The difference with Samsung, Apple etc is that they have other products; computers, monitors, washing machines and whatnot. Therefore Galaxy and iPhone is family names are a must. HTC on the other hand could have just stop releasing 100 variants of the same phone with different names for different markets. They could easily have had Sensation as the Desire 2, One X as Desire 3, One V as Legend 2, Etc.
Let's just hope this One-naming for different markets speeds up release of software updates.
No microSD is a deal breaker for me and HATE HTC for it.Other than that,very nice phones. Anand can you double check te thickness numbers? HTC states 8.9 for the X and XL and 7.8 for the S on it's site http://www.htc.com/www/smartphones/?icid=www|homep...
Just curious, what's the reason for wanting a microSD card slot? I see a lot of people demanding them but I'm not sure of the benefits of that over onboard storage.
Also can anyone tell me how apps are handled these days with Android? I have a Desire and app storage is a real mess with different partitions and so on.
Also, where can I get a play with these phones before I buy? The thing that's great about the iPhone is I can find it in many shops in town and play for hours before making a decision to buy one, this is quite rare with other phones.
The problem is that if I am in America, on T-Mobile, and want the One S I will be stuck with 16gb of storage. Basically they are making storage space a factor in the purchase of the phone when it does not have to be. I have never thought that to be wise. Even Apple offers multiple capacities for their phone, knowing that they should not be making it harder for consumers. But we will see how that goes.
The original Desire was a mess when it came to storage. I assure you your experience will be better now.
On the trying part, I do not know where you live, but as far as I have seen, these phones are not due out for months. At that point I think mobile providers ought to have them on display, as is usual (in the US at least).
I see, I had assumed wrongly they would offer different onboard storage sizes. They should have a choice.
I live in the UK, and most carriers only have dummy plastic models on display. O2 is usually better and has a few on display, but it's hit and miss if the phone you want to use is on display and often they are not connected to the internet so you're limited with what you can try out.
Having a microSD means, at a minimum, 32GB of additional storage for around $30 (USD), plus the option of upgrading to a 64GB card for more, or swapping in other cards for more media content. Compared to the iPhone, which changes $100 for 16 or 32GB upgrades, it massively increases value. The only inherent value is that it serves as a local but separate backup in case your phone fails and you can't access the internal storage for whatever reason.
Generally, apps on Android are stored in a partition of the internal storage. Most apps can be moved to the sd card, but that can be disallowed and some apps can get messed up if you do it. Still, it really isn't an issue on modern phones. My phone's app partition is a couple GB and I'm nowhere close to filling it with a zillion apps.
Playing with phones in the US means going to a cell provider's store. AT&T, Verizon, etc. have the phones they sell on display for prospective customers to try. No idea how it'd work elsewhere.
I see, I never do those things as I just purchased one microSD card and haven't touched it since, but I see there are benefits for people that use them like that.
Do even phones with onboard storage have a separate app partition? What is the reasoning behind that?
With the iPhone you can fill all 64GB with apps if you wish, which is plausible as many games are over 1GB each, I have over 10GB of iPod touch apps on my computer and that is only ones I didn't want to delete. You don't get apps of that size with Android though I guess.
I'm trying to convince myself to buy a One X after promising myself I wouldn't buy an Android phone ever again... but the alternative (an iPhone) is pretty boring if I'm honest.
The advantage of a separate partition on embedded storage is, for me at least, USB Mass Storage Mode.
Unified storage, at least on Android, only allows the use of MTP and PTP (Media/Picture Transfer Protocol) which is extremely limited in comparison.
I use my phone to carry files and applications well beyond recorded media and while most any device with an USB interface can access Mass Storage Devices the same can't be said for MTP/PTP.
"Just curious, what's the reason for wanting a microSD card slot? I see a lot of people demanding them but I'm not sure of the benefits of that over onboard storage."
The two aren't mutually exclusive, you have both onboard storage and expandable storage giving you the best of both worlds. I have a Galaxy Note with 16GB onboard storage and picked up a cheap 32GB micro SDHC card which means I can dump all the large video files and similar onto the memory card. If I wanted I could have picked up a 64GB micro-SDXC card which would take the Note's memory 16GB beyond the largest Iphone and if it works with the 128GB cards, further than the next IPhone as well. HTC at least up to the Sensation frustratingly rely on a memory card and a small amount of onboard memory for applications which I find can be a pain in the neck to work with.
There's also the advantage that if the phone dies due to failure or accidental damage, there's a good chance you can get the micro SD card out and keep a good chunk of your data (or all of it if using the SD card to back up) whereas if everything is onboard and the phone is dead then you're probably stuffed.
Given the tiny size of the micro SD cards I can't see it being that difficult to implement on these large phones and there's so many benefits, it's worrying more and more seem to be skipping the expandable memory.
1- SD cards are much cheaper than integrated Flash RAM. Apple charges more than 5x more
2- When transferring lots of data (say, an HD film, a few series' seasons, a whole music collection), it's much faster to remove the SD, stick it in your PC, transfer, move it back into your phone.
3- it makes switching playback devices much easier. Need to entertain your nephew during a long flight ? Put your "kids' films" SD in whatever device you won't be needing (phone, tablet, netbook...), and enjoy your other devices in (relative) quiet ^^
"No microSD is a deal breaker for me and HATE HTC for it."
I know right! 25GB dropbox for 2 years just doesn't cut it either as a) 2 years only and b) what if I have no wireless connections!?! and c) micro SD is so small - for such slim phones not to have it (even if it means being 0.1mm thicker) is ridiculous.
I'm not sure if non-replaceable batteries are wise either but I'm willing to hold judgement based on possibility that new chips & ICS etc might increase battery life.
Very nice sounding/looking phones otherwise. (Now add a microSD slot HTC you dummies!!!)
After getting a Thunderbolt, I'll never buy another HTC phone again. This thing is full of fail. Between HTC not keeping it updated, bloated UI, random restarts, and more, I'm done with HTC. I'm sticking with Motorola.
Assuming Tegra 4 won't be out until the beginning of next year, Tegra 3 could really use a die shrink to 28nm, to run at higher clocks during single-threaded apps, and larger memory controller. While I'm sure it's a great stepping stone for Nvidia, and a nice sell point on it's own for uninformed customers, it is starting to look like Nvidia played it a little too safe with Tegra 3.
