HTC One
 | |
| Manufacturer | HTC |
|---|---|
| Series | HTC One |
| First released | March 2013 |
| Predecessor | HTC One X, HTC Butterfly/Droid DNA |
| Type | Smartphone |
| Form factor | Slate |
| Dimensions | 137.4 mm (5.41 in) H 68.2 mm (2.69 in) W 9.3 mm (0.37 in) D (max) 4 mm (0.16 in) D (min) |
| Weight | 143 g (5.0 oz) |
| Operating system | Android 4.1.2 Android 4.2 (Google version) |
| SoC | Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 APQ8064 |
| CPU | 1.7 GHz quad-core Krait 300 |
| GPU | Adreno 320 |
| Memory | 2 GB LPDDR2 RAM |
| Storage | 32 or 64 GB |
| Removable storage | None (international), up to 64 GBmicroSDXC (China and Japan) |
| Battery | 2,300 mAh Li-Po |
| Display | 4.7 in (120 mm) Super LCD 3 withRGB matrix 1920×1080p pixels (16:9 Aspect ratio) (468 ppi) Corning Gorilla Glass 2.0 |
| Rear camera |
4-megapixel, 2.0 μm camera withauto focus, "UltraPixel" image sensor, smart LED flash, BSI sensor, F2.0 aperture, 28 mm lens, dedicated imaging chip, continuous shooting, optical image stabilization.
1080p HD video recording, video stabilization, slow motion video capture (768 × 432 pixels), HDR video recording. |
| Front camera | 2.1-megapixel front camera (1080p for recording and video chat) |
| Connectivity | Wi-Fi: 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac (2.4/5 Ghz) NFC Bluetooth: 4.0 with apt-X DLNA Wi-Fi Direct Wi-Fi Hotspot Infrared USB 2.0 (Micro-B Port, USB charging) USB On-The-Go 1.3 MHL 2.0 HDMI Wireless HDMI 3.5 millimetres (0.14 in) TRRS |
| Other | Accelerometer, gyroscope, digital compass, proximity sensor,ambient light sensor |
The HTC One is an Android smartphone manufactured by Taiwanese manufacturer HTC. The device serves as a successor to HTC's 2012 flagship phone, the One X—a device that was critically acclaimed, but commercially unsuccessful due in part to poor marketing efforts. The HTC One was developed with an emphasis on unique hardware and software features, such as an aluminum casing, a new image sensor implementation for its camera, stereo speakers, a revised version of HTC's Sense user experience, and other new software functionality such as the "BlinkFeed" news aggregator and "Zoe" camera features.
While initially set for a release in mid-March 2013, manufacturing delays led to a staggered release beginning in late March, with its release date in certain markets (such as Asia and North America) pushed back into April. Despite these issues (which also prompted the company to double its production capacity in May 2013 to make up for the delays), the One sold around 5 million units through its first two months of worldwide availability.[1] The One was universally praised for its hardware design and well received for its software features, but certain aspects of the device's software were met with mixed reviews.[2][3]
Contents[hide] |
Development and release[edit]
Background[edit]
Although HTC has developed several notable Android devices, such as the Dream (the first ever Android phone) and the Evo 4G (the first 4G phone on Sprint's WiMAX network), it has struggled financially in recent years due to the growing success of (and loss of market share to) other vendors such as Samsung and Apple. In some markets HTC had developed numerous carrier-specific phones and relied heavily on wireless providers to promote its products, a strategy that was unsuccessful in the face of Samsung and Apple's strong marketing efforts.[4] The company's flagship phone in 2012, the One X, received critical acclaim from reviewers, but was overshadowed by the Samsung Galaxy S III and iPhone 5 and was commercially unsuccessful. In response, HTC chose to take bigger risks with its next flagship device in order to make it stand out better among its competition, which included a major overhaul of its Sense user interface, and a new marketing strategy which would see the company take a more direct role in promoting its products. For 2013, HTC planned to double its marketing budget in comparison to 2012.[5][4]
Details of this rumored new HTC device, codenamed the M7, leaked from various sources in the weeks prior to its official debut. HTC's CEO Peter Chou officially confirmed and briefly revealed a prototype for the new device during a company event on February 1, 2013. Leaked information speculated that the M7 would run Android 4.1.2 and HTC Sense 5.0, include a 4.7-inch 1080p display, 2 GB of RAM, a quad-core processor, a 13 megapixel camera, and 32 GB of internal storage. It was also indicated that the M7 carried design traits from the Butterfly.[6][7]
The M7 was officially unveiled as the HTC One at a special press conference on February 19, 2013. HTC originally announced that the One would be released in March 2013 through 185 carriers and retailers in 80 countries, being the largest global launch in the company's history. Launch carriers would include AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile in the United States, Everything Everywhere, O2 and Vodafone UK in the United Kingdom, andBell, Rogers and Telus in Canada.[6][8] Following a period of speculation, Verizon Wireless announced on June 3, 2013 that it would release the One "later this summer", which would make the device available on all four national carriers in the United States (by contrast, the One X was exclusive to AT&T).[9][10]
Delays[edit]
HTC initially announced that the One would be released in the United Kingdom on March 15. However, due to high demand and supply issues (especially surrounding the components used by its camera), HTC announced on March 22 that the One would "roll out in the U.K., Germany and Taiwan next week and across Europe, North America and most of Asia-Pacific before the end of April." In the United Kingdom, online pre-orders were shipped by some carriers around the time of HTC's announcement.[11][12][13] The One was released by AT&T (with exclusivity on the 64 GB version) and Sprint in the United States on April 19, 2013.[14]
