The last "lone hero"

It so happened that of all the top new products of the current season, it was the new HTC smartphone that was the last in our hands, when reviews of all other flagship devices had already appeared on the pages of our publication. This happened through no fault of ours - the release of the device was postponed for a long time, there were no final samples, and this situation is quite symbolic. The Taiwanese company is not doing very well now - over the past year and a half, NTS has gradually lost its former glory among users, and the company’s position in the world market has noticeably weakened. After the release of problematic models with the prefix X and X+ in the name, the company did not offer the market any significant new products for some time, and the only notable model released during this time, HTC Butterfly, suffered a strange fate. For some reason, the European version of the phone had too little flash memory, and at the same time there was no possibility of expanding it using cards. All this, coupled with a dubious glossy body and a very high price, could not cause (according to at least, in our area) there is great user interest in this model. And now the company has decided to “reboot” and start all over again. The developers once again concentrated all their efforts on just one model, no longer scattering themselves, and this immediately bore fruit. NTS's latest creation turned out to be so interesting that it instantly attracted the lost part of users' attention back to the company. Although we are not yet talking about a full return to its former positions: at the last Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, ​​the NTS stand could not boast of either its size or the amount of attention from visitors and the press. And practically only one model was presented at the stand during the exhibition - HTC One. The one on which all the company’s bets are now placed: “if it takes off, we’ll fly further.”

The unusually tense attitude in the company towards the “new hope” was manifested even in the very name of the new product. A very strange name, I must admit. The Taiwanese suddenly decided to give their creation a name that corresponds to the general name of the entire line of smartphones that have come out of their factories recently - no more, no less. “HTC One” is the same as if Sony called its next smartphone simply “Sony Xperia”, without any additional letters or numbers. Interesting solution. Very inconvenient for searching on the Internet (when you type in the name of any other device starting with “HTC One”, information about the HTC One itself will automatically appear, and vice versa) and very profitable for the company itself (for the same reason). However, given the recently shaken position of the Taiwanese company in the global market, perhaps this step was quite deliberate in order to raise the fading interest in HTC products?

For ease of visual comparison, we have added the main flagship models that we tested earlier to a single table presented below.

	HTC One	Samsung Galaxy S4	Sony Xperia Z	Oppo Find 5	Google Nexus 4	LG Optimus G
Screen	4.7″, S-LCD3 (IPS)	4.99″, SuperAMOLED	5″, IPS?	5″, IPS	4.7″, IPS Plus	4.7″, IPS Plus
Permission	1920×1080, 469 ppi	1920×1080, 441 ppi	1920×1080, 440 ppi	1920×1080, 440 ppi	1280×768, 317 ppi	1280×768, 317 ppi
SoC	Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 @1.7 GHz (4 cores, ARMv7 Krait)	Exynos 5410 @1.8 GHz (8 cores)		Qualcomm APQ8064 @1.5 GHz (4 cores, ARMv7 Krait)	Qualcomm APQ8064 @1.5 GHz (4 cores, ARMv7 Krait)	Qualcomm APQ8064 @1.5 GHz (4 cores, ARMv7 Krait)
RAM	2 GB	2 GB	2 GB	2 GB	2 GB	2 GB
Flash memory	32/64 GB	16/32/64 GB	16 GB	16/32 GB	8/16 GB	32 GB
Memory card support	No	microSD	microSD	No	No	No
operating system	Google Android 4.1	Google Android 4.2	Google Android 4.1	Google Android 4.1	Google Android 4.2	Google Android 4.1
SIM format*	Micro-SIM	Micro-SIM	Micro-SIM	Micro-SIM	Micro-SIM	Micro-SIM
Battery	non-removable, 2300 mAh	removable, 2600 mAh	non-removable, 2330 mAh	non-removable, 2500 mAh	non-removable, 2100 mAh	non-removable, 2100 mAh
Cameras	rear (4 MP; video - 1080p), front (2 MP)		rear (13 MP; video - 1080p), front (2 MP)	rear (13 MP; video - 1080p), front (1.9 MP)	rear (8 MP; video - 1080p), front (1.3 MP)	rear (13 MP; video - 1080p), front (1.3 MP)
Dimensions	137×68×9.3 mm, 143 g	137×70×7.9 mm, 130 g	139×71×7.9 mm, 146 g	142×69×8.9 mm, 165 g	134×69×9.1 mm, 139 g	132×69×8.5 mm, 145 g

* The most common SIM card formats are described in a separate material.

Key Features of HTC One

• SoC Qualcomm Snapdragon 600, 1.7 GHz, 4 cores, ARMv7 Krait
• GPU Adreno 320
• Operating system Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean
• IPS touch display, 4.7″, 1920×1080
• Random access memory (RAM) 2 GB, internal memory 32/64 GB
• No microSD card slot
• GSM communication GPRS/EDGE 850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz
• Communication 3G UMTS HSDPA 850, 900, 1900, 2100 MHz
• Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, MHL, OTG
• Wi-Fi Display/DLNA support
• Wi-Fi 802.11a/ac/b/g/n
• GPS/Glonass
• Digital compass, gyroscope, accelerometer, position sensors, light sensors
• 4 MP camera, supports HDR video
• Camera 2.1 MP (front)
• Lithium polymer battery 2300 mAh
• Dimensions 137.4 x 68.2 x 9.3 mm
• Weight 143 g

Appearance and ease of use

The description should begin, of course, with the materials of the case. Unlike most modern plastic communicators, the NTS One is made almost entirely of metal. At every presentation, the developers tirelessly show this picture, especially focusing on the production technology of the body of the new smartphone.

The body is entirely cut out of a single piece of aluminum, leaving space only for the screen glass and camera optics. In principle, NTS has previously had experience working with metal when creating cases for its smartphones. However, by her own admission, she always had to make a compromise by integrating plastic parts into a metal body so that the metal did not shield radio waves. When creating HTC One, the developers took a different path. They took all the antennas and microphones outside, placing them in special recesses - grooves cut from the outside directly into the body material. Those elements that should not be shielded by metal are placed in these recesses. From above these grooves are filled with a special composite material, reminiscent in structure of ordinary plastic. It is curious that not only the grooves on the back side, but also all four side edges along the perimeter are also filled with this material. This does not cause any inconvenience for the user, and it looks unusual - somehow “unhackneyed”.

Everything else here is just metal and glass, so there’s no need to talk for a long time about whether the new smartphone looks expensive or cheap. The materials themselves are premium, so the HTS One looks exactly like it is ready to match any environment at any moment. In other words, the HTC One will look equally good on an expensive suit and in the hands of a teenager.

The smartphone is quite heavy (143 g), which is logical, given the abundance of metal from which the body is machined. If we talk about dimensions, then due to the narrow edges and sloping back, the phone fits quite comfortably in the hand. But this does not mean at all that I am ready to praise metal as the best material for the production of smartphones. Many users, by the way, prefer “warm,” light and rough plastic, especially since it can now also be quite durable. And in terms of ease of holding in your fingers, the matte soft-touch coating is probably more practical than smooth and sometimes slippery metal. This one can slip out of your hand (especially considering its mass), and is more susceptible to heat than plastic. Yes, of course, metal removes heat from the processor filling better than plastic, we all know this, but in terms of comfort it is difficult to say that it is very pleasant to hold always cold metal in your hand, which after a few minutes of operation suddenly heats up to hot. In this sense, plastic simply behaves more calmly, that’s all. But in any case, the neat appearance and small thickness allow us to speak of the HTC One as a universal smartphone that is equally suitable for both male and female hands.

And of course, such a strong case will better withstand various external influences than plastic. Although at this point it is worth noting that specialists from one popular foreign publication who disassembled the NTS One smartphone claim that the smartphone is practically not repairable because it cannot be disassembled. That is, if the speaker wheezes or the glass cracks, replacing these elements will probably be very problematic. However, this is only an unofficial opinion of some journalists.

Now let's look at the details and individual elements of the NTS One body. In the back, in addition to the mentioned grooves, there is a digital camera window and a photoflash eye nearby - everything is standard. The case form factor is monoblock. The case is non-separable, there are no removable parts, so the cover cannot be removed either.