I think the memory controller is more the problem than core speed. They have up to four active cores and a GPU on a single memory controller while other SoC makers have dual cores on a dual channel controller, they have to be bandwidth starved. And the way these faster dual cores handily beat it shows that.
I already can't keep up with all the HTC models. How do non-techy nerds deal with so many confusing models with little real differences? Geesh. Good thing these things are cheaper than the iphone.
Yes it is confusing, that is why HTC has gone with this strategy of fewer phones, with an easy naming scheme. Though I'm not sure separating them by one letter is the best way of doing this, I've just read the article and can't remember which letter corresponds to which phone.
It's pretty much getting close to the phablet territory, yes. I for one prefer larger phones for games, media consumption and reading, so this is really good news!
Does anybode know whether the phones (One X and One S) offer a Notification LED?
I'm really looking forward to indepth tests on Anandtech for those phones. My contract runs out on April 11th, so that's just perfect timing from HTC. The HTC Desire was an incredibly nice phone, so I hope the One X or One S can accompany me for the coming 2 years :)
We're in the same boat, my contract for my Desire runs out in March so these would be a great replacement.
I promised myself I wouldn't buy another Android phone though for a number of reasons, but hopefully Android 4.0 has been a big enough upgrade to get rid of the quirks that annoyed me so much.
Ah yes can't forget Windows Phone, I have used it briefly and was impressed. What's the app selection like? The lack of quality apps and games is the biggest negative of Android for me.
..."The One S (MSM8260A - dual core Krait 1.5GHz) performs surprisingly close to our MDP MSM8960."... not always, and even then, it'd depend on how you'd define close.
Sunspider - 1532ms vs 1813.4ms
GLBench 2.1.1 Offscreen - 56.2 fps vs 50 fps
GLBench 2.1.1 PRO Offscreen - 96.4 vs 76 fps
Those numbers are definitely not within the margin of statistical error from what I can see. And why are tablets present in some of these graphs?
If the international One X will use a DC-HSPA+ modem (since Tegra 3 does not integrate one), and a similar modem is used in the T-Mobile Galaxy S II, why can't/won't HTC use the international One X for T-Mobile instead of the (slightly) gimped One S?
It is a meaning less addition. Really if you want a simple meaningful and successful naming strategy look at the auto industry. Look at Mercedes, does everybody in the world know what a S class is or what a M class stands for? Add to it one moniker that does express some important attribue. I'd add the screen size, so you know that an X 470 is a 4.7 inch screen while an S 380 is 3.8 inches.
So the X, XL, V and S is the right way to go. The "One just makes the name loger to say and adds no value.
And I can't see where Samsung did anything right. They sell different phone to different carriers with different cores under the same name. And the user experience might be similar, it is still the kind of thing influencers (the geeks) want to deal with. HTC does the right thing, with the X and XL. At least I know I can't buy a XL and use in in non LTE markets.
I sure hope they'll also make the phones on different carriers the same. If a carrier insists on its own version it must co-brand the phone, like AT&T HTC S 380. I know they'll fight who's name is first then, but it clarifies things at least. Or give the S a subscript like HTC Sa 380 for AT&T's version.
Honestly? I have no idea about different models of Mercedes and BMW, exactly because of their letter/number schemes... I do know most other cars where they just give the car a name (I wont name any because it'll mostly be different between Europe and the US). My guess is that if people know about S class or M class, it's because they like Mercedes and it doesn't say anything about wether a single letter is good for marketing or not (I happen to think it's not).
"There will still obviously be variants of the One"
But, then, how can it be "The One"? ;)
By the way, what's with all the white phones? I don't get why anyone would want a smartphone that's a noticable dirt-magnet for finger oil, skin, scratches, etc.
So they wanted to reduce brand confusion by narrowing down their product line to the One. Only problem is, there are a bunch of Ones. Its only slightly better than before, at least now we don't need to find out all the different names.
Another thing, nice to FINALLY see an Android phone come that close to the 4S in the Egypt benchmark. What's the GPU in this again?
Anand, You've especially highlighted "not PenTile" will make people feel your words might be bias to some other reference. To me, "PenTile or not" Samsung Galaxy Nexus & Galaxy Note represented the best screen that current cellphone product are offering. Millions of people eye don't lie, both of them produces the best color of all cellphone screens, period.
With all the high tech screen, we can forget about screen DPI already. There's no one, absolutely no one will ever watches a cellphone screen the the face sticked onto the screen just to view DPI or sharpness claimed. Furthermore doing that will be totally un-comfortable, not to say that act make one look like a moron. Obviously no one will want to put himself into that un-thinkable embarassing moments.
After all the above remarks, I couldn't understand why One S are the one with better Super Amoled screen. As all of us know, most HTC S-LCD screen quality totally suck. I've know S-LCD are cheap, but why HTC choosed the worst quality screen for their previous flagship model like HTC Sensation XE & XL? Is it because of screen purchase contracts not expire yet? Or is it because they want to earn a big fortune for themself? Or maybe they want to push their stock to much higher value or giving shareholder great dividends?
I have came to understand nowaday most big corporate stock value has been driven to enormous price which are way out of their actual market value. I've know this is market investment driven, but wasn't us has at least learned a lesson from 2008 Wall Street shameful scandal, meltdown or whatever you call them? Big earning those corporate stripped from the poor consumers are insane. Let's hope HTC are not one of them.
Oops.. too much deviation from my main intention. Anand, I sincerely urge you to choose a better approach to accept all new technologies, make unbias reporting that can help to put a better value onto your artciles which also will make them more readable & be appreciated by more readers. Thanks!
1. HTC used S-LCD2. Right now people are raving about how the screen is better than the Galaxy Nexus. What does this tell you? I think Peter Chou was serious when he said that HTC was going to make "Hero" devices.
2. HTC listens. They unlocked bootloaders for custom ROMs, and they've gone for much more stylistic flair than before. For Sense 4.0, they removed the 3D widgets to drastically improve launcher FPS, and definitely made Sense run faster and lighter than before.
I have an HTC Desire Z with SLCD and it is far superior to several panels, including the one in the Galaxy S. My wife has an Xperia Pro with a "BRAVIA Engine" and it washes out and is generally far inferior to my SLCD. The screen of the Rezound has earned universal praise and it's not AMOLED. AMOLEDs all have a tint - yellow in the original generation.
