only until recently we get to spend some quality time (albeit a rather short one) with the HTC One and boy, did we surprised ourselves. before we proceed further, do note that this article is not an in-depth review but more of a quick look, and to be honest we can’t really give a true to the circuit board opinions unless we have eat, sleep, and live with one for at least a week or more. nevertheless, this is our impression with this shiny new flagship from the Taiwanese handset maker. the handset has a nice feel to it and true to its spec, has a very slim form factor and thanks to the HTC Sense 5.0 and a strong quad-core processor, the UI is extremely fluid. we’d be lying if we were to say that we weren’t impressed with the all-new Sense and that’s to note that we are not usually a big fan of skinned Androids. most importantly, at least to us, it is very lightweight and despite its size, it don’t feel cumbersome at all. we spent a couple of minutes mucking around with the BlinkFeed and not surprisingly, we were pretty fond of it.
BlinkFeed is basically one big scrollable widget that you can customized with the ‘sub widget’ of your choice such as news feed, Facebook feed, bookmarks et cetera – all neatly laid out so you can have everything that matters to you in a glance. among the first thing we look at is lag, which we found none. like we said, everything is as fluid as it possibly could, which in turns bring about a very satisfying user experience. we did not go in-depth into the imaging department, we did however gave Zoe shot, but we sadly, we can’t get any conclusion out of it. perhaps if we had more time with it, we would be able to get it right. in any case, the result we get out of the UltraPixel Camera was pretty intense, but then again, most high-spec handsets these days easily have such image quality that potentially puts a regular compact digital camera to shame. though what really impresses us is the lightning quick shutter. heck, we didn’t even know it has snapped if not for the digital camera shutter effect. last but not least, we were sure to have go with the front-facing stereo speakers, which we did (with the Beats sound turned on) playing back the HTC One demo video and we were reasonably impressed. btw, we cranked up the volume to about 70 percent which resulted in eyes turning to our direction. it was loud and though as impressed as we were, we are not sure if that’s what we really want out of a mobile device. but still, it is something we won’t say no to. who would?
our verdict: we surprised ourselves by being impressed minutes into fiddling with the handset and totally enjoyed the phone’s solid built and UI experience. it was a fun experience and which is what a smartphone should be: fun to use. get it if you appreciate a good, solid industrial design product, and social media and news are what you live and breathe. but as a rule of thumb when buying gadgets, always have a go with the device as thoroughly as you can and while doing so, do evaluate if it is a ‘good fit’ to your lifestyle. in case you wondering, the HTC One international version is available with a price tag starting from US$899.99, or there about. for those residing in UK, you might want to check out EXPANSY is offering the 32GB model at about 530 quids.
also check out the HTC One Review Roundup for more in-depth take by the pros.