Following the delays, HTC North Asia's president Jack Tong announced that the company would double its production capacity for the HTC One by mid-May in order to meet increasing demand and competition for the device, and to make up for sales lost by the release delays.[15]
Litigation[edit]
In April 2013, Nokia was granted a preliminary injunction in the Netherlands against STMicroelectronics, for supplying HTC with microphone components for the One that contained Nokia's proprietary technology.[16] Despite the injunction being against STM, Nokia still publicly accused HTC of copying technology from its products. HTC would still be able to use the remaining microphones it acquired in good faith, while the company indicated that it would replace the offending component with an alternate version in future production runs.[17]
Specifications[edit]
Hardware[edit]
The HTC One uses an aluminum unibody frame with an antenna built into its backing; the choice of material was intended to give the device a premium feel in comparison to smartphones made with a plastic shell. The frame itself takes at least 200 minutes of CNC cutting to manufacture.[18] Internally, the One is powered by a 1.7 GHz quad-core Snapdragon600 processor with 2 GB of RAM, and supports LTE networks where they are available.[19]Most models of the HTC One come with either 32 or 64 GB of internal, non-expandable storage—unlike the international model, the Chinese and Japanese models include a microSDslot.[20] The One uses a 4.7 inch, 1080p Super LCD 3 display with a pixel density of 468 ppi.[21] The One's internal components are arranged in a "pyramid" layout similar to the Butterfly and 8X; with larger components (such as the screen and battery) positioned towards the front and smaller components positioned towards the back. This internal layout also allows the One to have a curved backing.[22] The HTC One's audio system incorporates front-facing "BoomSound" stereo speakers, Beats Audio, and HDR audio recording.[19]
Camera[edit]
The HTC One uses a 4 megapixel camera with an "UltraPixel" image sensor, which uses pixels that are 2.0 µm in size. While some recent high-end smartphones have used 8 or 13 megapixel cameras, the size of the pixels in their sensors have ranged from 1.4 to 1.0 µm. Although these smaller pixel sizes had been a necessity to ensure that the camera does not compromise the design of the phone itself, they can result in a loss of dynamic range and sensitivity, a higher signal-to-noise ratio (resulting in fuzzier images) and take poor low-light images due to the difficulty of capturing light through the smaller pixel areas. As such, HTC claimed that its camera design could increase overall image quality, especially in low-light environments.[23][24] The camera also includes optical image stabilization, and is further enhanced by improvements to HTC's camera software and the ImageSense 2.0 image processor.[25][19]
Software[edit]
The HTC One ships with Android 4.1.2, using HTC's Sense user interface. The new version of Sense on the One, version 5, uses a new minimalist visual style with a redesigned home screen: the signature flip clock widget from previous HTC phones has been replaced by a simple digital clock and weather display. Hundreds of different clock designs by HTC's designers, narrowed down to 25, were considered before the final design was chosen for the new default clock and weather widget on Sense 5. Directly below the clock on the default home screen is a new scrolling news aggregator known as "BlinkFeed", which in a similar fashion to Flipboard and Windows Phone's live tiles, displays a scrolling grid of news headlines and social network content. New content is synchronized every two hours when connected to a mobile network, but more frequently while on Wi-Fi.[26] By default, the One only uses two home screen pages: one with the clock and BlinkFeed, and a normal page housing app shortcuts and widgets (as with previous versions of Sense, pages can be added and removed as needed).[26][5] The application drawer uses a 3x4 grid to display application shortcuts by default, but can still be changed back to the denser 4x5 grid used by past versions.[23]
The camera app includes a new shooting mode known as Zoe (alluding to the zoetrope), which films 4 seconds of video alongside every photo taken. The resulting clips are displayed with animated thumbnails in the gallery, while the "Highlights" feature automatically compiles all of the photos and videos taken at an event into a short multimedia presentation that can be exported or shared online through the Zoe Share service.[23][25] The One also includes a TV app, which incorporates an electronic program guide powered by Peel, show recommendations and notifications, and can act as a remote control via an infrared emitter hidden in its power button.[19][26][23] An updated music app now includes a visualizer and support for on-screen lyrics.[26] An updated version of the "Get Started" feature (as introduced by the One X+) allows users to perform initial setup for their One via a web-based service, while a new Sync Manager allows data to be migrated from iOS device backups or HTC devices with Android 4.0 and higher.[26]
Sense 5.0 will not be exclusive to the One; on February 28, 2013, HTC announced that it would provide updates to Sense 5.0 for theButterfly, One S, and One X/X+ in the coming months. However, due to hardware differences, it will not include all of the features implemented by Sense 5 on the HTC One.[27]
Updates[edit]
Details of an update to Android 4.2.2 surfaced in June 2013; the update will also add UI features such as a quick settings panel (similarly to stock 4.2), the ability to show the battery percentage on the status bar, the ability to remove icons from the home screen's dock, and the ability for the Recent Apps button to serve as the Menu button by holding it down.[28]
Model variants[edit]
Several hardware and software variants of the HTC One have been released in select regions.