Another fact logically follows from this structure of the body. The SIM card here is inserted into a side groove on the left side of the smartphone, sliding there on a metal slide. The mounting method is exactly the same as for the iPhone: you need to press a key clip to eject the container with the card. The SIM card here is used in Micro-SIM format, the container itself is made of metal.

Both connectors, traditionally located on the top and bottom ends of the device, are universal: Micro-USB is at the bottom, 3.5 mm audio output is at the top.

But that's where the logic ends. All other controls on the NTS One are so unusual and inconvenient that you can only be amazed. Firstly, that ill-fated power and lock key. For some reason, it was again placed not on its side, but on top - where no finger could reach. And the fact that this button is also an IR transmitter does not justify it in any way. And who, in fact, forced the IR port to be embedded in the power button? At the top end, even without it, there would be enough space to install an IR transmitter. By the way, it is needed here to control various equipment, such as a TV or set-top box - the corresponding software is already installed in the smartphone.

Secondly, both this key and the other one that controls the volume are both embedded flush with the plane of the case. They do not protrude from it at all, and therefore, it is not possible to feel them blindly. It is extremely inconvenient to manipulate such buttons; you always have to look where you are pressing, and it is impossible to get used to it. As already mentioned, these buttons feel indistinguishable from the rest of the surface.

And this list of absurdities is crowned by an unusual touch panel of control buttons under the screen. During the time that humanity was creating smartphones with touch screens, it seemed to have gone through all the possible options for designing a block of buttons under the screen. But the developers from NTS managed to change everything this time. The button that calls up the menu was simply “cut out” from the standard set. In its place is now the NTS logo - right in the middle of the panel, and on the sides of it there are only Back and Home, there is no Menu button here at all. There was no talk about saving space: unlike the entirely virtual block of buttons that migrated to the screen in some smartphones, here the strip under the screen still takes up space, albeit with two buttons rather than three. It’s a rather strange decision, and how it is justified is not entirely clear. Accordingly, the list of recently opened applications is now also not easy to find intuitively: it is called up here by double-tapping the Home button.

Finishing the topic of buttons, it is worth noting that the menu that pops up when you long press the power key, in addition to the standard functions of shutting down, rebooting and switching to flight mode, is supplemented with one more item - calling up the child mode. In this mode, you can safely let your children play with your smartphone without fear of access to important phone functions that are blocked for them.

It remains to add that two versions of the HTS One are available on the market with different color schemes: Glacial Silver (metallic gray with the romantic name “silver glacier”), as in our review, and Stealth Black (“invisible black”) - in the photo above. In the black version, all the materials are the same, only the metal here is painted, and the plastic that fills all the recesses and sides matches the color of the case: in the gray version it is white, but in the black phone it is black. Otherwise, the smartphones are identical. Both options are not too easily soiled, since there are no glossy surfaces here. True, on the surface of the black HTC One, fingerprints, dirt, dust and grease are more noticeable than on the gray one - pedantic purists should take this into account when choosing.

Screen

HTC One has a very high-quality touch display, called S-LCD 3 by its creators. In numbers, the physical parameters of the new screen are as follows: dimensions - 58x103 mm, diagonal - 119 mm (4.7 inches), resolution - Full HD 1080p ( 1920×1080 pixels), PPI pixel density is 469 ppi, which is now a record in the smartphone market. The HTC One display has both manual and automatic brightness adjustment, which is based on the operation of the light sensor. Multi-touch technology allows you to simultaneously process up to ten touches, which is confirmed by tests. It is curious that here this feature must be manually enabled in the settings, otherwise the screen will recognize only two simultaneous touches - such a strange know-how has already been seen in NTS devices before. There is also a proximity sensor that blocks the screen when you bring the smartphone to your ear.

A detailed examination of the display using measuring instruments was carried out by the editor of the “Monitors” and “Projectors and TV” sections, Alexey Kudryavtsev. Here is his expert opinion about the HTC One screen.

The smartphone screen is covered with a glass plate with a mirror-smooth surface and, judging by the reflection of bright light sources in it, has an anti-glare filter. There is a special and quite effective oleophobic (grease-repellent) coating on the outer surface of the screen, so fingerprints do not appear as quickly as with regular glass, but are removed more easily.

With manual brightness control, its maximum value was about 450 cd/m², and the minimum was 11 cd/m². The maximum value is quite high, so in bright daylight the screen will still be somewhat readable. In complete darkness, the brightness can be reduced to a comfortable level. There is automatic brightness adjustment using the light sensor (it is located in the upper left corner of the front panel): in complete darkness, the automatic brightness adjustment function reduces the brightness to 18 cd/m² (not very dim), in an office illuminated by artificial light it sets it to 81 cd/m² m² (acceptable), in a very bright environment it increases to a maximum of 450-460 cd/m² (as it should be). In automatic mode, as external lighting conditions change, the screen brightness both increases and decreases. There is no backlight flickering.

This smartphone has an IPS matrix. The micrograph shows a typical IPS subpixel structure:

The screen has good viewing angles without inverting shades and without significant color shifts, even with large viewing deviations from perpendicular to the screen. When deviated diagonally, the black field brightens quite a bit and, depending on the direction of the deviation, acquires a purple tint or remains almost neutral gray. When viewed perpendicularly, the uniformity of the black field is very good. The response time for the black-white-black transition is 21 ms (12 ms on + 9 ms off). The transition between halftones 25% and 75% (according to the numerical value of the color) and back takes a total of 33 ms. The contrast is good - about 950:1. The gamma curve constructed using 32 points did not reveal a blockage either in the highlights or in the shadows, and the index of the approximating power function is 2.23, which is close to the standard value of 2.2, while the real gamma curve deviates slightly from the power dependence:

Color gamut is sRGB:

Therefore, visually, the colors on this screen have natural saturation. The spectra show that the matrix filters moderately mix the components with each other:

The balance of shades on the gray scale is good: although the color temperature is above 6500 K, over the entire significant part of the gray scale this parameter does not change very much, while the deviation from the blackbody spectrum (delta E) is less than 10, which is considered for a consumer device a good indicator. (Dark areas of the gray scale can be ignored, since color balance there is not very important, and the error in measuring color characteristics at low brightness is large.)

As a result, we have a high-quality screen version on an IPS matrix that deserves high praise.

Sound

In terms of its sound, the HTC One smartphone is one of best solutions On the market. Of all the smartphones we've tested recently, only the Oppo Find 5 can compare with the HTC One in terms of sound quality. HTC One's speakers are located in the most unusual way - the creators never tire of reminding us of this in television advertising. The phone has two front-facing stereo speakers, and both of them face the front surface, and not the back, like most smartphones. The device produces not excessively loud, but very clear, smooth throughout the entire range, deep sound, rich in low frequencies. The openings of the speaker grilles on the front surface cannot be blocked by the surface of the table, so nothing prevents the sound from coming out (except, of course, for the option when you place the smartphone “face down”). The sound here is further processed and improved using HTC Boomsound and Beats Audio technologies.

There is an FM radio in the smartphone, but traditionally it only works when headphones are connected, which act as an antenna. There is also a standard voice recorder used for creating voice notes. Both applications should be found in separate folders, where icons of applications corresponding to the topics are carefully collected: radio in the Multimedia folder, and voice recorder in the Tools folder. Unfortunately, HTC One does not have a built-in ability to record telephone conversations by default.

Camera

Photo evaluation and quality conclusions were made by Anton Solovyov.

HTC One is equipped, like most modern smartphones, with two digital camera modules. The front camera, used for video communication, has a sensor with a resolution of 2.1 megapixels, an example of a picture is in front of you. In principle, the shooting quality for the front camera is not bad, you can even make out the text if you wish. The maximum resolution of images obtained using the front camera is 1920×1088 pixels.

For a 2-megapixel front camera, the quality is quite acceptable. In the center the text is quite legible, but at the edges the sharpness drops. The fragment with the barcode is already noticeably blurred.

