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HTC unveils revamped HTC One flagship Android smartphone

12 points by anons2011 14y ago

cjbprime 14y ago
Happy to see a company willing to stop the constant march of increasing megapixel count at the cost of smaller photon sites and worse signal-to-noise. (The HTC One has a 4MP camera, with physical pixels twice as large as competing sensors.)
- WrkInProgress 14y ago
  It will be interesting to see how well they can market the benefits of a 4 MP camera over 8+ MP cameras on other smartphones. I know that more pixels does not always make for a better camera, but I think the perception from the general public would be that higher = better. Quite a bold move on their part.
- pkulak 14y ago
  I'm interested to see how this compares to the pixel binning on the iPhone 5.
metaperl 14y ago
4.7" screen? unless its >= my Galaxy Note screen, I cannot be interested.
- iso-8859-1 14y ago
  comparing a phablet to a phone is like ... well, it doesn't make sense.
  - rys 14y ago
    They're both large pocketable handheld phones, regardless of your phablet nomenclature. Comparing them is entirely sensible.
hospadam 14y ago
One of the most important features on a phone (to me) is the camera. I love that they're willing to try a new take and make a better camera. But why are they not releasing sample images? If you're going to push a new technology... back it up with some examples!
CrazedGeek 14y ago
Non-removable battery and no microSD slot. Those are kind of necessary for me, sadly; the phone does look quite nice otherwise.
meddlepal 14y ago
I won't purchase another HTC after they screwed thunderbolt owners by delivering ICS 6+ months late.
- douglasisshiny 14y ago
  Current HTC Droid Incredible 2 owner. They have yet to deliver ICS for it, even though the original date for ICS was the same as Thunderbolt's. I'll be looking for a Nexus device next time I purchase a phone.
- vardump 14y ago
  HTC Desire Z (AKA HTC Vision) user here. No ICS firmware. Stuck on Android 2.3.3, so this is my first and last HTC phone - I won't support vendors that don't provide timely updates. 512 MB RAM, but typically only 100-150 MB free, so it constantly reloads/restarts any apps and the HTC Sense UI itself. Google Play in-app purchases don't work. My next phone will be whatever Google's next flagship phone will be, assuming they fix USB OTG, LTE and microsd-slot. Or some other vendor that is smart enough to use vanilla Android without any "product differentiation". I don't want any custom UIs like HTC Sense or Touchwiz, non-uninstallable bloatware (looking at you Samsung: Kies, ChatON, etc.) and app-breaking UI 'enhancements'.
  - vetinari 14y ago
    Don't hold your breath for "fixing" LTE and microsd in Nexuses. LTE is currently a negotiation point in hands of carriers. The price of supporting LTE would be no timely updates (see also Verizon and Sprint Galaxy Nexus). This is something that Google will not compromise about. MicroSD is a slightly different story, it has several problems: UX ones: - most users are confused by two separate storage pools (see the confusion: "I have XY gigabites free on the phone, why can't I install this app?") - the SD card has to be unmounted, when the phone is attached to the computer - that means killing everything, that was launched from the card. Technical: - The MicroSD performance is inferior to eMMC. Legal: - You have to license FAT32 and exFAT (for SDXC) from Microsoft. (Yes, I know that it is technically possible to use different filesystems with SD cards - but that is a decision that would not go very well with mainstream users who just want to connect the phone to their Windows or Apple computer).
RyanZAG 14y ago
I'm not seeing the most important info in a product announcement. Is it available yet, and if not, when will it be available? How much will it cost? I don't understand the mindset behind launching a device that you aren't selling. By the time it's actually on the market, your faster moving competitors (Apple, Samsung, etc) have already matched your improvements. You also get a huge amount of buzz when first unveiling a product, and you need to capitalize on that by letting people give you money for it. Microsoft fails at this every single time, and it looks like HTC is joining them? This is coming from someone who saw this phone and decided 'ok, sold, where do I buy one?' - and could not find any of this out. Terrible marketing failure. By tomorrow I will have forgotten completely, and I'll probably end up just getting a Samsung.
- rrreese 14y ago
  HTC isn't selling their phones to you, they're selling them to carriers. World wide. The price and time will vary by geography and carrier. It's pretty terrible that they can't sort this out before announcing it, but seems to be par for the course.
darklajid 14y ago
It hopes that new software features will help to make its new handset stand out. Bzzt. Thank you very much. I'm in the market for a new phone, you are not targeting me. Sense? No way. And no, 'Software' on top of Android is not going to make your phone nice to buy for this particular guy here. Searching on for a decent 'stock' device..
- CrazedGeek 14y ago
  For what it's worth, some of the manufacturer UIs are better than AOSP now. TouchWiz is actually quite nice now, shockingly enough.
  - darklajid 14y ago
    Maybe (I cannot say a thing about TouchWiz). Do you get reasonable fast upgrades for old (like, month old) phones though, if Android moves forward? Do you get updates at all? Does it (the 'improved' ROM) include unremovable crapware? Even if all answers to the questions above are positive (as in, the 'right' answer): Do you buy a phone for the software improvements on top of a widely available platform? I buy decent hardware (sturdy, well made, slick) & support for improvements to the software that this manufacturer didn't even create in the first place. So far, only Nexus devices seem to fit the bill.
    - CrazedGeek 14y ago
      Based on my experiences with the Epic 4G Touch, Galaxy S3, and Note 2, in order: Yes, for at least one major version (this is a little hard to qualify). Yes, but nearly all of it is disableable (there's one app that isn't, but it's small and never runs, so I don't care too much). No, but if I'm buying the phone already, it's a nice extra. I tend to buy my devices based purely on what they can do now as opposed to that and future support, which I know isn't really common here. If it's a tradeoff between future software improvements (which recently haven't been all that substantial: 4.2 was nothing special, and 4.1 was only slightly better than ICS) and current hardware capabilities (those phones are all reasonably thin and have removable batteries and SD card slots, two things that the Nexus line currently lacks), I'm going with the hardware.
ibudiallo 14y ago
I'm not sure if the launch event is over but did they mention the price?
jtreminio 14y ago
I really wanted to love HTC. I bought and still enjoy my HTC One X for AT&T ... but their complete lack of support for the mod community, and in fact stonewalling them, has completely turned me off to the company. I will never buy another HTC phone again.
- nwienert 14y ago
  I'm on the same page. I love the design of the phone, but the software is lacking and buggy, and the totally missing mod community ruins it. I was an advocate when I first bought it but I've bitten the bullet and bought a Nexus 4. I'd rather have better working software than 4G.
- WrkInProgress 14y ago
  I have the HTC One X (International Version) apart for the horrible thing that is HTC Sense 4 (apart from the camera improvements and certain dialer improvements), I've been able to root and load custom ROMS on my phone without any issues. HTC even set up a site to make it easy to unlock the bootloader here: http://www.htcdev.com/bootloader http://www.htcdev.com/bootloader
fuzzythinker 14y ago
I'm very surprised by the negative comments about HTC/TouchWiz. I got the DNA and I'm totally in love with it (except for a few minor quirks). It has a 5" screen but overall size is about the same as S3 due to DNA's near edge to edge display. It is ultra thin and lightweight too. It seems like this is going to be even a better device than the DNA due to it being more a "normal" size phone but with the 4.7" screen but same 1080p display.

