In the previous year, there were numerous challenges and the company had to learn how to deal with difficult situations. Fortunately, financial constraints don't seem to have affected the ability to produce great smartphones like the HTC One.

The gadget brought interesting design solutions, an updated version of the Sense UI and a new camera, which gives a completely new approach to mobile photography.

HTC One comes with a standard set of accessories. The headphones are connected by an A / C adapter to use the supplied microUSB cable.

There is also a device for removing the SIM card if necessary. , of course, the bundle is not provided, since the smartphone does not have a slot. The base version of the smartphone comes with 32GB of internal storage, which should be more than enough for most users.

The dimensions of the device are 137.4x68.2x9.3 mm, which makes it more compact, but at the same time, thicker than the Xperia Z (139x71x7.9 mm). Of course, the smartphone has a larger screen and protection from water, but the difference in size seems quite adequate to us.

The one-piece aluminum body certainly looks great in terms of aesthetics and compares favorably with Samsung's flagship. But the South Korean company's smartphone has its own merits: a replaceable battery and the ability to expand memory using microSD cards.

With regard to the weight of 143 grams, we must say that the smartphone has a good balance between the feeling of heaviness in the hand and portability.

The combination of metal and glass gives the HTC One a premium look. At first glance, you can recognize the device as an HTC device made in accordance with the design philosophy of its predecessors, but obviously more modern and with increased safety margin.

The novelty will not look out of place in a store with luxury phones, Mobiados and other similar gadgets. Even the glass-clad stylish Sony Xperia Z can't match HTC's compelling simplicity.

Htc One narrower than Htc One X , which makes it easier to work with it.

The face of the device can be divided into three parts. The massive middle section includes a Gorilla Glass 2 screen with aluminum stripes on both sides. At the bottom of the screen there are touch keys - "Back" and "Home".

A long press on the Home button launches Google Now, while a double press on the task switcher. The familiar Menu key is missing.

To fill in the missing "Menu" button, you can set a long press of the "Back" button. Above the screen is a front camera, as well as a speaker, which performs this role during a call, and light and proximity sensors.

The front camera on the HTC One is almost the same as on the Butterfly - a 2.1 megapixel sensor, it can shoot video in Full HD resolution and is complemented by a mode.

The new smartphone uses microSIM cards that fit into a slot on the left side of the smartphone. A special tool is included to remove the card.

On the right side of the smartphone is the volume rocker, which is quite difficult to press as it is too flat. There is no camera shutter button, but now it has become the norm.

The microUSB port and microphone are at the bottom. The USB port has MHL support, so it can be used as an HDTV-out and as a USB-Host. On the back of the phone, noise cancellation is provided using a second microphone, which, in addition, monitors the volume of ambient noise and adjusts everything so that the receiving party hears you loud and clear.

The top of the phone has a 3.5mm headphone jack and a power / lock button. Also, this button acts as an IR emitter. There is a pre-installed application that allows you to control your TV and other equipment. After years of neglect, infrared ports seem to be making a comeback, but not as a means of transferring data.

In our opinion, placing the power button on the top of the smartphone is a bad decision, as it is one of the most difficult to reach places on gadgets with large screens.

The back of the device is an aluminum plate divided into three parts by a thin plastic line in accordance with the division of the front surface into a screen and speakers. The noise canceling microphone is at the very top.

Still, the camera deserves close attention, which is one of the most controversial decisions of the Taiwanese company. It has a 28mm wide-angle lens with an aperture of f / 2.0 and 16:09, a 4-megapixel sensor with ultrapixels. This is one of the most daring decisions since the PureView camera, but we'll talk about that later.

Performance and software

The HTC One is based on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 chipset, which has a 1.7GHz Krait 300 quad-core processor, Adreno 320 graphics accelerator and 2GB of RAM. Operating system - Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean.

Built-in memory 32 or 64 GB, depending on the modification. It will not be possible to expand the memory, since there is no microSD slot.

We'll start evaluating the performance of the gadget with BenchmarkPi and Linpack tests, which show the processor's performance in single and multi-core modes, respectively. HTC came in third in both tests, but came quite close to the Galaxy S4 and Optimus Pro G, which came out ahead.

Geekbench 2 is a cross-platform composite test that compares the HTC One's performance against not only Android devices, but also Apple 5. It also came in third, but was closer to second than to fourth.

