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HTC One X Review

HTC was the first one to bring a quad-core processor handset in the Philippines with the One X, giving it the spotlight for some time and getting the credit as one of the most desirable (if not the most) flagship smartphone in the local market. Check out how HTC’s great design reputation and NVidia’s Tegra 3 chip stack up to make the HTC One X the handset to beat this season.


HTC has been criticized before for having recycled designs with their handsets in the last few years. Sometimes, it becomes boring already but this time we think they got it spot on with the HTC One X.

The review unit that we got here is the white colored One X and I thought it looked better than the one in gray.

Design and Construction.

The design signature of HTC is strong with the One X — simple, smooth lines, curved edges and a unibody form factor with a fluid structure. It’s very thin at 8.9mm and relatively light (130 grams) for its size. The unibody design certainly gives it a rigid and solid look.

The handset feels comfortable on the hands, smooth to the touch and has a good grip to it.

The minimalistic design gives the HTC One X a majestic look and certainly reminds us how we loved the ground-breaking HTC Desire from many years ago.

The top end is where the power button is located along with the 3.5mm audio jack. Just behind the power button is the pop-up cradle for the micro-SIM card. You will need a pin to pop it open (just like the way we’re used to with the iPhone) and prepare to get a new micro-SIM or cut up your existing SIM card to fit in.

At the bottom end are the soft buttons etched behind the glass display; they’re already designed for Ice Cream Sandwich (Back, Home, Recent Apps). At the bottom end is a pin hole for the microphone.

On the right side corner is a thin plastic strip for the volume rocker and the left side is where the microUSB port is found.

On the back side is the large 8MP camera protruding from the surface of the back and surrounded by a silver ring with the LED flash cutting thru the edge of the circle.

We’ve had issuess with previous HTC cameras that are positioned this way since it makes them more prone to accidental scratches and bumps.

The silver HTC logo is smack in the middle while the Beats Audio logo is flushed toward the bottom, just on top of the speaker grills. There are 5 contact pins on the bottom right corner which is reserved for the Media Dock and the Car Dock.

The surface has a smooth, matte finish both in front and at the back with a small strip around the edges that feels a bit polished or piano glossy.

The slightly curved shape of the body, the warm tones, the fluid design makes the HTC One X a stunning handset.

Display.

The HTC One X is a member of the big leagues with its massive 4.7-inch display. It’s not the first one from HTC to have this size (the Sensation XL and HTC Titan also had 4.7-inch screens).

The dark, hard glass that covers the display spills toward the edges, literally, giving you that impression that the entire front panel is the screen. There’s actually a thin bezel there that surrounds the screen but you can hardly see it when the display is turned off (or unless you come really close). It’s a pretty neat trick actually — like the way an infinity pool tricks the eye.

The smooth, curved shaped of the glass exterior follows the outer shape of the body of the handset. It gives it the impression of an almost perfectly fluid design — no hard corners, just free-flowing lines.

And once you turn on the screen, you will be confronted by the massive 4.7-inch display with a 720p HD resolution (that’s 1280×720 pixels). The pixel density of 312ppi is almost within the vicinity of the Retina Display of the iPhone 4/4S.

Images are crisp and bright, colors are warm and vivid, deep contrasts and superb viewing angles — all thanks to that Super LCD 2 display. However close you look into the screen, you can hardly see the pixels. I can’t remember any HTC handset having this good a display ever.

And it’s tough too. We’ve had a couple of incidents where we dropped the HTC One X face flat onto a ceramic tile floor, hard carpet and wooden table without a hint of scratch or bump.

Camera.

HTC is not known to incorporate great cameras with their handsets. They did good with the Sensation XL and the HTC Titan but they weren’t still at par as the best cameras we’ve seen on other flagship smartphones.

The HTC One X attempts to change that perception with an 8-megapixel shooter sporting a wide-angle lens (28mm) and a large f/2.0 aperture.

Photos are sharp and less blurry, especially under low-light conditions. The camera app boots up really quick and we are able to take photos in bursts or quick successions.

Some of the shots may degrade under low-light conditions though but that’s expected even if the camera has a wide aperture. Here are some sample photos taken with the HTC One X:

[fancygallery ID=”camera-samples”]

On some occasion, you will notice the camera somewhat over-saturates the color. Loved that dSLR-like sound when focusing on the subject.

One of the key features of the camera in the One X is the ability to shoot stills while taking videos.

Video recording at 1080p full HD is also really good although we notice the frame rates are only in the range of 24fps.

Here’s a number of video clips taken using the One X:

The camera UI needs a bit of getting used to because both the still and video buttons are active at the same time and once in a while you get confused between the two.