The whole intrigue lies in the new module of the main, rear camera of the smartphone: here the developers installed a module with a resolution of only 4 megapixels. Explaining the resolution, which is so low by modern standards, the developers tirelessly repeat in their presentations that the number of megapixels doesn’t really mean anything, and suggest looking at the other characteristics of the new sensor. Which, by the way, constitute the most voluminous section in the list of specifications on the manufacturer’s website.

HTC UltraPixel Camera:

• Pixel size 2.0 µm
• Sensor size 1/3″, matrix back-illumination
• Custom HTC ImageChip 2 processor
• F2.0 aperture and [relatively] 28mm wide-angle lens

Colorful epithets and large pixel sizes do not help much yet: the pictures do not shine with special quality and leave much to be desired. “For now” - because there is an opinion that something may improve with the release of new software firmware for HTC One. At least, most fans of the HTC brand are now inclined to believe in it and are waiting. In the meantime, you can independently evaluate the quality of the resulting images by clicking on the thumbnails presented below. By default, the camera is set to shoot at a maximum resolution of 4 megapixels, and the pictures are 2688x1520 in size with an aspect ratio of 16:9.

Good detail for 4 MP. Slight distortions in the geometry indicate that perhaps the lens has too wide an angle. Nice color rendition.

And a few more photos taken with different settings in different lighting conditions.

Noticeable geometry distortion is quite normal for a wide-angle lens. There is no significant distortion. Small chromatic aberrations are noticeable in the fragment with the telephone wire.

Fairly uniform exposure across the entire field of the image with almost backlight.

A detailed examination of the image indicates either the absence of software sharpening or its good performance.

Examples of macro photography of close objects, as well as text from paper.

Strange deterioration in sharpness on the right side of the image. If the text on the left side is sharp, then on the right it seems to be out of focus. Most likely, just a bad photo.

Good sharpness on the branch. In addition, there is a pleasant absence of chromatic aberrations in the bokeh.

The video settings have four shooting modes: with a maximum Full HD resolution of 1080p, with the effects of fast (60 frames per second) and slow motion, as well as Full HD video using HDR technology.

The ability to shoot video with a smartphone camera in fast and slow modes, as well as use HDR technology when shooting video, are now fashionable “tricks” among manufacturers. We encountered the same set of capabilities when testing the Samsung Galaxy S4 and Oppo Find 5, as well as some other top-end smartphones. By the way, it is worth noting that high-speed shooting in Oppo Find 5 is carried out at a speed of 120 frames per second, while in HTC One it is only 60 frames per second. However, in Oppo this is achieved by reducing the video resolution to 480p, and in HTC One, although the speed is lower, the accelerated mode is implemented in a resolution of 720p. So it is clear from everything that the struggle on this new front is just beginning to unfold. In any case, for now, both of these “unusual” modes - slow and fast - can only be used when shooting in a lower resolution, and not in Full HD, so the image quality of the resulting videos always leaves much to be desired. Examples of video shooting in all four described modes are posted below.

• Video No. 1 (Regular, 30.5 MB, 1920×1080, 16:9, 30 fps, video - MPEG-4 AVC ( [email protected]), sound - AAC LC, 192 Kbps, 48 ​​kHz, 2 channels)
• Video No. 2 (Slow-motion, 11.9 MB, 768×432, 16:9, 23 fps, video - MPEG-4 AVC ( [email protected]), sound - AAC LC)
• Video No. 3 (Accelerated, 13.5 MB, 1280×720, 16:9, 60 fps, video - MPEG-4 AVC ( [email protected]), sound - AAC LC, 192 Kbps, 48 ​​kHz, 2 channels)
• Video No. 4 (HDR, 26.3 MB, 1920×1080, 16:9, 29 fps, video - MPEG-4 AVC ( [email protected]), sound - AAC LC, 192 Kbps, 48 ​​kHz, 2 channels)

And of course, we can’t help but mention another “find” - the photography mode, in which the camera not only takes several pictures in a row, but then glues them together into a whole micro-clip, capable of capturing some short event in motion. This is not a standard video shooting mode, but a slightly different one; this is evidenced even by the different resolution of the resulting micro-videos (1920×1088, and not 1920×1080, as with regular video shooting in Full HD). In principle, there is nothing special about this mode - probably in such cases it would be possible to get by with regular video shooting. Moreover, this format is not unique: at presentations of the Samsung Galaxy S4 they demonstrate exactly the same mode, capable of capturing short events in motion - a dance pirouette, for example. But for some reason, the developers at HTC decided to place a strong emphasis on this, allocated a separate button to this mode in the most prominent place on the screen, and even gave the mode its own unique name: Zoe. Examples of a couple of such “Zoe” are in front of you.

• Zoe №1 (3.82 MB, 1920×1088, 16:9, 24 fps, video - MPEG-4 AVC ( [email protected]), sound - AAC LC, 108 Kbps, 48 ​​kHz, 2 channels)
• Zoe №2 (3.74 MB, 1920×1088, 16:9, 24 fps, video - MPEG-4 AVC ( [email protected]), sound - AAC LC, 107 Kbps, 48 ​​kHz, 2 channels)

It is curious that in the phone’s memory, in addition to these Full HD videos, a whole series of photographs from the same video sequence was found, numbered with the marking “zoe”, but in a resolution different from the micro-clips - 2688x1520. That is, Zoe is a real serial shooting, and you can then work with individual frames from the series using built-in tools - in particular, choose the best one. Here, for example, are the “frames” related to “Zoe No. 2”:

As for the camera control settings, they are somehow unusually collected into a single long ribbon, in which you need to open the sub-items that interest you one by one. It's a little confusing at first, but then you get used to it. It is curious that there is no option to change the resolution of the resulting photographs; shooting is carried out only in one resolution. True, it is possible to “crop” to different aspect ratios. The settings also include the ability to link geotags, add graphic effects, enable face detection, smiles, panoramic shooting and, of course, manual settings for exposure, white balance, etc. The shutter sound can be turned off. You can also display a grid on the screen, which is convenient.

The HTC One does not have a separate hardware key on the side of the device to control the camera. You cannot release the camera shutter using the volume key here either, although this is now often practiced in smartphones from other companies. Here, even in shooting mode, this key still continues to adjust the sound volume, which is frankly surprising. On the positive side, we can note the ability to take photos while recording video; there is also a standard burst shooting capability.

Conclusions on the camera's capabilities for taking photos:

The camera is well suited for everyday photography, designed to capture interesting moments or important information. The advantages include a good exposure selection program, as well as an interesting implementation of macro photography. A significant drawback is the low camera resolution. It was done really well, but still the main task of the smartphone camera is more of a documentary than an artistic one. And here HTC One is almost three times inferior to the top-end smartphones of its competitors. On the other hand, it boasts good sharpness compared to some smartphones whose manufacturers do not consider a large number of pixels on the matrix to be a big liability.

Compared to the LG Nexus 4, the HTC One smartphone loses only in resolution. Edge sharpness drops on the Nexus, but not much. LG Optimus G, in turn, loses to HTC One in terms of the exposure selection program. In some places, its sharpness leaves much to be desired, despite the resolution of 13 megapixels. The same can be said about Sony Xperia Z, whose optics are clearly rather weak for such a “large” matrix. But the camera on the Oppo Find 5 smartphone is made very well: there is practically no drop in sharpness towards the edges of the image, and overall the sharpness of the image is good. The choice of exposure is also good. However, it also has geometric distortions, characteristic of all listed smartphones, as a result of the use of a wide-angle lens. The Samsung Galaxy S4 also copes well with photography, although it is somewhat inferior to the Oppo Find 5. Apparently, all manufacturers have almost managed to overcome chromatic aberrations and “white outlines”. Essentially, in this overall comparison, the HTC One lacks just a lot of resolution to truly call its camera one of the best among top-end smartphones.

