HTC cell phones with Android OS - prices. Key Features of HTC One

video reviewphoto

RUB 10,177

Smartphone HTC Desire 530 Stratus White EEA 99HAHW066-00

Video resolution - 1280x720. Video recording. Operating system type - Android. Multitouch. Type - smartphone. MP3 player. Wi-Fi. The case is classic. Automatic screen orientation. With a battery capacity of 2200mAh. Radio. 3G. With built-in memory size of 16 GB. With 8.0 megapixel camera. With 5.0 inch (13 cm) screen. SIM card type - nano SIM. Bluetooth. Touch screen type - capacitive. GPS. EDGE. With a 5 megapixel front camera. Screen resolution - 720x1280. With a maximum supported memory card capacity of 2000 GB. Memory card slot - microSD. Screen manufacturing technology - Super LCD. Dual SIM cards. 4G LTE. With thickness: 8.3 mm. With width: 70.9 mm. With height: 146.9 mm. With weight: 136 g.

video reviewphoto

RUB 33,930

Smartphone HTC U Ultra 64Gb (Ice White)

Front camera 16 Mpx. Camera 12.0 Mpx. With Wi-Fi. Type - smartphone. With bluetooth. Operating system type - Android. Memory card slot - microSD. Battery capacity 3000 mAh. For 2 SIM cards. Screen manufacturing technology - Super LCD. Shockproof. With radio. SIM card type - nano SIM. With 4G LTE. Touch screen type - capacitive. With a digital video camera. The size of the built-in memory is 64 Gb. With Multitouch. Screen size 5.7 inches. Max. memory card capacity 2048 GB. Video resolution - 3840x2160. With 3G. With mp3 player. With GPS. Screen resolution - 1440x2560. With auto-rotate screen. The case is classic. With thickness: 8.0 mm. With height: 162.4 mm. With width: 79.8 mm. With weight: 170 g.

video reviewphoto

RUB 48,643

Cell phone HTC U12 Plus 64Gb Ceramic Black

With built-in memory size of 128 GB. MP3 player. Wi-Fi. With a battery capacity of 3500mAh. Touch screen type - capacitive. SIM card type - nano SIM. Operating system type - Android. 3G. With a 12.0 megapixel camera. Waterproof. Bluetooth. The case is classic. Multitouch. With a video frame rate of 240 fps. Automatic screen orientation. GPS. Video resolution - 3840x2160. With 8 megapixel front camera. Screen manufacturing technology - Super LCD. Video recording. Screen resolution - 1440x2960. Dual SIM cards. Memory card slot - microSD. 4G LTE. With a 6.0 inch (15 cm) screen. Type - smartphone. Height: 156.6 mm. Width: 73.9 mm. Thickness: 9.7 mm. Weight: 188 g

loan possible | Pickup possible

video reviewphoto

RUB 29,084

13% RUR 33,353

HTC U11+ 64GB, Ceramic Black 99HANE054-00 (black)

With GPS. Waterproof. With Multitouch. Video resolution - 3840x2160. Touch screen type - capacitive. With 4G LTE. Battery capacity 3930 mAh. Type - smartphone. Operating system type - Android. The case is classic. Front camera 8 Mpx. Memory card slot - microSD. With auto-rotate screen. With bluetooth. With mp3 player. Camera 12.0 Mpx. With a digital video camera. The size of the built-in memory is 64 Gb. For 2 SIM cards. Screen size 6.0 inches. With 3G. Screen manufacturing technology - Super LCD. With Wi-Fi. SIM card type - nano SIM. Max. memory card capacity 2048 GB. With thickness: 8.5 mm. With height: 158.5 mm. With width: 74.9 mm. With weight: 188 g.

video reviewphoto

RUB 32,769

Smartphone HTC U Ultra EEA Ice white 99HALU071-00

Bluetooth. Type - smartphone. SIM card type - nano SIM. Video resolution - 3840x2160. Screen manufacturing technology - Super LCD. Dual SIM cards. 3G. With built-in memory size of 64 GB. Operating system type - Android. Shockproof. Radio. Touch screen type - capacitive. With a 16 megapixel front camera. The case is classic. With a maximum supported memory card capacity of 2048 GB. GPS. With a 5.7 inch (14 cm) screen. Multitouch. 4G LTE. Wi-Fi. Memory card slot - microSD. With a battery capacity of 3000mAh. With a 12.0 megapixel camera. Video recording. MP3 player. Automatic screen orientation. Screen resolution - 1440x2560. With thickness: 8.0 mm. With height: 162.4 mm. With width: 79.8 mm. With weight: 170 g.

video reviewphoto

RUB 49,985

17% 59,990 rub.