Writing "RGB stripe" instead of "not PenTile" would have been better, but pixel density and subpixel layout is very relevant information for a lot of people. Someone with good eyes will still notice a slight difference well above 300 ppi at perfectly normal viewing distances.
The problem is, does it matter? When the screen color are so much vibrant & lively than HTC S-LCD screen. Or when we are so busy reading materials shown on lovely & marvellously color Super AMOLED screen, we just don't have the time to care about the DPI nor at the purposely calibrated color tint, which can be change through screen color mode. My friend with Sensation XE also admitted his XE screen are so wash out & dimmed and he regretted for not listening. Furthermore millions of Galaxy S, Galaxy Note & Galaxy Nexus users eyes don't lie. We really enjoying every single moment of the screen contents displayed which cannot be found on any other type of screen.
Put it simple. We just, Can't Take Our Eyes Off Super AMOLED screen! It's like Heaven to touch, ooh we love it so much So if you feel like what we feel, you'll be just can't take your eyes off Super AMOLED screen too.
That's it.. that's it, I've said it, or rather I've sung it.
When I'm reading, I don't care about vibrant colors, but I do care about clearly defined text without fuzzy edges or color seams. I didn't like the PenTile screens in the Nexus One (250 ppi) and Galaxy S (230 ppi), so I probably won't like the PenTile screen of the One S (260 ppi) either.
So yes, it absolutely does matter, to some people. Just like vibrant colors matter, to some people. If you want unbiased reporting you should insist that Anand mentions all relevant details, not just the ones that matter to you.
Then all you need was just a Black & White cellphone! Or maybe a 1st gen Kindle suit your reading need too.
Nowaday, a color phone are not meant for just plain and simple black & white reading. They should capable to display great color in web page, video, music albums art, games, office presentation files and so on. So a screen that can deliver great colors are the most essential element. Otherwise a wash out color like an old 4096 colors Nokia cellphone does not make a different, for your need.
I'm just requesting Anand to be fair & accepting on new technologies, so he can be more unbias on his article & nothing else. If not he just can make afew other remarks like, "It's S-LCD not Super AMOLED, Nova or IPS screen" "It's a Plasma panel not LED TV" "It's Hybrid not a full electric car" and so on...
"Super-LCD II" and "not PenTile" are two separate bits of information. I agree Anand should have written "RGB stripe" instead of "not PenTile", but I care about whether a screen uses full RGB pixels, just like you care about whether a screen is SuperAMOLED. Those are two different things. After all, SuperAMOLED Plus has vibrant colors, too - but no PenTile pattern.
"When I'm reading" does not imply that all I do on my phone is reading.
"Nowaday, a color phone are not meant for just plain and simple black & white reading. They should capable to display great color in web page, video, music albums art, games, office presentation files and so on. So a screen that can deliver great colors are the most essential element. Otherwise a wash out color like an old 4096 colors Nokia cellphone does not make a different, for your need."
I personally understand the need in every device. Just like no matter how much I love a 3D Plasma TV and know how good they are in displaying sport & 3D video but I just could not buy into one of it as it does not do whatever 3D LED TV can deliver in most all viewing pleasure for, brightness, contrast, still picture, 2D & 3D video color. Furthermore 98% and above I'm watching non sport 2D video.
And I really don't understand what you're arguing now. Different people have different preferences and priorities. Some people will like SuperAMOLED PenTile screens, others will not. For *my* preferences it does not matter that *you* think great colors are most important.
Unbiased reporting needs to mention the known facts. Then you can decide for yourself whether the product is suitable for you or not.
So known fact should = bias? Common, unbiased mean there shouldn't be thing capped into any individual preference. It shouldn't be one come to think how it should have be with additional stories, explanation to why and why one think he or she don't like. It's just good or bad, yes or no and nothing in between. Just like in a trial, when testifying to a fact/question, the answer is always a Yes or No, without much story telling or explanation to why the answer. Maybe you're right, I'm not too sure why I am spending so much time explaining the argument with you. It's already deviated too much from my initial words for Anand only. Obviously he don't care whether he was capped for being bias or not, after so many years & so many articles he has wrote. I should retire from this article without much anticipation for Anand disposition about "PenTile".
So far, most 720p screens have been pentile, and there are quite a few people who don't want pentile. These two facts together are plenty reason to mention that this screen is NOT pentile. I don't know why you're so deadset on seeing a bias here, I think you're just reading way too much into it.
I love my rezound, but the screen durability sucks. My droid 1 was though everything, even on my quad over 500 miles, always in my pocket.. not even a scratch.
My Rezound... 2 scratches in the screen, and just in my pocket. Only 3 months old. So HTC's screen durability sucks compared with Motorola.
So how come the HTC One X with Tegra 3 is roughly 25% faster than the Asus Transformer Prime, also with Tegra 3. The 0,2GHz difference in clock speed would only account for a 15% increase (and also, one could assume there is slighly more headroom in a tablet). Is the Prime running Honeycomb and One X ICS?
Also, the GLBenchmark - Egypt shows the One X slightly slower than the Prime, despite the 0,2GHz advantage of the former. Is it because the Prime has to handle a lower resolution, which seems weird since I believe the Prime has a 1280x800 resolution (vs. 720p used in the One X in the benchmark).
One X should be using Krait as well, Dual 1.5 is more than you'd need in a phone. Quad core in a phone is just a bloated waste of resources (who heavily multitasks that much, it's not even possible to keep multiple running windows on screen), and I'd much rather have 28nm inside than 40nm.
Then, I'd say.. What were you thinking? MicroSD is absolutely essential, and the battery is far, far, far too small.
Manufacturers need to be looking at the Droid RAZR MAXX as their benchmark. I'd still rather have a RAZR MAXX, because what use is a ridiculously huge screen and Tegra 3 when you have a flat battery? Also, RAZR manages to fit a MicroSD card.
One thing I DO like to see is a docking connector!
Totally agree. Bigger batteries and micro-SD would make these devices much more appealing.
Also, I dunno if it's something T-mobile is doing or if device manufacturers just have it out for them, but they're getting the short-end of the stick big time (asides from the aluminum construction).