Let us remember that the company deliberately abandoned high resolution, using a standard-sized matrix with a relatively small number of pixels. That is, the linear size of the photosensitive elements here is relatively large, which at a minimum should provide images from such a matrix with a reduced noise level. And in practice, we really see that in terms of noise, HTC One pictures definitely win. However, if you reduce the image of the same Oppo Find 5 to 4 megapixels, then in terms of detail and noise it will be no worse, and perhaps even better, than the HTC One version. It's no secret that good old cameras with a 4-5 megapixel matrix took cleaner pictures than early cameras with 12 megapixels. Now, through software processing, manufacturers are trying to achieve the same purity with higher resolution. HTC took the opposite route, trying to win with a lower resolution. The experiment is very interesting, but from the series “new is well-forgotten old.” However, we also note that it is impossible to objectively assess the noise and detail of a smartphone using field photographs (or rather, it is very difficult). In a good way, it requires filming the world in a specially prepared room, and we are not at all sure that our readers will be interested in these technical details when applied to a smartphone camera. Returning to the “user” level, we can give the following assessment: HTC managed to achieve the best quality of photographs, but this quality is manifested in the “beauty” of an artistic photograph, and not in the detail of a documentary one. For all its dislike for a large number of pixels on the matrix, we believe that HTC is not going quite the right way, since 4 megapixels is too small for a flagship smartphone - at least for those areas where a smartphone camera is usually used. This camera takes better pictures than the 5-megapixel cameras on previous HTC smartphones, so they should have gone for at least 6 megapixels.

In conclusion, we can say that the HTC One camera is well suited for shooting artistic scenes where you don't need to look at fine details.

Software

HTC One currently runs on the Google Android software platform version 4.1.2. On top of the standard OS interface, the company installed a proprietary shell called HTC Sense 5. The shell has undergone significant changes compared to previous versions. Literally everything has been completely redesigned here, from color schemes and the general organization of the desktop to strange, elongated fonts.

It is curious that the program menu in HTC One completely unexpectedly scrolls not horizontally, like everyone else, but vertically. This is so unusual for users who have previously had experience with the Android system that without a hint they still cannot figure out that they need to scroll vertically. Some people may find this more convenient, but those I asked were not too happy about such changes.

The default application menu itself looks “loose” - program icons are spaced a considerable distance from each other. However, the matrix of application icons can be made denser by changing the grid configuration in the settings from 3x4 to 4x5. The settings buttons for changing, sorting and searching through the program menu are not initially visible - they need to be called up by additionally pulling down the work screen, which is not entirely customary.

But the most noticeable innovation here seems to be HTC BlinkFeed. This is an independent service, built right into the home screen - a kind of widget on the desktop that cannot be removed. It is a live feed of constantly updated events, be it news from websites, social activities of friends, event announcements, and the like. According to HTC representatives, BlinkFeed brings together relevant content from various sources, which is collected and processed on the company's servers, and then published in the feed. The figure is announced at 10 thousand articles received daily from more than 1,400 media sources from around the world. According to the developers, all the most necessary and significant user will now be able to cover everything at one glance, without switching between various programs and websites. The content of the feed is divided into sections, and the owner of the HTS One smartphone is free to choose what topics he wants to receive information updates on in the BlinkFeed feed. The problem is different: the user cannot independently connect here other sources that are not initially included in the list of those processed by HTC servers for the BlinkFeed service. That is, the user can choose only within the limits limited by the choice of HTC itself. To switch from viewing BlinkFeed to the desktop, you need to perform a horizontal swipe on the screen - this will open the application menu.

There are not very many pre-installed programs. Some of them, such as the Polaris Office document management suite or the flashlight, may be useful. Moreover, office programs, for example, here you can not only open the usual Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents, but also edit and save them. There is even an interesting service called Rescue, with the help of which, supposedly, the user can receive remote technical support from the company’s specialists. We are impressed by the desire to refine the appearance of the application menu: as soon as Google added the ability to create folders for icons, manufacturers immediately began to neatly organize them by topic.

But, unfortunately, branded applications installed on HTC One do not work in our country. Wherever you click (HTC Watch, HTC TB...) - the programs report that they do not support our region, although they are correctly translated into Russian: Russia is simply not in the list of countries.

In HTC One, unexpectedly a lot of attention is paid to the “children's issue”. The smartphone has a built-in separate service that allows you to block children’s access to important settings, and this mode is even included in the menu when rebooting as a separate item. Obviously, this may be useful to someone, although nowadays it may be easier to buy a child his own inexpensive electronic toy than to trust such an expensive parent device.

Telephone and communications

The radio part of the tested HTC One smartphone is stable; no random signal losses or dropouts from the telecom operator's network were noticed. The screen is large, drawing keys, numbers and letters for dialing and the virtual keyboard for typing SMS messages is quite convenient. HTC One pays a lot of attention to the methods of entering information, there is a standard ability to enter with a stroke, and even a whole tutorial has been compiled on the topic “how to type easier.”

No freezes, reboots or spontaneous shutdowns were observed during testing. It is convenient to reboot the phone using a menu that pops up after a long press of the power button. When you bring it to your ear, the screen is blocked by the proximity sensor. The light sensor controls the screen brightness level automatically. There is a convenient LED event indicator, which is not built in the most ordinary way: the indicator does not have its own “window”, but shines directly through the holes in the top speaker grille.

The device is equipped with modern network interfaces and wireless communication modules: Bluetooth version 4.0, Wi-Fi 802.11a/ac/b/g/n (this is the first announced device with support for 802.11ac!), there is support for Wi-Fi Direct, DLNA and the ability to organize points Wi-Fi access. The Micro-USB connector supports MHL and OTG modes: a 32 GB flash drive connected to the device via an adapter was perfectly recognized and mounted as a separate storage. As for MHL, we tested this mode in detail in the section on video playback.

We separately tested the new Wi-Fi standard 802.11ac, which HTC One claims to support. Testing was carried out with the ASUS RT-AC66U router - one of two models supporting the 802.11ac standard present on the local market. As a reminder, this new version of the standard only operates in the 5 GHz band and provides more than double the speed of 802.11n. In the case of smartphones, most often only one antenna is used, so connection speeds in this case can be a maximum of 150 Mbps for 802.11n and 433 Mbps for 802.11ac. Actual performance is usually about half that. In addition, many mobile devices do not even support dual-channel operation, resulting in a 72 Mbps limitation for 802.11n.

Despite the stated support for 802.11a/b/g/n/ac, we were only able to get a connection from the device at the typical 802.11g speed of 54 Mbit/s. At the same time, the actual performance was slightly more than 20 Mbit/s. We put a lot of effort into setting up the router, but the smartphone was unable to see the 5 GHz band, so tests were not carried out in 802.11ac mode. Most likely, the situation is due to the use of a pre-sale sample. If possible, we will definitely return to this issue later.

HTC One also has support for NFC, a short-range high-frequency wireless communication technology that makes it possible to exchange data between devices located at a distance of about 10 centimeters. This technology is aimed primarily at use in mobile phones and payment terminals, and in some countries it is already being widely used for contactless payments, paying for public transport, or even personal identification. In our country, NFC has not yet become widespread, but now the user of a smartphone that supports this technology, can try it out in action. All you need to do is download and install the Yandex.Metro application, which, when you hold a travel ticket to your phone, can show the expiration dates and the number of trips remaining. Another application is offered by the domestic cellular operator MTS, which organized NFC support for making contactless payments. The Mobile Wallet kit includes a special MTS SIM card with MasterCard PayPass technology, linked to an MTS Money bank card. In addition, the kit comes with an NFC antenna, which must be placed in the SIM card slot. That is, for such contactless payments, in any case, just a smartphone is not enough - you also need to obtain and insert a new special SIM card into it, and also open a corresponding account at MTS Bank. But in the case of a phone that supports NFC technology, you won’t also have to install an antenna - but this is not so simple, and in the iPhone, where the SIM card is pushed into the body through a slot, it simply won’t be possible to install it.

The GPS module is assisted in determining the location by A-GPS technology; with its help, orientation on the terrain is carried out almost instantly. If you turn off all wireless communication modules, a cold start with searching for satellites and determining the location will take one and a half minutes. The phone also claims to support the Russian satellite navigation service Glonass.

Performance

The HTC One hardware platform is based on the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 single-chip system. It includes a quad-core Krait 300 CPU with a frequency of 1.7 GHz and an Adreno 320 GPU. According to the creators, new system Delivers 40% more performance than the previous generation Snapdragon S4 Pro system while reducing power consumption by 30%.