The camera app also integrated a lot of built-in filters which, I’m sure, Instagram users will certainly love. By far, this is the best camera tucked into any HTC smartphone ever.

Multimedia.

In the audio department, HTC continued to incorporate the Beats Audio technology with the One X. It has become a selling point with previous handsets and remains to do so.

The speaker grills are the back is clear and loud but not to our liking. It becomes muffled when you place it down on its back. The Beats Audio can only be activated when you plug in the earphones. HTC also added an enhancement called HTC Enhanced making the sound more crisp and whole but that feature is also limited.

Watching movies or playing games on the HTC One X is a joy. The display’s size and resolution scored points in this department. The Super LCD 2 also offered better viewing angles and less glare when used in the outdoors.

The OS, Apps and the UI.

HTC has been known for creating the popular HTC Sense UI and it has gone a long way to make it more intuitive, smoother and with all the added eye-candy and animations. This is overlaid on top of Android 4.0.3 ICS so you’ll really never see any semblance of the stock Android UI.

HTC banked heavily on the Sense UI to differentiate itself from other Android devices. As such, you get a slew of personalization options — from the HTC Scene, to the Skins, Lock Screen Style, up to the organization of the Home Screen with all the HTC goodies and widgets that come with it.

I managed to transfer all my contacts from my iPhone 4S to the One X without any problems. This makes moving to the new handset a lot easier. It ends there though so other files like music, photos and videos need to be transferred separately (there’s always DropBox).

The Lock Screen shortcuts allows you to jump from the locked screen to running frequently-used apps in one swipe. You can customize these but organizing the permanent navigation bar where the app launcher is.

The Recent Apps screen shows a deck of windows or running apps and you can actually close these apps by swiping the windows upwards.

The on-screen qwerty keyboard takes up the entire width of the bottom corner of the screen giving more space for each individual keys. The keys are spaced too close to each other and is a little mis-proportioned (key are very tall but thin).

One of the strongs suits of the Tegra3 chip is in gaming. With all that 4 CPU cores and 12 GPU cores, expect graphics-heavy games to play really, really well.

Performance and Benchmarks.

At the heart of the One X is the NVidia Tegra3 chip, a quad-core processor running at 1.5GHz in each core. The only other time we encountered this processor is with the Transformer Prime so we have a good idea of what it can do.

Our Quadrant Standard benchmark showed a high score of 4,595 while Antutu benchmark 11,367.

The Nenamark 2 benchmark focuses on the graphics and with a score of 47fps, this one is already impressive. Over-all, these are the highest marks we’ve seen on any synthetic benchmarks we’ve done on any handset we already reviewed.

Battery Life.

Battery life is still a tricky business and HTC’s got the reputation for having slightly poor to decent battery life on their handsets. The HTC One X got a minor bump to 1800mAh but that was not enough to last us for the whole day, especially if 3G is turned on.

With moderate use, we can get by and reach a day and a half of battery life.

Conclusion.

We seldom flag a new handset as a must-buy but we can certainly bet the HTC One X falls into this category. HTC combined great hardware and and great design into one solid handset. HTC’s got a winner with the One X.

It is by no means perfect but it’s one of the best handsets, if not the best, you can now get in the market. It’s one of the very few handsets I can say I’d use to retire my iPhone 4S.

As the first quad-core smartphone in the Philippines, the HTC One X is taking on huge expectations and we’re confident that it will not disappoint.

The HTC One X has a suggested retail price of Php32,990 and is available in stores nationwide (although you can find lower prices in online stores in the range of Php26-28k).

HTC One X specs:
4.7″ Super LCD 2 display, 720×1280 pixels @ 312ppi
1.5GHz quad-core NVidia Tegra 3 processor
1GB RAM
32GB internal storage (26GB usable)
HSPA+ 21Mbps
WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
NFC
Bluetooth 4.0
8MP autofocus rear camera, 1080p
1.3MP front-facing camera, 720p
GPS w/ aGPS support
FM Radio Tuner
1800mAh Li-Polymer battery
Android 4.0.3 ICS
134.4 x 68.9 x 8.9mm
130 grams

What we liked about it.
* Sleek handset design
* Blazing Tegra 3 processor
* Brilliant HD screen
* Much-improved camera
* Tough! We dropped it several times!

What we did not like.
* So, so battery life
* Limited storage, no expandable memory slot

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Avatar for Abe Olandres

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines. He is also a technology consultant, a tech columnist with several national publications, resource speaker and mentor/advisor to several start-up companies.