HTC U12+ 64GB, Ceramic Black 99HANY045-00 (black)

The size of the built-in memory is 128 Gb. With a digital video camera. With Multitouch. Waterproof. The case is classic. Touch screen type - capacitive. Operating system type - Android. With GPS. With bluetooth. With auto-rotate screen. With Wi-Fi. For 2 SIM cards. Screen size 6.0 inches. Screen resolution - 1440x2960. Screen manufacturing technology - Super LCD. SIM card type - nano SIM. Video resolution - 3840x2160. Camera 12.0 Mpx. With 4G LTE. Type - smartphone. With 3G. Video frequency 240 fps. Battery capacity 3500 mAh. With mp3 player. Front camera 8 Mpx. Memory card slot - microSD. Weight: 188 g. Dimensions 156.6x73.9x9.7 mm.

video reviewphoto

RUB 38,474

Smartphone HTC U Ultra EEA Brilliant Black 128Gb 99HALU052-00

Multitouch. Type - smartphone. Shockproof. Wi-Fi. Dual SIM cards. Bluetooth. With a 5.7 inch (14 cm) screen. 3G. Automatic screen orientation. With a 12.0 megapixel camera. Operating system type - Android. The case is classic. 4G LTE. GPS. SIM card type - nano SIM. Video recording. With built-in memory size of 128 GB. Video resolution - 3840x2160. MP3 player. Screen manufacturing technology - Super LCD. Touch screen type - capacitive. With a maximum supported memory card capacity of 2048 GB. Screen resolution - 1440x2560. With a 16 megapixel front camera. Memory card slot - microSD. With a battery capacity of 3000mAh. With thickness: 8.0 mm. With width: 79.8 mm. With height: 162.4 mm. With weight: 170 g.

Which went on sale already in April and May (for which HTC can only express respect - it was the first to launch a line of new smartphones on Android 4.0 without sacrificing quality), HTC One S went on sale only in the middle of summer. At the exhibition in February, it looked very tasty with its thin metal body, where plasma electrolytic oxidation was used to give it additional strength. At the time, the new product looked very balanced and was clearly going to appeal to geeks interested in phones with a rugged case. In fact, something wrong happened with HTC's positioning of this model in the market.

HTC stepped on the same rake as last year and overestimated the potential of the One S by introducing the term “sub-flagship” (if I’m not mistaken, I came across this term on one of HTC’s social media accounts, after which I adopted it ) it is unclear what it means. Or rather, it’s clear - it’s like a model that is both a flagship and not. Sony did something similar in the second half of 2012, creating three models in the high price segment - the flagship (the face of the line) XPERIA S, as well as a model with little different characteristics, but with a different appearance and a prohibitively high price for the non-Japanese market XPERIA Ion display. And also a protected analogue of XPERIA S called XPERIA acro s. Just like last year, a buyer loyal to HTC is faced with a choice - he has no guideline on what exactly to buy “for a lot of money.” Or a device with the largest display and a 4-core processor (One X). Either a simpler and thinner model, but with a metal body. To complicate matters, there isn't much of a price difference between the One X and One S, which only further confuses potential buyers. It’s also worth saying that I had in my hands a gray device with a new Qualcomm processor MSM8260A (S4 Plus). And there is an interesting story here. Now models with Qualcomm MSM8260 (S3, Scorpion core, Adreno 220 graphics, 1.7 GHz) are officially supplied to Ukraine. This happened due to the fact that the company decided (according to the official point of view - due to the shortage of the new processor) to put a previous generation processor in the One S. As a result, a strange paradox happened, which is also not good for this model, its perception and the HTC company - a smartphone in a gray package is now not only cheaper, but also with a more modern processor. Let's leave its performance out of the equation - the difference there cannot be large or noticeable to the user. But you can’t take the words out of the song - the S4 Plus class processor is more modern than the S3. I will try to make a comparison of the performance of both versions of HTC One S in the near future and publish it as a separate news and update of this review. By the way, Samsung has the opposite with advertising, everything is in order - all advertising messages are simple and clear as three kopecks - buy the Samsung Galaxy SIII, because it is uncompromisingly the best. With the opening of the Summer Olympics in London, this message flashes from high degree obsession, being the final chord in attracting attention to your device on a global scale, which I wrote about three months ago. We all know the results of all this very well - without being technologically anything special, and definitely inferior in design to the flagships of Sony, HTC and LG, the Galaxy SIII is approaching in sales the cherished dream of all phone manufacturers (skeptics, keep your emotions to yourself - it's just a business) - the level of iPhone sales.