12 points by anons2011 14y ago

Happy to see a company willing to stop the constant march of increasing megapixel count at the cost of smaller photon sites and worse signal-to-noise. (The HTC One has a 4MP camera, with physical pixels twice as large as competing sensors.)

WrkInProgress 14y ago
It will be interesting to see how well they can market the benefits of a 4 MP camera over 8+ MP cameras on other smartphones. I know that more pixels does not always make for a better camera, but I think the perception from the general public would be that higher = better. Quite a bold move on their part.
pkulak 14y ago
I'm interested to see how this compares to the pixel binning on the iPhone 5.

metaperl 14y ago

4.7" screen? unless its >= my Galaxy Note screen, I cannot be interested.

iso-8859-1 14y ago
comparing a phablet to a phone is like ... well, it doesn't make sense.
- rys 14y ago
  They're both large pocketable handheld phones, regardless of your phablet nomenclature. Comparing them is entirely sensible.

hospadam 14y ago

One of the most important features on a phone (to me) is the camera. I love that they're willing to try a new take and make a better camera. But why are they not releasing sample images? If you're going to push a new technology... back it up with some examples!

CrazedGeek 14y ago

Non-removable battery and no microSD slot. Those are kind of necessary for me, sadly; the phone does look quite nice otherwise.

meddlepal 14y ago

I won't purchase another HTC after they screwed thunderbolt owners by delivering ICS 6+ months late.

douglasisshiny 14y ago
Current HTC Droid Incredible 2 owner. They have yet to deliver ICS for it, even though the original date for ICS was the same as Thunderbolt's. I'll be looking for a Nexus device next time I purchase a phone.
vardump 14y ago
HTC Desire Z (AKA HTC Vision) user here. No ICS firmware. Stuck on Android 2.3.3, so this is my first and last HTC phone - I won't support vendors that don't provide timely updates. 512 MB RAM, but typically only 100-150 MB free, so it constantly reloads/restarts any apps and the HTC Sense UI itself. Google Play in-app purchases don't work. My next phone will be whatever Google's next flagship phone will be, assuming they fix USB OTG, LTE and microsd-slot. Or some other vendor that is smart enough to use vanilla Android without any "product differentiation". I don't want any custom UIs like HTC Sense or Touchwiz, non-uninstallable bloatware (looking at you Samsung: Kies, ChatON, etc.) and app-breaking UI 'enhancements'.
- vetinari 14y ago
  Don't hold your breath for "fixing" LTE and microsd in Nexuses. LTE is currently a negotiation point in hands of carriers. The price of supporting LTE would be no timely updates (see also Verizon and Sprint Galaxy Nexus). This is something that Google will not compromise about. MicroSD is a slightly different story, it has several problems: UX ones: - most users are confused by two separate storage pools (see the confusion: "I have XY gigabites free on the phone, why can't I install this app?") - the SD card has to be unmounted, when the phone is attached to the computer - that means killing everything, that was launched from the card. Technical: - The MicroSD performance is inferior to eMMC. Legal: - You have to license FAT32 and exFAT (for SDXC) from Microsoft. (Yes, I know that it is technically possible to use different filesystems with SD cards - but that is a decision that would not go very well with mainstream users who just want to connect the phone to their Windows or Apple computer).