The amount of RAM in HTC One is 2 GB. System memory The smartphone comes with 32 or 64 GB, depending on the selected configuration. In our case, the storage accessible to the user for uploading your own files was about 25 GB with a nominal designated volume of 32 GB. When a smartphone is connected to a PC, its internal storage is mounted as an independent removable disk. Unfortunately, the HTC One did not provide the ability to expand memory using microSD cards, so the user will have to be content with only these 25 GB for all his needs.

We compared the HTC One's hardware performance in various popular tests with the performance of other top-end modern smartphones we've previously tested. Most of them, by the way, are built on the very previous Snapdragon S4 Pro platform mentioned above. Therefore, it is quite expected that a device based on the new Snapdragon 600, according to test results, was in the forefront in comparison with its competitors. HTC One demonstrated very high performance results, standing on par with the Samsung Galaxy S4 and leaving behind other top-end smartphones of our time, such as Google Nexus 4, LG Optimus G, HTC One X+ and Samsung Galaxy Note II. We present summary data with a comparison of results based on the AnTuTu test database. Our own data differs slightly from these, but the general balance of forces is clearly clear.

Below are the results of testing HTC One in the new version of GLBenchmark - 2.7.0, where a new T-Rex HD scene of increased complexity was added. As we remember, even such a powerful system as the Oppo Find 5 produced only 13 fps in this test. The new Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 platform in HTC One handled this difficult test better, but only slightly - 15 fps.

Play video and connect to an external screen

To test the omnivorous nature of video playback (including support for various codecs, containers and special features, such as subtitles), we used the most common formats, which make up the bulk of the content available on the Internet. Note that for mobile devices it is important to have support for hardware video decoding at the chip level, since it is most often impossible to process modern options using processor cores alone. Also, you shouldn’t expect a mobile device to decode everything, since the leadership in flexibility belongs to the PC, and no one is going to challenge it.

Format	Container, video, sound	MX Video Player	Standard video player
DVDRip	AVI, XviD 720×400 2200 Kbps, MP3+AC3	plays normally	plays normally
Web-DL SD	AVI, XviD 720×400 1400 Kbps, MP3+AC3	plays normally	plays normally
Web-DL HD	MKV, H.264 1280×720 3000 Kbps, AC3
BDRip 720p	MKV, H.264 1280×720 4000 Kbps, AC3	The video plays normally, the sound is only software¹	The video plays fine, but there is no sound¹
BDRip 1080p	MKV, H.264 1920×1080 8000 Kbps, AC3	The video plays normally, the sound is only software¹	The video plays fine, but there is no sound¹

¹ sound in MX Video Player was played only after switching to software decoding; The standard player does not have this setting

Additionally, the MHL interface was tested. To test it, we used an LG IPS237L monitor that supports direct MHL connection using a passive adapter cable from Micro-USB to HDMI. In this case, output via MHL is carried out in a resolution of 1920 by 1080 pixels with a frequency of 30 frames/s. Display on the monitor screen in portrait orientation of the smartphone screen is carried out in portrait orientation only if the current program does not support landscape orientation in principle, while on the monitor screen the height of the image is slightly less than the height of the display area, and black fields are displayed on the right and left. In all other cases, regardless of the orientation of the smartphone, the image on its screen and on the monitor screen is forced to be displayed in landscape orientation. Unfortunately, the image is displayed on the monitor in a slightly reduced form so that black stripes remain around the perimeter. There seems to be no way to disable this output. As a result, the actual resolution on the monitor screen is lower than on the screen of the smartphone itself, that is, less than Full HD. Sound is output via MHL (in this case, the sounds were heard through headphones connected to the monitor, since there are no speakers in the monitor itself) and is of good quality. At the same time, at least multimedia sounds are not output through the loudspeaker of the smartphone itself, and the volume is controlled by buttons on the smartphone body. The smartphone connected via MHL is charging.

Video output using the standard player deserves a special description. To begin with, using a set of test files with an arrow and a rectangle moving one division per frame (see Methodology for testing video playback and display devices. Version 1), we checked how the video is displayed on the screen of the smartphone itself. Screenshots with a shutter speed of 1 s helped determine the nature of the output of frames of video files with various parameters: the resolution varied (1280 by 720 (720p) and 1920 by 1080 (1080p) pixels) and frame rate (24, 25, 30, 50 and 60 frames/ With). The results of this (block entitled " Screen") and the following test are tabulated:

File	Uniformity	Passes
Screen
watch-1920x1080-60p.mp4	did not play
watch-1920x1080-50p.mp4	Badly	few
watch-1920x1080-30p.mp4	Fine	No
watch-1920x1080-25p.mp4	Fine	No
watch-1920x1080-24p.mp4	Fine	No
watch-1280x720-60p.mp4	Great	No
watch-1280x720-50p.mp4	Fine	No
watch-1280x720-30p.mp4	Fine	No
watch-1280x720-25p.mp4	Fine	No
watch-1280x720-24p.mp4	Fine	No
MHL (monitor)
watch-1920x1080-60p.mp4	did not play
watch-1920x1080-50p.mp4	Badly	a lot of
watch-1920x1080-30p.mp4	Fine	few
watch-1920x1080-25p.mp4	Badly	No
watch-1920x1080-24p.mp4	Badly	No
watch-1280x720-60p.mp4	Badly	a lot of
watch-1280x720-50p.mp4	Badly	a lot of
watch-1280x720-30p.mp4	Badly	No
watch-1280x720-25p.mp4	Badly	No
watch-1280x720-24p.mp4	Badly	No
MHL (adapter)
watch-1280x720-60p.mp4	Badly	a lot of
watch-1280x720-50p.mp4	Badly	a lot of
watch-1280x720-30p.mp4	Badly	No
watch-1280x720-25p.mp4	Badly	No
watch-1280x720-24p.mp4	Badly	No

Note: If both the Uniformity and Dropout columns are rated green, this means that when watching movies, there will most likely be no or no amount of artifacts caused by frame spacing or dropouts visible. will not affect viewing comfort. "Red" marks indicate possible problems related to the playback of the corresponding files.

Only one file plays perfectly - 1280x720 at 60 fps, in all other cases the intervals between frames alternate unevenly, in one case a small part of the frames is skipped, and 1080p files at 60 fps are not played back. However, except for these two cases, it is quite difficult to visually notice artifacts. Note that uniform alternation of frames, if it exists, is still a relatively unstable state, since some external and internal background processes lead to periodic failure of the correct alternation of intervals between frames. When playing video files with Full HD resolution (1920x1080 pixels) on the smartphone screen, the image of the video file itself is displayed one-on-one, exactly along the border of the screen in true Full HD resolution. The brightness range displayed on the screen slightly does not correspond to the original one - in the shadows three or four shades of gray are indistinguishable from black, but in the highlights all gradations of shades are displayed (for video in the range 16-235). It is impossible not to note the relatively good - loud and good quality - stereo sound that is created by two spaced apart speakers of this smartphone. As a result, it is not at all necessary to wear headphones to watch a movie, unless, of course, the sound disturbs those around you.

With a monitor connected via MHL, when playing a video with a standard player, the image of the video file itself is displayed both on the smartphone screen and on the connected monitor, but information elements and virtual controls are displayed only on the smartphone screen. When playing video files with Full HD resolution (1920×1080 pixels), due to the non-disabled overscan, as noted above, the actual image resolution on the monitor screen is slightly less than Full HD resolution. The brightness range displayed on the monitor corresponds to the original one - all gradations of shades are displayed in highlights and shadows (for video in the range 16-235). The results of the monitor output tests are shown in the table above in the “MHL (monitor)” block. The output quality is not high, since the intervals between frames (or between groups of frames) alternate unevenly, and in some cases frames are skipped.

Additionally, video output (with a standard player) via MHL using an MHL adapter was tested. When using this adapter, output to the monitor was carried out in 720p mode at 60 fps, which determined the maximum actual image resolution. With the exception of resolution and frame rate, everything else - the nature of the interface output, charging, sound output and gray scale - did not differ from direct connection by MHL. The test results are shown in the table above in the “MHL (adapter)” block. The conclusion is similar - the output quality is low.