I wouldn't exactly call the One S close to the MDP. The difference is pretty significant. It's significant enough that it shows the MDP beats Tegra 3 in most cases, and yet One S doesn't beat Tegra 3 in most cases. And the one where it does beat Tegra 3, is where Tegra device is running on a 720p resolution, while the One S is running on a 540p resolution, and the difference is probably small enough to call it a draw.
I love my HTC Rezound bought on launch day 11/14/2012. Now if it only had ICS it would be like a HTC One S, not quite an One X (Krait/Tegra). One has 4.7 and Rezound has 4.3 HD 720p and that is a wonderful screen, not cartoonish colors...and Sense isnt bad, but runs faster on ICS ROMS...or Senseless ICS ROMS I have seen.
So I love the Rezound but if Verizon gets a ONE X (a V model??? lol) I would probably upgrade at full retail price just for the bigger screen and ICS out of the box.
COME ON HTC...ICS will make even the Rezound a better phone, not quite "One" but not far off either. Still dual core 1.5 ghz even if it isnt Krait, and it has removable SD card, the iBeats ($100 retail)headphone included (which may or may not come with the S, bet it does with the X model...). removable battery (3175 extended FTW!) so maybe that's why ICS isnt upgraded to Rezound yet...same camera specs too.
All that sounds so much better than the Google ICS launch phone!
Unfortunately, from what I hear, HTC no longer plans to bundle the beats headphone with their phones because it's too expensive... Doubt it translates to cheaper prices for us, so quite a shame, even if I wouldn't buy one of those headphones myself (prefer a more accurate sound to their bassheavy approach). If it does lower the retail price, then way to go, let customers choose a decent set of headphones themselves.
IPhone - 100% unmutilated. - not on ugky duckling TMobike network is the only blemish even though it procides the better 3g HSPA+ service over ATT.
Samsung Galaxy - in tact but with scarring , ""Galaxy Attain"- nasty, but Galaxy flagship-like specs on all carriers
Motorola - quarter slice of pizza - Verizon's slave with caged BRANDS like Razr and Droid (now generic) at least they are on the best network, but CDMA is killing them internationally and Moto is still losing $$$
LG- what is "optimus"? "Prada" phones reek of desperation, zero brand cache and identity
HTC?- should have resurrected "EVO" instead of "One", but ok. BUMMER- no fkagship-like specs across all carriers. HTC continues to put its BEST on one carrier, If you want "The REAL ONE", ATT is your only choice. Want an iconic brand witb top specs? Get Galaxy. Smart move is that HTC didn't put it on TMobile this time..
when aomeone owns Galaxy or iPhone, regardless of the carrier, consumers know it is the flagship phone of the manufaturer, even with screen and memory variances. The brand and model name says it all. Even after the galaxy has an additional carrier imoosed moniker like :-"Attain", it is still the Suoer Amoled Plus Galaxy. With the "One", you could be driving a Kia Sorento or Mercedea Benz
Does this mean HTC will drop Windows Phone support? Seems nasty to put all your fish in one barrel when Google is taking a legal battle for Android every other week. :/
The HTC One S and X are both good device, no doubt, but nothing groundbreaking.
But these results are odd, I'm almost convinced now that Anandtech are purposely trying to make the Galaxy S II look bad in benchmarks. These results didnt look right to me so I tested on my own Galaxy S II.
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snoozemode - Sunday, February 26, 2012 - link
The difference with Samsung, Apple etc is that they have other products; computers, monitors, washing machines and whatnot. Therefore Galaxy and iPhone is family names are a must. HTC on the other hand could have just stop releasing 100 variants of the same phone with different names for different markets. They could easily have had Sensation as the Desire 2, One X as Desire 3, One V as Legend 2, Etc.Let's just hope this One-naming for different markets speeds up release of software updates.
jjj - Sunday, February 26, 2012 - link
No microSD is a deal breaker for me and HATE HTC for it.Other than that,very nice phones.Anand can you double check te thickness numbers? HTC states 8.9 for the X and XL and 7.8 for the S on it's site http://www.htc.com/www/smartphones/?icid=www|homep...
sam12 - Sunday, February 26, 2012 - link
Just curious, what's the reason for wanting a microSD card slot? I see a lot of people demanding them but I'm not sure of the benefits of that over onboard storage.Also can anyone tell me how apps are handled these days with Android? I have a Desire and app storage is a real mess with different partitions and so on.
Also, where can I get a play with these phones before I buy? The thing that's great about the iPhone is I can find it in many shops in town and play for hours before making a decision to buy one, this is quite rare with other phones.
bowie - Sunday, February 26, 2012 - link
The problem is that if I am in America, on T-Mobile, and want the One S I will be stuck with 16gb of storage. Basically they are making storage space a factor in the purchase of the phone when it does not have to be. I have never thought that to be wise. Even Apple offers multiple capacities for their phone, knowing that they should not be making it harder for consumers. But we will see how that goes.The original Desire was a mess when it came to storage. I assure you your experience will be better now.
On the trying part, I do not know where you live, but as far as I have seen, these phones are not due out for months. At that point I think mobile providers ought to have them on display, as is usual (in the US at least).
sam12 - Sunday, February 26, 2012 - link
I see, I had assumed wrongly they would offer different onboard storage sizes. They should have a choice.I live in the UK, and most carriers only have dummy plastic models on display. O2 is usually better and has a few on display, but it's hit and miss if the phone you want to use is on display and often they are not connected to the internet so you're limited with what you can try out.
teiglin - Sunday, February 26, 2012 - link
Having a microSD means, at a minimum, 32GB of additional storage for around $30 (USD), plus the option of upgrading to a 64GB card for more, or swapping in other cards for more media content. Compared to the iPhone, which changes $100 for 16 or 32GB upgrades, it massively increases value. The only inherent value is that it serves as a local but separate backup in case your phone fails and you can't access the internal storage for whatever reason.Generally, apps on Android are stored in a partition of the internal storage. Most apps can be moved to the sd card, but that can be disallowed and some apps can get messed up if you do it. Still, it really isn't an issue on modern phones. My phone's app partition is a couple GB and I'm nowhere close to filling it with a zillion apps.