Developer Edition[edit]
A "Developer Edition" of the 64 GB HTC One was released in limited quantities in the United States, exclusively from HTC's website on April 19, 2013. This variant ships with an unlocked bootloader, which can be used for the development and installation of custom ROMs. It supports most GSM networks, along with AT&T and T-Mobile's LTE networks (however, it does not support T-Mobile's AWS-basedHSPA+ services).[29]
Google Experience version[edit]
On May 30, 2013, HTC announced that the Google Play store would sell a variant of the HTC One with a stock Android 4.2 operating system (similarly to Nexus phones) in place of 4.1 with HTC Sense, and software updates maintained by Google instead of HTC. It will be released in the United States on June 26, 2013—the same day that a similar version of the Samsung Galaxy S4 will be released.[30][31]
Chinese version[edit]
Variants of the HTC One were unveiled for release in China in late-April 2013 on China Unicom, China Telecom, and China Mobile. Unlike the international version, the Chinese models feature a removable back cover, exposing a microSD slot for storage expansion and dual SIM card slots. Taking advantage of this ability, a special edition with a Leehom Wang autographed back cover was also released.[32]HTC stated that it was able to include an SD card slot in the Chinese model because of its radio hardware did not take up as much internal space as that of the international models.[20]
Japanese version[edit]
A variant for Japan known as the HTC J One (HTL22) was announced by the Japanese carrier KDDI in May 2013. The J One is similar to the Chinese version, and includes support for the NFC-based payment system FeliCa.[33]
Reception[edit]
The HTC One was released to favorable reviews. At Mobile World Congress, it won the "Best New Mobile Device" award from the GSM Association,[34][35] and received TechRadar's "Best Phone" and "Best in Show" awards.[36] Walt Mossberg of The Wall Street Journalpublicly favored the HTC One over its closest rival, the Samsung Galaxy S4, considering it to be "more polished-looking, and quite capable" in comparison.[37]
AnandTech gave the One its "Editor's Choice Gold" award, considering it to be a well-performing and "incredibly ambitious" device due to its innovative features and design. Its camera was considered to be "the best camera in the Android space right now with the right tradeoff between resolution and sensitivity", and HTC was lauded for focusing on the technology of its camera instead of just increasing its megapixel size. The Zoe features were regarded as the "single most compelling experience" on the One due to its dependency on the aspects of the device that HTC emphasized the most in its production (such as the display, camera, and speakers), while its overall interface was praised for being the "classiest" version of Sense ever released, and for not being a "hokey cartoonish bubbly experience" like other OEM skins.[23]
The One's industrial design and camera were also praised by both CNET (who gave the phone a 4 out of 5) and PC Magazine (who gave the phone an "Excellent" rating); however, PC Magazine criticized the non-removable "bloatware" applications present on AT&T's version, along with the inability to properly perform digital cropping and zooming on images taken with its camera. CNET panned BlinkFeed for its lack of content sources and for not being able to use custom sources or turn it off completely, but praised the updates to Sense and the TV app. Again, the bloatware present on Sprint and AT&T's version was criticized, but HTC's decision to have carrier apps placed in their own separate folder in the application menu was noted.[2][3]
In a repair-ability review, iFixit gave the HTC One a score of 1 out of 10, remarking that it would be "possibly impossible" to open the device without damaging its rear casing, making repairing a broken screen "nearly impossible". However, the teardown also noted that "[its] solid external construction improves durability." Both the iPhone 5 and Galaxy S4 scored higher in iFixit's reviews than the One.[38]
Sales[edit]
On May 23, 2013, The Wall Street Journal reported that sales for the One had reached around 5 million since its launch in March. In comparison, the iPhone 5 sold 5 million units within its first three days of availability[39] and the Galaxy S4 sold 10 million units within its first month of availability.[1]