As a result, it turns out that the implementation of the MHL interface in the HTC One smartphone has a number of serious shortcomings. However, this type of connection can, in principle, be used for games, watching movies, displaying web pages, etc., but you will need to come to terms with a decrease in actual resolution and periodic twitching of the picture when displaying a dynamic image.

Battery life

The capacity of the lithium polymer battery installed in HTC One is 2300 mAh. The battery is non-removable, so you won’t be able to remove it and replace it with a new one yourself.

The smartphone demonstrated very good performance in terms of duration battery life, leaving a little behind all the top new products we have tested recently. Here are the results of testing the test subject in several battery modes.

Continuous reading in the FBReader program at a minimum comfortable brightness level (brightness was set to approximately 100 cd/m²) for 2 hours consumed only 14% of the full battery charge, and two hours of watching YouTube videos in high quality (HQ) via a home network The Wi-Fi device has used up 27% of its battery capacity. At maximum load in continuous 3D game mode (100% brightness, 60 fps), the smartphone worked for 2 hours 14 minutes. HTC One is fully charged in 2 hours.

Prices

The average retail price of the device in rubles in Moscow at the time of reading the article can be found by moving the mouse to the price tag.

Bottom line

As for the cost, official sales of the HTC smartphone in Russia have already started. From April 10, the smartphone was supposed to start being sold in most retail chains and stores at a recommended price of 29,990 rubles. This time there will be no exclusive contracts with individual sellers, which is understandable: the company is not in a position now to dictate its terms to anyone. Thus, the smartphone will be sold in all stores, and those who pre-ordered on the websites of the company and all its key partners will receive a smartphone at a price of 27,990 rubles. Compared to the flagships of other companies, this is a very attractive price, and the smartphone turned out to be quite interesting. Of the obvious advantages, it has a reliable body made of high-quality and durable materials, as well as a powerful, most advanced hardware platform to date. Relative disadvantages include a strange camera, an inconvenient combination and location of all hardware buttons, as well as the need to get acquainted with the “finds” of the developers expressed in the software and interface, such as the vertical program menu and BlinkFeed, for example.

For a set of innovative solutions concentrated in one product, flavored with a non-standard attractive appearance, the HTC One smartphone certainly deserves our award.

If among the huge variety of mobile devices it is sometimes difficult to find the most suitable one for everyday needs, then what about devices for specific purposes? Below we present a list of the 17 top Android smartphones of the month, from which you can choose the ideal option for yourself or your loved ones based on your needs, tastes and budget.

At least HTC One and appeared, but the smartphone is still a very reliable device. To get the most out of your device, you must update its operating system in a timely manner, and this can be done in two ways: using OTA updates or using custom ROMs. Both procedures will not only allow you to get all the latest innovations, but also increase the performance of the device. Additionally, updates often come with new customization options.We'll go into more detail on how to properly update your operating system below. HTC One.

When comparing flagship smartphones, we constantly forget about more budget devices. Of course, top-end devices always delight the eye with advanced hardware and various interesting innovations, but not everyone needs super-expensive mobile phones. Next, we will make a small comparison of the brightest budget smartphones, as well as those devices that a year ago were the flagships of large companies, but have now become noticeably cheaper, and have been replaced by updated models. , last year of release, Galaxy Grand 2, and also – here are the participants in today’s fight.

HTC One M8 joined the list of flagship smartphones this year. The device has surpassed its predecessor in everything, but what about its competitors? Do you have a chance for championship, and how big are they? Next, we will try to figure this out by comparing the smartphone with the latest creation Google.

Became the new flagship of the company. In addition to a huge number of updates in the field of hardware and software, the smartphone also received a special case Dot View. The new case differs from existing ones in that it has a perforated front membrane that protects the device’s display. Special software was developed especially for this case, which allows you not only to see all notifications without removing the protective membrane from the smartphone, but also to interact with the device. Although it is not yet possible to buy a cover, the application is already available for download.

HTC One (M7) turned out to be a surprisingly tough nut to crack: the smartphone managed to stay afloat for almost the entire year after the start of sales, but now the time has come for a new flagship. Present to your attention HTC One (M8) – a device that will become a business card HTC in 2014. Read on to learn about its main characteristics and fundamental differences from its older brother.

In case you suddenly decided to buy yourself a new smartphone this month, we have prepared a selection of the best mobile phones on the operating system Android, which are on sale now. The list does not yet include several top devices that were presented earlier, but they will only go on sale in the coming months.

It's time to take stock of the past year. In 2013, many different interesting Android devices: hardware has become more powerful, displays have become larger, and the operating system has become more agile. Of course, there were various kinds of disappointments, but that’s not what we’re talking about now. Let's leave all the negative moments in the past and try to remember again five best Android smartphones of the past year.

If you want to buy a Google Pixel 2, but don't want to spend money, take a look at the HTC U11 Life on Android One, created by the same manufacturer as the Pixel 2 smartphones.

The latest version of Android Oreo OS, complemented by a full version of Edge Sense (launch applications by pressing the sides of the phone, the “frame”) and USonic sound settings. The phone is guaranteed to receive OS updates for two years and security patches for three.

The U11 Life smartphone from HTC has IP67 protection, which is very rare in this price category, one of the best headphones and a truly competitive camera. Design elements and functionality were completely borrowed from HTC U11. Despite all positive points, the U11 Life, just like the Pixel 2 and HTC U11, has its drawbacks.

The layout of the elements in the HTC U11 Life is very similar to the flagship U11, the only difference being the absence of antenna strips on the edges. The SIM card tray and buttons remain in the same places.

The camera remains in the same place, only it has become a little larger and uses a single flash. Instead of Gorilla glass like the U11, the U11 Life gets polycarbonate glass and an acrylic back panel. Looks stylish, but scratches more easily.

The glossy back is prone to fingerprints, I would recommend using a case. The USB connector and speaker are located at the bottom, they just swapped places. Unfortunately, the U11 Life does not inherit the BoomSound Hi-Fi Edition speaker system from the flagship model.

Hardware

The HTC U11 Life smartphone uses a bottom panel to house capacitive navigation buttons and a fingerprint scanner. The navigation buttons work well and can be illuminated or turned off completely. The fingerprint scanner is reliable, but not as fast as on more expensive phones.

Port USB Type-C located to the right of the mono speaker. It took me a while to get used to it, so I put the charging cable in the wrong place several times.

In the nano-SIM tray, on the top edge of the phone, there is a microSD card slot that allows us to expand the memory. There are two versions of the HTC U11 Life, coming with 3GB and 4GB RAM, with the 4GB/64GB version being an online exclusive product only available through HTC.com. Under the hood of all U11 Life models is the mid-range Snapdragon 630 chipset, which is not bad, but I would like to see a Snapdragon 660.

With IP67 water resistance, this HTC phone can be kept in up to 1 meter of fresh water for up to half an hour, which is good addition for a mid-range smartphone. Like the U11 flagship, Life lacks a 3.5mm headphone jack, although HTC is trying to compensate for this in other ways. The budget U11 Life supports fast Bluetooth 5, so you can enjoy higher bandwidth and wider range for compatible accessories.

Smartphone screen

The 5.2-inch Full HD display of the HTC U11 Life turned out to be a pleasant surprise. Life's Super LCD panel offers rich colors, good dynamic range, stable viewing angles and exceptional brightness (over 500 nits).

The display sensor does not always respond the first time; sometimes you have to press harder. But in general, the screen quality here corresponds to the level of the best mid-priced devices.

Software

Some people find HTC's Touch Frame feature useless. I found it very intuitive and use it all the time. A short press launches the camera app, regardless of whether the phone is unlocked or not. Long press, switches modes between front and rear camera. A short press in one of the cameras mode takes a photo. This is a handy feature on the HTC U11 Life if you have gloved hands or can't use the camera as usual.

Outside the camera app, a long press will usually launch Google Assistant (can be configured). The assistant is also activated using voice or by long pressing the Home button.

The HTC Edge Sense application allows you to configure a specific action for a specific press. The main thing is to remember where and what you have configured, and using the phone will become much more interesting. Here you can also adjust the degree of pressure on the frame or turn it off if not necessary.