Playing with phones in the US means going to a cell provider's store. AT&T, Verizon, etc. have the phones they sell on display for prospective customers to try. No idea how it'd work elsewhere.
sam12 - Sunday, February 26, 2012 - link
I see, I never do those things as I just purchased one microSD card and haven't touched it since, but I see there are benefits for people that use them like that.Do even phones with onboard storage have a separate app partition? What is the reasoning behind that?
With the iPhone you can fill all 64GB with apps if you wish, which is plausible as many games are over 1GB each, I have over 10GB of iPod touch apps on my computer and that is only ones I didn't want to delete. You don't get apps of that size with Android though I guess.
I'm trying to convince myself to buy a One X after promising myself I wouldn't buy an Android phone ever again... but the alternative (an iPhone) is pretty boring if I'm honest.
Exodite - Sunday, February 26, 2012 - link
The advantage of a separate partition on embedded storage is, for me at least, USB Mass Storage Mode.Unified storage, at least on Android, only allows the use of MTP and PTP (Media/Picture Transfer Protocol) which is extremely limited in comparison.
I use my phone to carry files and applications well beyond recorded media and while most any device with an USB interface can access Mass Storage Devices the same can't be said for MTP/PTP.
agent2099 - Sunday, February 26, 2012 - link
microSD+faster transfer rates
+easy swaping of media between devices (phones, tablets, computers, cameras)
+no need to carry around cables to transfer media
Johnmcl7 - Sunday, February 26, 2012 - link
"Just curious, what's the reason for wanting a microSD card slot? I see a lot of people demanding them but I'm not sure of the benefits of that over onboard storage."The two aren't mutually exclusive, you have both onboard storage and expandable storage giving you the best of both worlds. I have a Galaxy Note with 16GB onboard storage and picked up a cheap 32GB micro SDHC card which means I can dump all the large video files and similar onto the memory card. If I wanted I could have picked up a 64GB micro-SDXC card which would take the Note's memory 16GB beyond the largest Iphone and if it works with the 128GB cards, further than the next IPhone as well. HTC at least up to the Sensation frustratingly rely on a memory card and a small amount of onboard memory for applications which I find can be a pain in the neck to work with.
There's also the advantage that if the phone dies due to failure or accidental damage, there's a good chance you can get the micro SD card out and keep a good chunk of your data (or all of it if using the SD card to back up) whereas if everything is onboard and the phone is dead then you're probably stuffed.
Given the tiny size of the micro SD cards I can't see it being that difficult to implement on these large phones and there's so many benefits, it's worrying more and more seem to be skipping the expandable memory.
John
StormyParis - Monday, February 27, 2012 - link
1- SD cards are much cheaper than integrated Flash RAM. Apple charges more than 5x more2- When transferring lots of data (say, an HD film, a few series' seasons, a whole music collection), it's much faster to remove the SD, stick it in your PC, transfer, move it back into your phone.
3- it makes switching playback devices much easier. Need to entertain your nephew during a long flight ? Put your "kids' films" SD in whatever device you won't be needing (phone, tablet, netbook...), and enjoy your other devices in (relative) quiet ^^
JNo - Sunday, February 26, 2012 - link
"No microSD is a deal breaker for me and HATE HTC for it."I know right! 25GB dropbox for 2 years just doesn't cut it either as a) 2 years only and b) what if I have no wireless connections!?! and c) micro SD is so small - for such slim phones not to have it (even if it means being 0.1mm thicker) is ridiculous.
I'm not sure if non-replaceable batteries are wise either but I'm willing to hold judgement based on possibility that new chips & ICS etc might increase battery life.
Very nice sounding/looking phones otherwise. (Now add a microSD slot HTC you dummies!!!)
FITCamaro - Monday, February 27, 2012 - link
After getting a Thunderbolt, I'll never buy another HTC phone again. This thing is full of fail. Between HTC not keeping it updated, bloated UI, random restarts, and more, I'm done with HTC. I'm sticking with Motorola.tviceman - Sunday, February 26, 2012 - link
Assuming Tegra 4 won't be out until the beginning of next year, Tegra 3 could really use a die shrink to 28nm, to run at higher clocks during single-threaded apps, and larger memory controller. While I'm sure it's a great stepping stone for Nvidia, and a nice sell point on it's own for uninformed customers, it is starting to look like Nvidia played it a little too safe with Tegra 3.tipoo - Sunday, February 26, 2012 - link
I think the memory controller is more the problem than core speed. They have up to four active cores and a GPU on a single memory controller while other SoC makers have dual cores on a dual channel controller, they have to be bandwidth starved. And the way these faster dual cores handily beat it shows that.lurker22 - Sunday, February 26, 2012 - link
I already can't keep up with all the HTC models. How do non-techy nerds deal with so many confusing models with little real differences? Geesh. Good thing these things are cheaper than the iphone.sam12 - Sunday, February 26, 2012 - link
Yes it is confusing, that is why HTC has gone with this strategy of fewer phones, with an easy naming scheme. Though I'm not sure separating them by one letter is the best way of doing this, I've just read the article and can't remember which letter corresponds to which phone.lurker22 - Sunday, February 26, 2012 - link
Exactly! haha, I am already having the same problem.Then I read there will be carrier required differences in each model as well now too!
Mumrik - Sunday, February 26, 2012 - link
I don't even know how non-techies deal with the day-to-day world around them. Most of them seem to be asking people like us for help.ViRGE - Sunday, February 26, 2012 - link
"The One X is the new flagship phone from HTC. If features a 4.7-inch 1280 x 720 Super LCD II (not PenTile) display"That's not a phone, that's a small tablet.
Plastichairball - Monday, February 27, 2012 - link
It's pretty much getting close to the phablet territory, yes. I for one prefer larger phones for games, media consumption and reading, so this is really good news!Chloiber - Sunday, February 26, 2012 - link
Does anybode know whether the phones (One X and One S) offer a Notification LED?I'm really looking forward to indepth tests on Anandtech for those phones. My contract runs out on April 11th, so that's just perfect timing from HTC. The HTC Desire was an incredibly nice phone, so I hope the One X or One S can accompany me for the coming 2 years :)
sam12 - Sunday, February 26, 2012 - link
We're in the same boat, my contract for my Desire runs out in March so these would be a great replacement.I promised myself I wouldn't buy another Android phone though for a number of reasons, but hopefully Android 4.0 has been a big enough upgrade to get rid of the quirks that annoyed me so much.
lurker22 - Sunday, February 26, 2012 - link
Windows Phone 7 is actually quite nice. See what Nokia brings to the party :)sam12 - Sunday, February 26, 2012 - link
Ah yes can't forget Windows Phone, I have used it briefly and was impressed. What's the app selection like? The lack of quality apps and games is the biggest negative of Android for me.Chloiber - Sunday, February 26, 2012 - link
It's probably even worse with Windows Phone.TBH, I'm also considering jumping boat and give Windows Phone a try.