51 Responses

  1. Avatar for Nishki Lopez Nishki Lopez says:

    Hi Just want to ask since i had a big problem on my HTC one x device, Hope you could help me with this. My phone suddenly didnt charge i noticed that everytime i turn it off for almost 2 hours and try to charge it again it works but it takes 4 to 6 hours before fulfill the 100% battery life. May we ask a help what is the problem on my phone is it the charger port or the battery na itself? Hope to receive feedback from you Sir Abe as soonest. Im so depressed na and i dont know what im going to do. :(

  2. Avatar for http:// http:// says:

    Their member videos have investment zone been shown on Comedy Central, The
    Today Show, ESPN, BBC, New York. And this distributional effect
    is something that is going to be shaped like this, this
    accrediation. 00 but hope it will make him a small fortune when it’s sold at the right price.
    If the bidder does not want all of the other items. It doesn’t matter the reason why you could
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    auction: investment zone what’s the right way.

  3. Avatar for rodski rodski says:

    I heard there is wifi issues with the white version of this htc one x plus? is this true? as im planning to get the white version.

  4. Avatar for buy instagram buy instagram says:

    I don’t even know how I ended up here, but I thought this post was great. I don’t
    know who you are but certainly you are going to a famous blogger if you are not already
    ;) Cheers!

  5. Avatar for PhoneLover PhoneLover says:

    THIS PHONE IS THE WORST COMPARED TO SGS3 & LG 4X HD!

    WHY?
    this phone got the “LOWEST BENCHMARK SCORE” among the three Smartphones……..

    NO MEMORY CARD SLOT!
    NOT REMOVABLE BATTERY!
    WEAK BATTERY!

    SADLY , BUT TRUE…….

  6. Avatar for Ray Ray says:

    Hello guys!
    i just bought my htc one x dito sa japan. and it says “simfree”. so I thought that means na pwede lahat ng isalpak mong sim in any country.

    i tried to insert my sun cell sim but nothing happens.

    May alam ba kayo tungkol sa “simfree” word na yan?

    Thank you very much! :(

    • Avatar for bryan bryan says:

      you should ask the seller, i think they can help you or search more about your phone

  7. Avatar for kress kress says:

    hi guys..would anybody know when the one x will be available through smart postpaid..smart posted in their facebook page around early may that this would be available soon but there were no updates since then..thanks :)

  8. Avatar for Pinoy Android Pinoy Android says:

    One-X is a monster hiding in a plain beauty. Just awesome phone this is!

  9. Avatar for Marino dizon Marino dizon says:

    Whats the difference between this htc one and my nokia 5110?

  10. Avatar for pickwick642 pickwick642 says:

    What are the main differences between HTC One X & S? I know both phones are incredible but since I’m confused so therefore I ask. I’m planning to buy an HTC phone this month and I’ll be choosing either of the two. Thanks for your immediate reply.

    • Avatar for sOnix sOnix says:

      try this to see the difference: http://www.gsmarena.com/compare.php3?idPhone1=4320&idPhone2=4574

  11. Avatar for FanBoi94 FanBoi94 says:

    HTC One X used as a hammer. WOW
    http://goo.gl/x2pzg

  12. Avatar for clem clem says:

    sir help naman po, bought the one x last week though I can’t configure the internet using SMART COMMUNICATION’s internet settings.tried contacting Smart though ala pa raw silang settings sa one x. may mga SMART sim users po ba sa inyo who knows the right configuration?thanks!

  13. Avatar for chuful chuful says:

    @daile: according to HTC @ Mall of Asia, if using CC its around 32k+. If cash, around 29k.

    I also checked the multi tasking issue…

    What I did is opened a video in youtube and wait for it to load. Then I opened the music player. After playing a song, I went back to youtube, and it did reload the video that I was watching earlier. I hope HC will do something about this, I used the demo unit there and its so nice.. The only problem for me is the multitasking problem.

    BTW, sometimes I also experience this problem with my galaxy tab 7.7.

    Anybody else who encountered this problem?

  14. Avatar for daile daile says:

    how muc does that works??? i really wanted to have one!!!!! contact me plss

  15. Avatar for Unlock Me Unlock Me says:

    This is a great phone, strong design, solid feel, but I have been using it for two weeks now and I am let down by the multitasking implementation. Come on HTC you have so many fans out here and if you want to beat the bous in the Infinite Loop Cupertino then you have to do better.

  16. Avatar for Chuck Chuck says:

    Any word on the multitasking problems that HTC One X owners are complaining about? Apparently if too many apps are open at one time (3 or 4 daw), then the older apps reset. If that’s true, then this phone is pretty terrible…

  17. Avatar for yu yu choo yu yu choo says:

    Sold my Galaxy Y. Did NOT care for Gingerbread. Hope ICECREAM is a better OS. So, far, nothing else beats IOS 5.1.1.. If Apple would just make a LARGE SCREEN iPhone the point is MUTE.

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