The HTC U11 Life phone runs on the latest Android Oreo operating system out of the box. The gadget also provides security updates for three years, which is rare.

Stock Android Oreo on the U11 Life runs as smoothly and reliably as expected. HTC has never had any problems with performance, even with the Sense shell, which is not surprising. There are also Oreo benefits here, like running in the background and limiting data caching to better utilize the smartphone's available resources and extend battery life.

Speaker and headset sound

The new HTC U11 Life also offers a USonic sound setting, found in the Settings menu. The gadget comes bundled with a pair of excellent headphones. They use USonic software, where everything can be customized to a specific profile.

HTC USonic essentially uses sonar to scan your ear canal. Just insert the headphones, press the button until a short beep appears, and that’s it. Now the sound in the headphones is tuned to the highest quality for each ear. This setting can be turned off at any time.

The lack of a 3.5mm jack on the U11 Life will disappoint many. The kit doesn't even include an adapter, which completely eliminates the possibility of connecting a wired headset. But, the adapter can be purchased on the NTS website. Even with an adapter, standard HTC headphones will not work, since HTC uses a digital protocol here that is not supported by other companies.

You shouldn't expect anything special from the front speaker. He plays loudly, but not always efficiently. The sound is sometimes empty, which is especially noticeable at low frequencies.

Phone performance

Here you need to understand the price range of the HTC U11 Life; naturally, flagship performance will be absent here. Despite not having the best specs, the phone is largely similar to the Moto X4 and showed decent results in tests.

The software runs as smoothly and stably as gadgets costing twice as much. Of course, the processor in the U11 Life does not always cope with the multitasking that the user requires, so there are occasional stutters. There were no problems when working on social networks, playing videos, or browsing websites.

Battery and autonomy

The use of the Snapdragon 630 processor increases the autonomy of the HTC U11 Life, even with a small battery. Despite the 2600 mAh, when the screen is on, the charge lasts for 4.5 – 5.5 hours.

Connected to a 5V/2A charger, the U11 Life Android One charges in just over an hour and a half from 0 to 100%. After half an hour of charging, the device shows just under 50%. In general, battery life is far from ideal and is average for the market.

The HTC U11 Life phone is equipped with 16 MP front and 16 MP rear cameras with f/2.0 aperture. There is no optical stabilization here, and this, of course, affects a lot. But, the colors in the photo are accurate and even, without oversaturation. Of course, in low light there is noise, and the shutter sometimes responds with a slight delay.

The color reproduction of the U11 Life cameras is quite accurate. Enabling the HDR Boost mode smooths out the disadvantages of poor detail and lighting. The result is decent photographs. Overall, in terms of photo quality, this is a good smartphone, but not a flagship.

The HTC U11 Life shoots video in 4K at 30 frames per second and has a six-minute time limit. Hi-Res audio recording in video is supported (which is disabled by default whenever video quality settings are changed).

HTC's camera app has a variety of other modes, including a professional RAW mode, along with hyperplane and slow motion (720p at 120fps). With patience and a steady hand, you can get some really, really good photos.

Bottom line

Is it worth spending $350 (RUR 25,000) on HTC U11 Life? I cannot say unequivocally that “Yes”. Taking into account the not very productive processor and small battery.

The price is still a little high, it is not exorbitant, but not everyone can afford it. There are now many other competitive devices in this price range, with better performance, useful features, dual cameras and a 3.5mm jack.

In the end, I can only say one thing for sure: if you buy U11 Life, you will not be disappointed, and if you see promotions or discounts, this is one of the best offers today.

Benefits of HTC U11 Life

• Great software and OS
• Guaranteed updates
• Superior LCD display
• Flagship design
• Good camera
• Great headphones
• IP67 protection

Disadvantages of U11 Life

• Small battery
• Not the best performance
• Limited audio options

Inexpensive flagship smartphone HTC U11 Life - video review

If you find an error, the video does not work, please select a piece of text and click Ctrl+Enter.

The near stock version of Android Oreo on the U11 Life runs just as smoothly and reliably as you’d expect. HTC has never had any real issues with software performance even with its Sense skin, so this should come as no surprise. Various Oreo-specific benefits are present here too, like background execution and cached data limits to better utilize the phone’s available resources and prolong battery life.

Audio

HTC also has its USonic audio tuning baked into the Settings menu. The U11 Life comes bundled with a pair of excellent USB Type-C USonic earbuds too. They can be used with the USonic software to tune the U11 Life’s audio to your particular hearing profile.

If you're unfamiliar, HTC USonic essentially uses sonar to map your ear canal. There’s really nothing to it, simply insert the super-comfortable buds, tap a button to emit a short audio signal and it’s done. Your USonic active noise canceling earbuds are now tuned specifically to your ears. Of course, the tuning can be disabled at any time.

I’m far from an audiophile, but even my ears can appreciate the richer bass and punchier highs USonic enables. Disabling the feature flattens everything out a little, and while this adds more to the mid-range I prefer the crispy highs and solid low end the USonic buds produce. They’re also admirably spatial for included headphones and have active noise cancellation to boot, another rare bonus at this price point.

How Oreo is better than Nougat: Audio

Android 8.0 Oreo brings with it a host of new features, improvements, and overhauls to the core Android feature set. Personally, I thought that the introduction of more Bluetooth audio options was one of the more interesting?

Audio on the HTC U 11 Life is also fine if you want to use Android Oreo’s high-end Bluetooth codecs like or and aptX-HD with compatible wireless headphones. The absence of a 3.5mm headphone jack will be made or break for many, and there isn’t even a USB Type-C to 3.5mm adapter in the box. HTC sells a digital adapter on its website though, which includes a built-in DAC.

Despite the excellence of the USonic earbuds, your alternative audio options are limited. Besides the bundled USonic buds, there’s not many USB Type-C headphones on the market that we’d actually recommend. You can buy the dongle from HTC for your wired cans (because a regular “dumb” adapter won’t work with the U11 Life) or you can switch to Bluetooth headphones.

It’s also worth noting that the USonic buds won’t work with the majority of other phones either. Plug them into the USB Type-C port of the , or and audio will continue coming out of the external speakers rather than switching to the buds. This is because HTC uses a digital protocol not supported by many other companies. The USonic buds worked just fine with the though.

The USonic earbuds are really your best option, with no BoomSound stereo speakers

Even without the wired headphone issue, there’s no stereo BoomSound Hi-Fi Edition speakers on the U11 Life, just the single mono speaker on the bottom edge. Although the U11 Life’s speaker is apparently built to be heard from the front, don’t expect it to be anywhere near up to par with other U11 devices. I’ll grant that it’s relatively loud, it just doesn’t sound great. As far as audio on the U11 Life goes, the USonic buds are really your best option.

Performance

At this price range you have to expect less than flagship performance, but the U11 Life still performs admirably. Despite its mediocre specs sheet, which it shares to a large degree with the Moto X4, the U11 Life performs decently in benchmarking apps, the results of which you can peruse below. More importantly than numbers, in everyday usage the software runs as smooth and stable as most smartphones that cost twice as much. It's just not as snappy.

Oreo runs as smooth and stable as most smartphones that cost twice as much. It"s just not as snappy

The U11 Life is naturally not up to the serious processor-hungry tasks a power user might demand, and apps are slower to launch than a flagship owner would be used to. Over the course of a week I never encountered any circumstances where the U11 Life simply couldn’t handle a task or took too long to launch an app or menu. It’s simply a matter of adjusting your expectations and moving on.

If you’re at all concerned about performance (and even if you’re not), you might want to pop the extra cash to get the version with more storage and RAM, just to be on the safe side. The Snapdragon 630 is a slightly disappointing chipset choice, because considering the Google Pixel 2 also ships with 64 GB of storage and 4 GB of RAM, a U11 Life with a slightly beefier chipset could have been very competitive.

Battery

The upshot of the Snapdragon 630 is that the U11 Life does a lot with the minimal battery capacity it has. A 2,600 mAh cell won’t get anyone excited, but combined with Android Oreo and the small, low resolution display, the U11 Life regularly got me between 4.5-5.5 hours of screen-on time. I was never worried about it dying before the end of the day, but it did occasionally get close later at night.