MonkeyPaw - Sunday, February 26, 2012 - link
I remember back when Palm decided to go by "PalmOne." It really turned the brand around. :pmutil0r - Sunday, February 26, 2012 - link
..."The One S (MSM8260A - dual core Krait 1.5GHz) performs surprisingly close to our MDP MSM8960."... not always, and even then, it'd depend on how you'd define close.Sunspider - 1532ms vs 1813.4ms
GLBench 2.1.1 Offscreen - 56.2 fps vs 50 fps
GLBench 2.1.1 PRO Offscreen - 96.4 vs 76 fps
Those numbers are definitely not within the margin of statistical error from what I can see.
And why are tablets present in some of these graphs?
sprockkets - Sunday, February 26, 2012 - link
The only source of Tegra3 benchmarks at the moment.JMC2000 - Sunday, February 26, 2012 - link
If the international One X will use a DC-HSPA+ modem (since Tegra 3 does not integrate one), and a similar modem is used in the T-Mobile Galaxy S II, why can't/won't HTC use the international One X for T-Mobile instead of the (slightly) gimped One S?RaistlinZ - Sunday, February 26, 2012 - link
The ONE XL looks promising. But how is AT&T's LTE network?HangFire - Monday, February 27, 2012 - link
AT&T's new LTE network? Don't worry, I'm sure it will meet AT&T's high standards for coverage and throughput.:)
Conficio - Sunday, February 26, 2012 - link
It is a meaning less addition. Really if you want a simple meaningful and successful naming strategy look at the auto industry. Look at Mercedes, does everybody in the world know what a S class is or what a M class stands for? Add to it one moniker that does express some important attribue. I'd add the screen size, so you know that an X 470 is a 4.7 inch screen while an S 380 is 3.8 inches.So the X, XL, V and S is the right way to go. The "One just makes the name loger to say and adds no value.
And I can't see where Samsung did anything right. They sell different phone to different carriers with different cores under the same name. And the user experience might be similar, it is still the kind of thing influencers (the geeks) want to deal with. HTC does the right thing, with the X and XL. At least I know I can't buy a XL and use in in non LTE markets.
I sure hope they'll also make the phones on different carriers the same. If a carrier insists on its own version it must co-brand the phone, like AT&T HTC S 380. I know they'll fight who's name is first then, but it clarifies things at least. Or give the S a subscript like HTC Sa 380 for AT&T's version.
Finraziel - Friday, March 2, 2012 - link
Honestly? I have no idea about different models of Mercedes and BMW, exactly because of their letter/number schemes... I do know most other cars where they just give the car a name (I wont name any because it'll mostly be different between Europe and the US). My guess is that if people know about S class or M class, it's because they like Mercedes and it doesn't say anything about wether a single letter is good for marketing or not (I happen to think it's not).Conficio - Sunday, February 26, 2012 - link
... when the lower end phones have aluminum construction. I'd expect the higher value material in the higehr priced phones.I'd guess it is the dual stream Wifi antenna's that make this material/construction difficult. Anad what do you think or what does HTC say?
LoneWolf15 - Sunday, February 26, 2012 - link
"There will still obviously be variants of the One"But, then, how can it be "The One"? ;)
By the way, what's with all the white phones? I don't get why anyone would want a smartphone that's a noticable dirt-magnet for finger oil, skin, scratches, etc.
tipoo - Sunday, February 26, 2012 - link
So they wanted to reduce brand confusion by narrowing down their product line to the One. Only problem is, there are a bunch of Ones. Its only slightly better than before, at least now we don't need to find out all the different names.Another thing, nice to FINALLY see an Android phone come that close to the 4S in the Egypt benchmark. What's the GPU in this again?
tipoo - Sunday, February 26, 2012 - link
Hah, nevermind me, its the Tegra 3. I was looking at the MSM.tipoo - Sunday, February 26, 2012 - link
Ugh double nevermind me, we need an edit button :PI was actually looking at the One S with Krait.
NewForceEX - Sunday, February 26, 2012 - link
Anand,You've especially highlighted "not PenTile" will make people feel your words might be bias to some other reference. To me, "PenTile or not" Samsung Galaxy Nexus & Galaxy Note represented the best screen that current cellphone product are offering. Millions of people eye don't lie, both of them produces the best color of all cellphone screens, period.
With all the high tech screen, we can forget about screen DPI already. There's no one, absolutely no one will ever watches a cellphone screen the the face sticked onto the screen just to view DPI or sharpness claimed. Furthermore doing that will be totally un-comfortable, not to say that act make one look like a moron. Obviously no one will want to put himself into that un-thinkable embarassing moments.
After all the above remarks, I couldn't understand why One S are the one with better Super Amoled screen. As all of us know, most HTC S-LCD screen quality totally suck. I've know S-LCD are cheap, but why HTC choosed the worst quality screen for their previous flagship model like HTC Sensation XE & XL? Is it because of screen purchase contracts not expire yet? Or is it because they want to earn a big fortune for themself? Or maybe they want to push their stock to much higher value or giving shareholder great dividends?
I have came to understand nowaday most big corporate stock value has been driven to enormous price which are way out of their actual market value. I've know this is market investment driven, but wasn't us has at least learned a lesson from 2008 Wall Street shameful scandal, meltdown or whatever you call them? Big earning those corporate stripped from the poor consumers are insane. Let's hope HTC are not one of them.
Oops.. too much deviation from my main intention. Anand, I sincerely urge you to choose a better approach to accept all new technologies, make unbias reporting that can help to put a better value onto your artciles which also will make them more readable & be appreciated by more readers. Thanks!
Hunt3rj2 - Sunday, February 26, 2012 - link
1. HTC used S-LCD2. Right now people are raving about how the screen is better than the Galaxy Nexus. What does this tell you? I think Peter Chou was serious when he said that HTC was going to make "Hero" devices.2. HTC listens. They unlocked bootloaders for custom ROMs, and they've gone for much more stylistic flair than before. For Sense 4.0, they removed the 3D widgets to drastically improve launcher FPS, and definitely made Sense run faster and lighter than before.