Technical specifications and equipment of HTC One S

Let me briefly remind you what the characteristics of the HTC One S are. This is a smartphone with a 4.3-inch display made using Super technology AMOLED, with a resolution of 960x540, 2-core 1.5 GHz Qualcomm MSM8260A processor (S4 Plus, Krait core). The device uses an 8-megapixel camera with FullHD video recording and all the same miracles that the One X camera is capable of. It is worth noting a 1650 mAh battery and Android version 4.03 with the HTC Sense 4.0 shell. During the work on the review, firmware version 1.53.401.2 was updated to 1.78.401.2, which gave a good increase in performance (more on this later). Back in May, I managed to use the prototype with firmware 1.40.401.1 for a couple of weeks, but it worked so unstable (it rebooted spontaneously several times a day) that there was simply no point in doing a review then.

The HTC One S package is just as meager as the flagship's - lousy headphones, a USB cable. Let's say, for 2005, a device priced at $650 with such meager equipment would have looked strange. On the other hand, Apple sells its devices even more expensive and no one cares about the lack of good equipment.

Line neighbors

Since the current line of HTC smartphones with Android 4.0 are already on sale, and their prices have already “settled down,” you can take a quick glance at the One S’s place in it. Below are Desire C, which replaced Wildfire (and killed this name), with a resolution of 480x320. By the way, moving the Desire line to the lower price segment will still play a cruel joke on HTC, “dropping” the perception of these smartphones from “flagship” and “outstanding” to “cheap” (once again about the confusion in the minds artificially created and cultivated by the company). Above it is the One V that I really liked, then the interesting Desire V model with two SIM cards. This is the first Android smartphone on the market in which you can implement the “one SIM card for calls, the other for mobile Internet” scheme more or less comfortably. Because even marketers who claim this cannot enjoy using the Internet on a screen with a resolution of 480x320, let alone ordinary users. Finally, above the HTC One S is the flagship HTC One X, which differs from the One S in having a larger amount of internal memory (32 GB versus 16), a 4-core processor and a 4.7-inch screen with a resolution of 1280x720.

Appearance of HTC One S

The device itself, as I already said, is thin. It has a completely recognizable appearance - it cannot be confused with, say, identical-looking Sony smartphones with a transparent insert from a distance of 3-4 meters. The frame around the display and the side parts are reminiscent of the plastic body of the One X. The display itself is quite bright, although it loses to its direct competitor - the Sony XPERIA P. In the bright summer sun it is difficult to use, although it is possible - the text remains readable, you just have to strain your eyesight more. If there is no bright sun (shade, indoors), the brightness of the display can be called excessive - in the dark (for example, in a cinema), maximum brightness will definitely hurt your eyes. The most correct use case would be to set maximum brightness outdoors during the day and about halfway through in other conditions. Although I personally am lazy and always use smartphones with the brightness settings as high as possible.

I personally like the back of the smartphone. Although I have met people who find this arrangement of elements repulsive. I see this as a recognizable HTC style. Metal (the same plasma-electrolytic oxidation that imparts strength) non-removable cover and two modules with soft otuch plastic. It’s worth saying that after a month of use (though I only carry this smartphone in a case), it looks like new. To restore its original appearance, simply wipe the device with a cloth (or even your finger). The inscription beats audio only indicates the use of proprietary sound processing algorithms when headphones are connected. Although you subconsciously expect some additional goodies (the inner voice is screaming now: put at least good headphones in the package!) By the way, about how you could effectively use beats audio, it’s worth reading the most interesting article by Artem Lutfullin on Mobile Review.

