The New HTC One

The New HTC One

The HTC One was just announced by HTC at their live event. The HTC One has been speculated about for about 4 or 5 months now, ever since the DNA was released really, HTC have been slowly leaking specs about the phone to build hype around the supposed “UltraPixel” “Highest PPI on the Planet” phone. Well HTC have truly delivered with what looks like a full-feature, beautiful and rather quite interesting take on the next-generation era of the quad core, full HD smartphones.

Let’s take a run down of the basic specifications first, just so you know how powerful this phone is. The phone has the brand new Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 quad-core processor, which was announced at CES, clocking in at 1.7Ghz with 2gb RAM which is plenty powerful enough to run ANYTHING in the Google Play Store and hopefully powerful enough to run everything the phone can offer too. The display on the HTC One X a year ago, is in my opinion still the most beautiful display on the a mobile phone and the HTC One looks to have bettered that with a 1080p 4.7” phone (as opposed to the 720p One X/One X+) this incredible display results in a 468PPI which currently stands as the highest pixel-density on any phone on the mainstream planet. I can genuinely believe that this will be the most beautiful looking display out there and cannot wait to have a look at it. Unfortunately, the phone only supports a 2300 mAh battery which isn’t the largest, but this new Sense looks far more energy efficient and hopefully the 1980p display won’t be too much of a battery killer.

The phone is encased in a full aluminium body similar to the HTC Sensation phones back in the day, however I believe this to be far more advanced as the phone’s weight (143 grams) does not suggest the same heff as the Sensation devices. From the images I’ve seen on the internet, this phone does look truly beautiful in design. It clearly resembles similarities to the iPhone 5, but Samsung seem to copy everything Apple do software-wise, so why can’t HTC copy iPhone hardware wise? Talking of hardware, the phones supports a 4mp rear facing camera (which I’ll get onto later) and a 2.1mp front-facing camera. The phone also has two grills on the front of the device, one at the top and one at the bottom which is something that I think should have become a default decision after the Blackberry Playbook’s brilliant speakers that were also found on the front. HTC accents the “BoomSound” feature that these new speakers have and say they are louder and have more bass than any other phone in the world, obviously something that will have to be put to the test when it comes to it. Additionally on the front, the phone has two capacitive buttons instead of the traditional three, this is because the home button now does everything, double tap for multitasking and hold for Google Now.

Whilst we’re still talking about externals, let’s talk about what is arguably the biggest announcement from HTC here today, the announcement of the UltraPixel camera which on their website they’re not actually touting to have a megapixel count. The UltraPixel camera is meant to have pixels twice the size of normal Megapixels which results in more light coming in and as a result, clearer and more detailed pictures and also better results in low-light situations. The camera obviously records in 1080p as does the front-facing camera now also. Whilst talking about the camera, let’s talk about HTC Zoe which is either going to flop or flip the idea of short animated GIFs on the internet. HTC Zoe is the thing that happens when you take a picture, instead of being normal and just taking a shot, the new HTC One takes a three second video and 20 shots when you take a picture so that you can choose the best shot if someone blinks. These HTC Zoes (will never get used to that name) will then be sharable to, I assume, most Social Networks and possibly a place for everyone else’s HTC Zoes. If HTC can keep away from any problems with Twitter’s Vine experience then we could see the future of the GIF slowly incorporated into our everyday musings.

With a new generation of HTCs, we always get a new generation of HTC Sense. Well we’re not let down here with what looks like the biggest change to Sense we’ve ever seen and it looks like they’ve been listening to what people have been saying about how HTC sense seems to overpowering compared to some other Skins. The new Skin features a far simpler design with flatter icons, simpler more matte colours and just generally looks more stock Android than anything we’ve seen from HTC in the past. Now, the biggest addition to this New Sense (which appears to be its official name) is BlinkFeed which is theoretically a large Flipboard widget on your homescreen. You can bring in different News Feeds (of which they have 1400 partners) and your social networks into what looks like a beautiful image-centric view. I personally am incredibly excited for this feature as I spend probably 80% of the time on my phone, checking social networks and reading news. Let’s just hope it works the way they describe it and not the way HTC usually release it.

Those are the main features that HTC are touting for their new 2013 flagship device, however there are a few other features that they’ve added to spice their phone up. You now have an interactive TV Guide that allows you to view your TV Guide (obviously) but also apparently allows you to control volume and select channels on your TV. Now, obviously this will either be a smart-TV specific feature or will only be compatible with some sort of accessory or something that only modern TVs have.

Another feature is what HTC are calling Sense Voice which is essentially what the iPhone 5 has; it’s a second microphone that detects obtrusive noise during phone calls and videos and blocks it out. However, apparently the microphone can also detect these sounds and increase your volume to a level that is respectably hearable which is a neat feature as I often find myself travelling outside and wishing my phone would turn up without me having to pull it away from my face and manually do it.

And a small and final feature is the Infinity Glass that eliminates glare from the screen and can resist scratches (which is something apparently every device can do these days). The screen is apparently smoother and brighter than before as well which is always helpful.

This has been a fairly basic rundown of the features of the incredible looking and incredibly sounding new HTC One phone that HTC announced. The features I’m most excited for are the BlinkFeed and the new Camera, but I’m also interested to see how the phone handles day-to-day life as this is what eventually it all comes down to.

After the break, there's some video links for you to check out if you wish to have a look at the HTC One in more detail!

What feature are you most excited to use in the new HTC One? Do you think this phone is good enough to make the likes of Apple and Samsung scared? Do you think the UltraPixel camera will be all it’s cracked up to be? Post away your views in the comments!

Video Link One: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQxNzr7OnXQ
Video Link Two: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNu_EKqipCo

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