ImmortalZ - Monday, February 27, 2012 - link
I have an HTC Desire Z with SLCD and it is far superior to several panels, including the one in the Galaxy S. My wife has an Xperia Pro with a "BRAVIA Engine" and it washes out and is generally far inferior to my SLCD. The screen of the Rezound has earned universal praise and it's not AMOLED. AMOLEDs all have a tint - yellow in the original generation.Don't knock it till you've tried it.
GnillGnoll - Monday, February 27, 2012 - link
Writing "RGB stripe" instead of "not PenTile" would have been better, but pixel density and subpixel layout is very relevant information for a lot of people. Someone with good eyes will still notice a slight difference well above 300 ppi at perfectly normal viewing distances.NewForceEX - Tuesday, February 28, 2012 - link
The problem is, does it matter? When the screen color are so much vibrant & lively than HTC S-LCD screen. Or when we are so busy reading materials shown on lovely & marvellously color Super AMOLED screen, we just don't have the time to care about the DPI nor at the purposely calibrated color tint, which can be change through screen color mode. My friend with Sensation XE also admitted his XE screen are so wash out & dimmed and he regretted for not listening. Furthermore millions of Galaxy S, Galaxy Note & Galaxy Nexus users eyes don't lie. We really enjoying every single moment of the screen contents displayed which cannot be found on any other type of screen.Put it simple. We just,
Can't Take Our Eyes Off Super AMOLED screen!
It's like Heaven to touch, ooh we love it so much
So if you feel like what we feel, you'll be just can't take your eyes off Super AMOLED screen too.
That's it.. that's it, I've said it, or rather I've sung it.
GnillGnoll - Tuesday, February 28, 2012 - link
When I'm reading, I don't care about vibrant colors, but I do care about clearly defined text without fuzzy edges or color seams. I didn't like the PenTile screens in the Nexus One (250 ppi) and Galaxy S (230 ppi), so I probably won't like the PenTile screen of the One S (260 ppi) either.So yes, it absolutely does matter, to some people. Just like vibrant colors matter, to some people. If you want unbiased reporting you should insist that Anand mentions all relevant details, not just the ones that matter to you.
NewForceEX - Tuesday, February 28, 2012 - link
Then all you need was just a Black & White cellphone!Or maybe a 1st gen Kindle suit your reading need too.
Nowaday, a color phone are not meant for just plain and simple black & white reading. They should capable to display great color in web page, video, music albums art, games, office presentation files and so on. So a screen that can deliver great colors are the most essential element. Otherwise a wash out color like an old 4096 colors Nokia cellphone does not make a different, for your need.
I'm just requesting Anand to be fair & accepting on new technologies, so he can be more unbias on his article & nothing else. If not he just can make afew other remarks like,
"It's S-LCD not Super AMOLED, Nova or IPS screen"
"It's a Plasma panel not LED TV"
"It's Hybrid not a full electric car" and so on...
GnillGnoll - Tuesday, February 28, 2012 - link
"Super-LCD II" and "not PenTile" are two separate bits of information. I agree Anand should have written "RGB stripe" instead of "not PenTile", but I care about whether a screen uses full RGB pixels, just like you care about whether a screen is SuperAMOLED.Those are two different things. After all, SuperAMOLED Plus has vibrant colors, too - but no PenTile pattern.
"When I'm reading" does not imply that all I do on my phone is reading.
NewForceEX - Tuesday, February 28, 2012 - link
I understand and that's why I'm saying,"Nowaday, a color phone are not meant for just plain and simple black & white reading. They should capable to display great color in web page, video, music albums art, games, office presentation files and so on. So a screen that can deliver great colors are the most essential element. Otherwise a wash out color like an old 4096 colors Nokia cellphone does not make a different, for your need."
I personally understand the need in every device. Just like no matter how much I love a 3D Plasma TV and know how good they are in displaying sport & 3D video but I just could not buy into one of it as it does not do whatever 3D LED TV can deliver in most all viewing pleasure for, brightness, contrast, still picture, 2D & 3D video color. Furthermore 98% and above I'm watching non sport 2D video.
GnillGnoll - Wednesday, February 29, 2012 - link
And I really don't understand what you're arguing now. Different people have different preferences and priorities. Some people will like SuperAMOLED PenTile screens, others will not. For *my* preferences it does not matter that *you* think great colors are most important.Unbiased reporting needs to mention the known facts. Then you can decide for yourself whether the product is suitable for you or not.
NewForceEX - Wednesday, February 29, 2012 - link
So known fact should = bias?Common, unbiased mean there shouldn't be thing capped into any individual preference. It shouldn't be one come to think how it should have be with additional stories, explanation to why and why one think he or she don't like. It's just good or bad, yes or no and nothing in between. Just like in a trial, when testifying to a fact/question, the answer is always a Yes or No, without much story telling or explanation to why the answer. Maybe you're right, I'm not too sure why I am spending so much time explaining the argument with you. It's already deviated too much from my initial words for Anand only. Obviously he don't care whether he was capped for being bias or not, after so many years & so many articles he has wrote. I should retire from this article without much anticipation for Anand disposition about "PenTile".
Finraziel - Friday, March 2, 2012 - link
So far, most 720p screens have been pentile, and there are quite a few people who don't want pentile. These two facts together are plenty reason to mention that this screen is NOT pentile. I don't know why you're so deadset on seeing a bias here, I think you're just reading way too much into it.ol1bit - Sunday, February 26, 2012 - link
I love my rezound, but the screen durability sucks. My droid 1 was though everything, even on my quad over 500 miles, always in my pocket.. not even a scratch.My Rezound... 2 scratches in the screen, and just in my pocket. Only 3 months old. So HTC's screen durability sucks compared with Motorola.
They better fix that!
fr33h33l - Monday, February 27, 2012 - link
So how come the HTC One X with Tegra 3 is roughly 25% faster than the Asus Transformer Prime, also with Tegra 3. The 0,2GHz difference in clock speed would only account for a 15% increase (and also, one could assume there is slighly more headroom in a tablet). Is the Prime running Honeycomb and One X ICS?Also, the GLBenchmark - Egypt shows the One X slightly slower than the Prime, despite the 0,2GHz advantage of the former. Is it because the Prime has to handle a lower resolution, which seems weird since I believe the Prime has a 1280x800 resolution (vs. 720p used in the One X in the benchmark).