The hardware controls have no surprises, everything is predictable - the power button and headphone output are on top, the paired volume control key is on the right, the microUSB connector is on the left.

Someone asked me on Twitter how tightly the lid fits. I answer - it “walks” a little, about a millimeter. This doesn’t bother me even once, but there are people who are sensitive to the issue, and manufacturers should also listen to their opinion. But in general, I really began to like smartphones where minimal actions are available to the user, as here - you can only insert/replace a micro-SIM. And I like completely non-separable cases even more. Apparently, the market will move in this direction. Similar solutions more and more are appearing, and they do not repel buyers (this brings to mind the serious battles over the iPhone, Nokia N8 and further down the list).

HTC One S performance

As I already said, while working on the review, HTC One S updated the firmware from 1.53.401.2 to 1.78.401.2. This immediately affected the performance of the smartphone. (Although, to be fair, it is worth saying that in most cases this is not the case). Performance in AnTuTu increased from 3919 to 6912 points, although this looks incredible. The increase in Vellamo is much smaller - from 2271 points to 2418, but there is one caveat: this is noticeably higher than the browser performance of all 4-core flagships that we came across this year: Samsung Galaxy S III (2081), HTC One X (1531) and LG Optimus 4X HD (1649).

And the performance of the HTC One S in the official package with the MSM8260 processor (frequency 1.7 GHz) turned out to be slightly lower in the AnTuTu benchmark (6531 points) and noticeably lower in Vellamo (1780 points), which is responsible for the browser. Dealers cry, geeks spit bile and poison. It is worth adding that the measurements were made on firmware 1.11.401.110.

I also screwed up with the measurements of the multi-touch points, having written at first that there were two of them. I completely forgot about the special checkbox in the settings. Correction: there are five multi-touch points in the HTC One S.

The topic of autonomy, beloved by geeks, as always, comes down to one simple thing - display operating time. With an Internet connection (Wi-Fi at home and in the office, mobile Edge Internet in other places), the smartphone can last more than 2 days. At this time, he received mail, updated applications and executed all applications running in the background. But you shouldn’t delude yourself - the same exact indicators can be obtained in the same exact situation on any Android smartphone. And like any other smartphone, the HTC One S will drain the battery to zero after 4-5 hours of intensive use (for example, watching videos).

What I don't like about the new Sense

You can read about the new features of HTC Sense 4.0 in the review of HTC One V, so here I would like to dwell on what I don’t like about it. After enough time to make these judgments (and corresponding experience with other smartphones on Android 4), I became convinced that I did not like the way they changed the management of wireless modules. Previously they were in the notification menu. Now, to turn off Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or GPS (it has become even more difficult there), you need to not only enter the notifications menu, but also press the “settings” key (with the gear in the corner). Why it was necessary to do one more action is unclear.

But switching between running applications or closing unnecessary ones in Sense 4.0 is implemented worse than in “bare” Android. Instead of a convenient list with icons of running applications, we see inconvenient horizontal scrolling. Why uncomfortable? Because fewer apps fit on the screen. And the manager itself is called not by long pressing the Home button, but for some reason by pressing the “properties” key. In this case (which is completely illogical) the manager will not start until you release the button. That is, there is no way to reach this intuitively. What is not good.

HTC One S camera

But I would like to talk a little more about the capabilities of the HTC One S camera. Traditionally, HTC cameras have been the manufacturer's weakest link. In 2012, there was a dramatic change for the better. And although in Pavel Urusov’s excellent review, which compares the cameras of the HTC One X, iPhone 4S and Samsung Galaxy SIII, the HTC camera loses, this is a high bar that the company has still reached. Functionally, the camera in the HTC One S is exactly the same, which, at a lower price than the iPhone 4S or Samsung Galaxy SIII, allows the buyer of this smartphone to feel like a “full-fledged” person. True, unlike the One X camera, only a resolution of 3264x1840 pixels (16:9) is supported, where the resolution of 3264x2448 (4:3) went is unclear. It is worth saying that when shooting at close range it is impossible to focus on a single subject, no matter how hard you try. Continuous shooting doesn't help, neither does the touch focus function. This problem is common with most phone cameras today. Maybe I just didn't pay attention before? Or maybe focusing worked better before?