RyanZAG 14y ago

I'm not seeing the most important info in a product announcement. Is it available yet, and if not, when will it be available? How much will it cost? I don't understand the mindset behind launching a device that you aren't selling. By the time it's actually on the market, your faster moving competitors (Apple, Samsung, etc) have already matched your improvements. You also get a huge amount of buzz when first unveiling a product, and you need to capitalize on that by letting people give you money for it. Microsoft fails at this every single time, and it looks like HTC is joining them? This is coming from someone who saw this phone and decided 'ok, sold, where do I buy one?' - and could not find any of this out. Terrible marketing failure. By tomorrow I will have forgotten completely, and I'll probably end up just getting a Samsung.

rrreese 14y ago
HTC isn't selling their phones to you, they're selling them to carriers. World wide. The price and time will vary by geography and carrier. It's pretty terrible that they can't sort this out before announcing it, but seems to be par for the course.

darklajid 14y ago

It hopes that new software features will help to make its new handset stand out. Bzzt. Thank you very much. I'm in the market for a new phone, you are not targeting me. Sense? No way. And no, 'Software' on top of Android is not going to make your phone nice to buy for this particular guy here. Searching on for a decent 'stock' device..

CrazedGeek 14y ago
For what it's worth, some of the manufacturer UIs are better than AOSP now. TouchWiz is actually quite nice now, shockingly enough.
- darklajid 14y ago
  Maybe (I cannot say a thing about TouchWiz). Do you get reasonable fast upgrades for old (like, month old) phones though, if Android moves forward? Do you get updates at all? Does it (the 'improved' ROM) include unremovable crapware? Even if all answers to the questions above are positive (as in, the 'right' answer): Do you buy a phone for the software improvements on top of a widely available platform? I buy decent hardware (sturdy, well made, slick) & support for improvements to the software that this manufacturer didn't even create in the first place. So far, only Nexus devices seem to fit the bill.
  - CrazedGeek 14y ago
    Based on my experiences with the Epic 4G Touch, Galaxy S3, and Note 2, in order: Yes, for at least one major version (this is a little hard to qualify). Yes, but nearly all of it is disableable (there's one app that isn't, but it's small and never runs, so I don't care too much). No, but if I'm buying the phone already, it's a nice extra. I tend to buy my devices based purely on what they can do now as opposed to that and future support, which I know isn't really common here. If it's a tradeoff between future software improvements (which recently haven't been all that substantial: 4.2 was nothing special, and 4.1 was only slightly better than ICS) and current hardware capabilities (those phones are all reasonably thin and have removable batteries and SD card slots, two things that the Nexus line currently lacks), I'm going with the hardware.

ibudiallo 14y ago

I'm not sure if the launch event is over but did they mention the price?

jtreminio 14y ago

I really wanted to love HTC. I bought and still enjoy my HTC One X for AT&T ... but their complete lack of support for the mod community, and in fact stonewalling them, has completely turned me off to the company. I will never buy another HTC phone again.

nwienert 14y ago
I'm on the same page. I love the design of the phone, but the software is lacking and buggy, and the totally missing mod community ruins it. I was an advocate when I first bought it but I've bitten the bullet and bought a Nexus 4. I'd rather have better working software than 4G.
WrkInProgress 14y ago
I have the HTC One X (International Version) apart for the horrible thing that is HTC Sense 4 (apart from the camera improvements and certain dialer improvements), I've been able to root and load custom ROMS on my phone without any issues. HTC even set up a site to make it easy to unlock the bootloader here: http://www.htcdev.com/bootloader http://www.htcdev.com/bootloader

fuzzythinker 14y ago

I'm very surprised by the negative comments about HTC/TouchWiz. I got the DNA and I'm totally in love with it (except for a few minor quirks). It has a 5" screen but overall size is about the same as S3 due to DNA's near edge to edge display. It is ultra thin and lightweight too. It seems like this is going to be even a better device than the DNA due to it being more a "normal" size phone but with the 4.7" screen but same 1080p display.