Doubly confused... :-\
piroroadkill - Monday, February 27, 2012 - link
One X should be using Krait as well, Dual 1.5 is more than you'd need in a phone.Quad core in a phone is just a bloated waste of resources (who heavily multitasks that much, it's not even possible to keep multiple running windows on screen), and I'd much rather have 28nm inside than 40nm.
Then, I'd say.. What were you thinking? MicroSD is absolutely essential, and the battery is far, far, far too small.
Manufacturers need to be looking at the Droid RAZR MAXX as their benchmark. I'd still rather have a RAZR MAXX, because what use is a ridiculously huge screen and Tegra 3 when you have a flat battery? Also, RAZR manages to fit a MicroSD card.
One thing I DO like to see is a docking connector!
kyuu - Monday, February 27, 2012 - link
Totally agree. Bigger batteries and micro-SD would make these devices much more appealing.Also, I dunno if it's something T-mobile is doing or if device manufacturers just have it out for them, but they're getting the short-end of the stick big time (asides from the aluminum construction).
Lucian Armasu - Monday, February 27, 2012 - link
I wouldn't exactly call the One S close to the MDP. The difference is pretty significant. It's significant enough that it shows the MDP beats Tegra 3 in most cases, and yet One S doesn't beat Tegra 3 in most cases. And the one where it does beat Tegra 3, is where Tegra device is running on a 720p resolution, while the One S is running on a 540p resolution, and the difference is probably small enough to call it a draw.georgekn3mp - Monday, February 27, 2012 - link
I love my HTC Rezound bought on launch day 11/14/2012. Now if it only had ICS it would be like a HTC One S, not quite an One X (Krait/Tegra). One has 4.7 and Rezound has 4.3 HD 720p and that is a wonderful screen, not cartoonish colors...and Sense isnt bad, but runs faster on ICS ROMS...or Senseless ICS ROMS I have seen.So I love the Rezound but if Verizon gets a ONE X (a V model??? lol) I would probably upgrade at full retail price just for the bigger screen and ICS out of the box.
COME ON HTC...ICS will make even the Rezound a better phone, not quite "One" but not far off either. Still dual core 1.5 ghz even if it isnt Krait, and it has removable SD card, the iBeats ($100 retail)headphone included (which may or may not come with the S, bet it does with the X model...). removable battery (3175 extended FTW!) so maybe that's why ICS isnt upgraded to Rezound yet...same camera specs too.
All that sounds so much better than the Google ICS launch phone!
Finraziel - Friday, March 2, 2012 - link
Unfortunately, from what I hear, HTC no longer plans to bundle the beats headphone with their phones because it's too expensive... Doubt it translates to cheaper prices for us, so quite a shame, even if I wouldn't buy one of those headphones myself (prefer a more accurate sound to their bassheavy approach). If it does lower the retail price, then way to go, let customers choose a decent set of headphones themselves.Flyguy2929 - Thursday, March 1, 2012 - link
Finally, HTC is getting it.IPhone - 100% unmutilated. - not on ugky duckling TMobike network is the only blemish even though it procides the better 3g HSPA+ service over ATT.
Samsung Galaxy - in tact but with scarring , ""Galaxy Attain"- nasty, but Galaxy flagship-like specs on all carriers
Motorola - quarter slice of pizza - Verizon's slave with caged BRANDS like Razr and Droid (now generic) at least they are on the best network, but CDMA is killing them internationally and Moto is still losing $$$
LG- what is "optimus"? "Prada" phones reek of desperation, zero brand cache and identity
HTC?- should have resurrected "EVO" instead of "One", but ok. BUMMER- no fkagship-like specs across all carriers. HTC continues to put its BEST on one carrier, If you want "The REAL ONE", ATT is your only choice. Want an iconic brand witb top specs? Get Galaxy. Smart move is that HTC didn't put it on TMobile this time..
flyguy29 - Friday, March 2, 2012 - link
when aomeone owns Galaxy or iPhone, regardless of the carrier, consumers know it is the flagship phone of the manufaturer, even with screen and memory variances. The brand and model name says it all. Even after the galaxy has an additional carrier imoosed moniker like :-"Attain", it is still the Suoer Amoled Plus Galaxy.With the "One", you could be driving a Kia Sorento or Mercedea Benz
RealTheXev - Friday, March 2, 2012 - link
Does this mean HTC will drop Windows Phone support? Seems nasty to put all your fish in one barrel when Google is taking a legal battle for Android every other week. :/cornandbeans - Monday, March 5, 2012 - link
I thought this is a perfect phone for me until I saw it has 32GB internal storage without microSD slot and a non-removable battery.htconeclub - Sunday, April 22, 2012 - link
http://www.htconeclub.com/htc-one-x-vs-iphone-anal... htc one x vs iphoneShocky1 - Monday, April 23, 2012 - link
The HTC One S and X are both good device, no doubt, but nothing groundbreaking.But these results are odd, I'm almost convinced now that Anandtech are purposely trying to make the Galaxy S II look bad in benchmarks. These results didnt look right to me so I tested on my own Galaxy S II.
GLBenchmark 2.1 Egypt High : 6683 Frames (59 Fps) Vs Anandtech's 34.6 Fps
GLBenchmark 2.1 Egypt Offscreen 720p : 6864 Frames (61 Fps)
GLBenchmark 2.1 Pro Offscreen 720p : 4286 Frames (86 Fps)
This would out the Galaxy S II right inbetween Tegra 3 and Adreno 225 for the graphics tests.
Can somebody please lend Anandtech a Galaxy S II (International version!) with latest firmware? This is getting beyond a joke.
Shocky1 - Monday, April 23, 2012 - link
Two more, remember this is the Galaxy S II with latest official ICS rom.Browsermark - 115114 vs Anandtechs 55144
Sunspider - 1768.5 vs Andandtech's 3727.4 (lower is better)
Not bad for a phone released a year ago.
Shocky1 - Monday, April 23, 2012 - link
Edit option would be nice, I hate typos..