With the included 5V/2A brick, the HTC U11 Life Android One takes a little over an hour and a half to fully charge a depleted battery. Half an hour or so of charging will get you just under 50 percent battery.

As with most choices in the mid-range, it’s a game of trade-offs. I might lament the absence of a beefier chipset that would’ve nudged the U11 Life a little closer to the Pixel 2 in terms of performance, but the Snapdragon 630 does a good job of keeping the lights on as long as it does. But battery life is far from a strong point of the U11 Life, and might even be its weakest point barring audio options beyond the bundled earbuds.

Camera

On the other hand, the camera is a surprising strength. The phone’s 16 MP f/2.0 cameras on the front and back produce very good photos for a phone in this price range. There’s no dual-camera bokeh trickery or zoom lenses, but the basics have been nailed.

Best Android smartphone cameras (February 2018)

In recent years, smartphones have effectively replaced point-and-shoot cameras, and many even outperform them. For many of us, these portable computers have become our main camera, making photo quality a priority when picking a new one.

As with almost any phone these days, the true measure of a camera comes in low light conditions. An f/2.0 aperture isn’t super wide, but it’s perfectly sufficient for most low-light scenes. You’ll need a decently steady hand though, as the U11 Life doesn’t feature OIS. Its phase detection auto-focus (rear camera only) is reliable though.

I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the low light photos captured by the U11 Life. Having just gotten used to the Mate 10 Pro’s tendency to crush blacks while obliterating all noise, the U11 Life was a nice reprieve. Noise only just creeps into shots taken in very dark environments, the kind that would defeat almost all phones, no matter the cost. Generally speaking, the U11 Life minimized noise to an admirable degree while maintaining good colors and range.

I found that the U11 Life tended to slightly underexpose shots, but you can easily tap to focus and then adjust the exposure compensation slider to get it right for each scene. If you prefer to tap the screen to auto-expose, that’s available as an option in the camera settings. The U11 Life struggled a bit with blown out highlights in dark settings, but that’s true of almost any phone.

Colors are accurate and even, without over-saturation, though they’re unlikely to be punchy enough for some. The U11 Life captures a good amount of detail in good lighting, but things get a little muddy in the dark. Sooner or later noise is unavoidable. The U11 Life’s lowlight shooting was better than I expected and you can see just how well it performs against the Pixel 2 in the images below.

HTC U11 Life Android One
Google Pixel 2

Daytime shots produce very balanced photos and like almost all smartphone cameras nowadays, you’d be hard pressed to mess up a photo on a sunny day. Having the same camera on the front and back of the phone is nice too, especially for the selfie inclined, but a 16 MP selfie shooter seems a little like overkill. I would’ve much preferred a more sedate front-facing camera and the addition of OIS on the main camera instead.

The phone"s 16 MP f/2.0 cameras on the front and back produce very good photos for a phone in this price range

Both cameras have HDR Boost which handles dynamic range quite well, even if it does slow things down a little. The camera app isn’t the fastest thing about the U11 Life and had noticeable shutter lag. I’d love to convince myself it was intentional on HTC’s part to avoid camera shake when hitting the shutter button or using Edge Sense, but it’s ultimately down to the chipset used. Nevertheless, it is something you get used to.

Specs

	HTC U11 Life Android One
Display	5.2-inch Super LCD 1,920 x 1,080 resolution 424 ppi Corning Gorilla Glass 3
Processor	Qualcomm Snapdragon 630 Mobile Platform Octa-core
RAM	3/4 GB
Storage	32/64 GB
MicroSD	Yes, up to 2 TB
Cameras	Main camera: 16 MP sensor with f/2.0 aperture, PDAF, slow-motion video, 4K video recording Front camera: 16 MP fixed focus sensor with f/2.0 aperture, 1080p video recording
Battery	2,600 mAh Non-removable
Sensors	Edge Sensor Ambient light sensor Proximity sensor Motion G-sensor Compass sensor Gyro sensor Magnetic sensor Fingerprint sensor
Connectivity	USB Type-C (2.0) Bluetooth 5.0 Wi-Fi: 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac (2.4 & 5 GHz) NFC
Network	2G/2.5G GSM/GPRS/EDGE - 850/900/1800/1900 MHz 3G UMTS - 850/900/AWS/1900/2100 MHz - HSDPA 42, HSUPA 5.76 4G LTE - FDD: Bands 1,2,3,4,5,7,12,13,17,20,28, 66 with 2CA, 3CA - Support Cat 9 LTE: downloads up to 450Mbps, uploads up to 50Mbps - VoLTE and Wi-Fi calling(where supported)
SIM	Nano
Sound	Mono speaker HTC USonic earbuds with Active Noise Cancellation High resolution audio recording
IP rating	IP67
Software	Android 8.0 Oreo Google Assistant Edge Sense
Dimensions and weight	149.09 x 72.9 x 8.1 mm 142 g

Pricing and final thoughts

Should you spend ‚¬350 on the HTC U11 Life? I can’t give you a definitive “yes”. There's simply too many other competitive devices in that price range right now that now you'd need to check out first, some of which offer dual cameras and other things that might be make or break for you like the presence of a 3.5 mm headphone port .

What I can say though is that if you do buy it, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. If the issues raised above aren’t the kinds of things that would immediately put you off a phone, the U11 Life Android One offers a whole lot of good stuff, from software and design to display and camera.

My biggest gripe with the U11 Life is the feeling that it’s slightly overpriced. That’s ultimately due to its chipset and battery size. If and when this phone goes on sale, I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it – assuming you can make peace with its slower performance and a smaller battery.

If you do spend ‚¬350 on the HTC U11 Life I don"t think you"ll be at all disappointed.

The HTC U11 Life Android One is now on sale in Europe for €349/€379. The Sense version went on sale in the US on November 3 unlocked for $349 and via T-Mobile for $300.

As much as I know the U11 Life is far from the perfect mid-range phone for everyone, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my time with it and will be sad to see it go. I opened this review with a reference to the Pixel 2, and I'll end it with a reference to a device I also came to love, warts and all: the Nexus 5. In some ways the U11 Life feels like the Nexus 5: it has its flaws, but if you're willing to accept them, you're in for a real treat.

I want to tell you some things that may be useful to you when using a device on the Android 4.0 operating system and specifically on . I will write tips on how to take a screenshot, how to update Android on HTC One V and a few other useful tips.

It’s just that I’ve often come across such questions on forums, and they answer them endlessly all the time, although there is a FAQ for each device, I’m now entering the forum http://4pda.ru/forum. So, I’ll collect here a few questions, and of course the answers to them.

The HTC One V smartphone seems to me to have become quite popular, even judging by the number of reviews on Rozetka. So let's look at the most frequently asked questions about this device, which I've had for three months now and am very happy with.

How to take a screenshot in Android 4.0?

I don’t know for sure, but it seems to me that this method works on all Android devices. Everything is done very simply, hold down the power/lock button of the device and press the home key. The screenshot will be saved immediately, for example on One V it is saved in the “All pictures” folder.

I'm still waiting for the update to Android 4.1 :) I don't know how things are going with this now, I'll have to look for information, but that's not what I'm talking about right now. There have already been several updates on the One V, and the phone itself checks for updates, but you can check for yourself whether there is anything new. To do this, go to settings, select the very last item “About phone” and click “Check now”. If there are no updates, the phone will tell you about it, and if there are, it will offer to update the software.

What kind of glass does the HTC One V Gorilla glass have or not?

This question was very relevant as soon as the device appeared on the market. But even now I think many people are interested in what kind of glass protects the screen on our phone. I may upset you now, but this device does not have Gorilla glass. The glass is tempered and very powerful, but not from a well-known company; when it fell, there was not a trace on the screen. I think I wrote about this.

Is it possible to remove HTC SENSE from HTC One V?

No friends, unfortunately not. You can only replace it with another launcher, but you cannot remove it and leave the standard Android 4.0 interface. Yes, it seems to me that there is no need, for example, I really like the interface from HTC and I don’t see any reason to demolish it. Many people buy devices from HTC because they have the SENSE interface.