The camera's dynamic range is good if there is no sky in the frame.

If there is a sky in the frame, it doesn’t look very nice

But in this case, the HDR function comes to the rescue

Sometimes it turns out really nice

A simple change in angle or slightly different framing of the photo can affect the result. Summary: don't skimp on film.

Competitive environment

The question of direct competitors to the HTC One S smartphone comes down to the same table that you could see in the Sony XPERIA P review. In fact, this smartphone is the only serious rival to the HTC One S and is inferior only in terms of interface and the earlier version of Android 2.3 (can be treated with an update, which will appear, I hope, this year). In all other respects, I liked the XPERIA P more. On its side is the design, a monolithic aluminum body with a recognizable transparent insert, a good camera, excellent equipment with the ability to play with NFC tags. The rest of the devices, including the rather trashy Fly IQ285, are presented more for form's sake.

Bottom line

HTC One S is one of the most controversial Android smartphones of 2012. On the one hand - excellent characteristics, high performance, interesting appearance and metal in the body. Good camera, finally, with all sorts of goodies in the form of rapid-fire burst shooting, panoramas, slow-motion video, HDR and a ton of built-in filters. On the other hand, the inexpressive role of a sub-flagship, which costs only slightly less than the HTC One X. In my opinion, HTC did something wrong with the positioning of the One S. It should have been made cheaper (albeit for the sake of less impressive technical characteristics), or brought to some completely different niche, as, for example, Samsung did with the Note model, which has two simple and understandable things - a huge display and a stylus for drawing. As a result, I don’t see an army of buyers for One S - a fan of the brand should immediately buy One X, which costs only 15% more. Which in the high price segment is not at all critical for the buyer. 5 reasons to buy HTC One S:

• thin metal body, excellent design, excellent materials;
• bright display with a resolution of 960x540;
• Android 4.0 with HTC Sense 4.0 interface;
• good performance;
• An excellent camera for its class.

1 reason not to buy HTC One S:

• buying HTC One X looks more profitable;

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. IN European version For some reason, 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 arouse (at least in our area) much 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 there is no talk yet of a full return to its former positions: at latest 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.

* 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
• Communication GSM 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 talk about HTC One as universal smartphone, which is suitable equally for both male and female hands.

And of course, such a strong body will be better able to 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 has been creating smartphones with touch screens, it seemed to have time to go through all the possible options for designing the 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 very high quality touchscreen, called by the creators S-LCD 3. In numbers, the physical parameters of the screen of the new product are as follows: dimensions - 58 × 103 mm, diagonal - 119 mm (4.7 inches), resolution - Full HD 1080p (1920 × 1080 pixels), pixel density The PPI is 469 dpi, which is now a record high 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 searched in separate folders, where icons corresponding to the application 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, 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 software enhancement sharpness, or about his good work.

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: on Samsung presentations Galaxy S4 demonstrates 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 at 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 the color schemes and general organization of the desktop to the 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, the user can now take in all the most necessary and significant things 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 a package for working with office documents Polaris Office or a 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 access to important settings from children, and this mode is even included in the menu as a separate item when rebooting. 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 Wi-Fi Direct, DLNA and the ability to organize a Wi-Fi access point. 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 already 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 has 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 disable all wireless communication modules, then cold start 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, the new system provides 40% more performance than the previous generation system Snapdragon S4 Pro, while reducing power consumption by 30%.

The amount of RAM in HTC One is 2 GB. The system memory in the smartphone is 32 or 64 GB, depending on the selected configuration. In our case, the storage available to the user for uploading their own files was about 25 GB, with a nominal designated volume of 32 GB. When you connect a smartphone to a PC, its internal storage is mounted as independent removable drive. 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, don't expect mobile device decoding everything, since the leadership in flexibility belongs to the PC, and no one is going to challenge it.

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. The display on the monitor screen in portrait orientation of the smartphone screen is carried out in portrait orientation only if current program in principle, it does not support landscape orientation, while the height of the image on the monitor screen 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:

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 associated with 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) through home Wi-Fi network The 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.