&T's software suite. The multi-tasking page is easily accessible by double tapping the home button, and for all you Google Now users, long pressing the home button will bring up the app. The biggest criticisms I have is the waste of space the One has on its screen. The entire screen is a touch-capacitive screen, but for some reason, they decided to only make use of two buttons. The HTC logo is completely capable of being the home button and the multi-tasking can be where the home button is currently located. In this case, I think the minimalist design is a bit too much. Another issue is well... the usual beef I have with buying a phone from a carrier: the bloatware. The AT&T software suite always has at least one app running in the background constantly. In particular, AT&T Locker services... which I NEVER use because Google Drive is much better to begin with. Regardless of whether you would use it or not, it runs in the background. There is no way to disable this and you can't uninstall the software. Unless you find a way to do so without rooting the device, let me know!
PERFORMANCE
I don't have much to say, other than what I already said earlier. Usually other reviewers look at the Performance section of a phone review and they think of benchmarks and performance during gameplay. I barely play games. The last game I have played was Candy Crush Saga and I now refuse to install it on my One (or else I'm gonna kiss my day goodbye. lol). While there are much more graphic-intensive titles out on the Play Store, I don't see myself installing or playing them. The only real performance test that I done was with Minecraft PE, and it runs damn smooth with all the fancy settings on.
As far as day-to-day performance is concerned (to include antenna-related performance), the One is excellent. I have no slowdown surfing the net and other typical activities that the average user would do on a daily basis. Antenna strength is actually better than when the phone was released, due to the recent update that enabled all antenna bands to be utilized (don't ask why this wasn't the case, in the first place). I mostly have LTE connection with a Speedtest result ranging anywhere between 11MB/s to as high as 25MB/s down and 5 to 15MB/s up. I never seen the phone drop below HSPA+. An issue with the antennas is that since the phone is built on an aluminum frame with two plastic bands stretching across, antenna strength may also depend on your grip. The advantage of the S4's plastic design choice is that antenna strength is immense. It doesn't take away from performance, but it's something to be aware of. One major antenna issue is the GPS. If you're in a wide open area, the GPS is fine. As soon as you're in a building or a shopping mall, the GPS goes on the fritz. It'll never be exact but in the One's case, as soon as you're in a area where GPS signals are weak, the correction radius can be as far as 50 meters. A good note is that it seems that the GPS is running independently and when there is a good signal, it works well and is battery efficient (I ran GPS for 7 hours hiking for 7 miles, from an elevation starting from 300 feet to 2700+ ft... worked like a champ).
Speedtest Result
And this is the GPS Performance on that hike I mentioned: MapMyWalk
CAMERA
Again, the One's rear camera is a 4 "ultrapixel" camera. Essentially, its just a 4mp camera, but the tech (I believe) is that the sensor, compared to devices w/ 8, 12, 13mp sensors, is much bigger and filled with more colors. The results are... nice. The camera still takes some great shots, and they take excellent low light shots. The camera also utilizes the onboard enhancing software to make the pictures come out better, as well as Instagram-like filters and features that I honestly never use (like Zoe). Still, compare a day shot with a day shot from a 13mp S4 camera, and you can notice a big difference. The S4 camera is much more sharper throughout while the Ultrapixel camera washes out as you zoom in. Overall, though, the camera is sufficient for the average user.
Video is also something that is sufficient, but underperforms when put up against the S4.
The front facing camera is a 2.1mp sensor that performs well in daylight shots, and Skyping, but underperforms in low light. The sensor is particularly wide, so you can fit all your friends for all those selfies you want to take.
Software wise, the cameras seem to be most effective with the provided stock software. I used to use Camera Zoom FX, which is an excellent camera app, but I find the performance of this app using these cameras underwhelming. Don't even bother taking pics with the Facebook apps camera feature, and the performance of the camera with Instagram is moderately good to okay. I just use the regular phone app to take the best possible pics and upload them independently. There are numerous preset modes for both the camera and video.
I have also seen the camera being used on Stock Android's camera app, and while the performance is sufficient, it's still a degraded experience. Hopefully, there will be an update to better utilize the cameras. (click the following pics for full resolutions)
Outside the house.
Moanalua Middle Ridge
Macro Shot
Racking focus shots
Front Camera img quality (emo me ;____;)
FINAL WORDS
So I been using this phone for about 9 days, now. Usually when I get any new device, the wow effect wears off in only a couple days; that's a couple days of constant use and tinkering. With the One, that wow effect has not worn off. There is so much more to be had. I'm still debating whether to root and flash Stock Android, but it seems that I'll be sticking with what I currently have because everything runs so efficiently to begin with. We'll see how this device performs over the next two months, but as it stands, the One is THE flagship device to get. We know Apple ain't coming with something groundbreaking this year (hardware and software-wise), and unless Samsung's upcoming Note III knocks it out of the park, the HTC One stands out among me and many others (and more official/professional reviewers.) as the device to get, this year. If only people weren't so smitten by Samsung's advertising blitzkrieg (which is laughably similar to how Apple hooked customers into getting an iPhone, though hardcore Samboys will never admit that).. Anyone who either is eligible for an upgrade or is gonna use the new upgrade plans, I RECOMMEND this phone. Keep in mind, a mini version will be released very soon and a giant Note-like version will be released towards the end of the year, so if you want a form factor smaller or larger than what you're already seeing, hold yer horses for a bit! The HTC One is available on AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint. A Verizon version is also being released but as of now, the release has been delayed!
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