AnTuTu evaluates a little bit of everything. The Samsung Galaxy S4 was again the winner, but this time the HTC smartphone bypassed the Optimus G Pro and came in second.

The Quadrant test showed similar results, with the Galaxy S4 and Optimus G Pro in the top two, and the HTC One in third.

GLBenchmark 2.5 benchmark shows performance. We are conducting tests in Full HD off-screen mode, which will allow us to assess the strength of the Adreno 320 found in the HTC One. The result is 34 frames per second, only the Galaxy S4 with 40 frames per second was able to bypass the HTC smartphone.

Another test GPU - Epic Citadel. It works in native screen resolution. Here the Taiwanese smartphone showed 56.4 frames per second and came close to the South Korean flagship with 57 frames per second. Keep in mind that both devices are limited to 60 frames per second, which means the difference is slightly larger than it seems.

Let's move on to web tests. SunSpider work with JavaScript ... And here the lower the score, the better the performance. However, it is known that manufacturers are trying to cheat this benchmark, so there is no need to take the situation so seriously. Htc One in the middle of the table. Although, of course, it is not necessary to fold it back.

Vellamo work with Html 5. Here is a smartphone Htc showed himself well and took second place.

All in all, the HTC One performed well. Although he did not take a single first place, he was always close to the leaders. True, you can barely feel such small differences in real life.

HTC One is very well optimized and works great.

There is support for GPS / A-GPS / GLONASS, Bluetooth 4.0, Wi-Fi, 3G, LTE, FM radio, HSPA +, etc.

Screen

HTC One is equipped with a 4.7-inch Super LCD3 touchscreen display with a pixel density of 469 ppi. Its resolution is 1920 x 1080 pixels.

Now the screens have reached such a level that an increase in any parameters cannot always be seen. So, in our case, the difference, for example, between 469 ppi in HTC and 401 ppi in LG Optimus G Pro can not be easily seen.

The Taiwanese company has been installing great screens lately and the new display is just another example of that. Contrast is of course impressive, viewing angles are very wide (there is no color shift, although contrast is lost a little at extreme viewing angles).

The only drawback is not very good readability in sunlight.

Camera

The HTC One comes with a camera that is one of a kind. This is just the second smartphone with optical image stabilization.

The ultrapixels used here are twice the size of the 808 PureView and iPhone 5.

Larger pixels mean lower noise and generally better dynamic range. In low light, optical image stabilization (OIS) also helps, as we saw in the Nokia Lumia 920.

The sensor used in the HTC One has a 1/3 ”diagonal with an aspect ratio of 16: 9 and is mounted behind a 5-element lens with an F / 2.0 aperture. The camera allows you to take pictures with a resolution of 2688x1520 pixels, but when you switch to the traditional 4: 3 format, it limits the maximum resolution to 2048x1520 pixels, which corresponds to approximately 3 megapixels.

HTC has included a second generation ImageChip for processing camera images.

The Taiwanese manufacturer continues its practice of using a single camera interface for photos and videos. We initially didn’t like that much with the One X, but this trend made more sense here, as the default camera resolution is now 16: 9 video.

So let's get down to business. The HTC One promises a lot, but what will happen in reality? It all depends on the specific situation. When using the gadget in good lighting conditions, low resolution takes its toll - the overall resolution is limited, although the level of detail is good.

The colors are quite decent and the image looks good up to 100% magnification, but we were surprised by the amount of noise. Purple halos appear, which also makes the photo more distant from ideal. Overall, ultra-pixel gaming doesn't seem to pay off in good lighting conditions. Almost all other high-end smartphones will take the best pictures with enough light.

Everything changes in low light conditions. Ultrapixels and optical image stabilization allowed for great late night shots that rivals those of other high-end devices.

HTC One has HDR support for photos and videos.

At the end of testing the camera, we have prepared an example of macro photography. The smartphone performed very well here, and we managed to get great pictures.

Smartphone Htc One allows you to shoot video with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels at 30 frames per second. He has support HDR for video, but note that in this mode the frame rate drops to 28 frames per second. The phone also supports video recording with a resolution of 1280x720 pixels with an increased frequency of 60 frames per second.

Video is recorded in MP4 format with a bitrate of 20 Mbps - this is one of the highest rates that we have had the opportunity to see. Stereo audio is recorded at 192 Kbps and 48 kHz sampling rate.

As it turned out, video recording can be called one of the main advantages of a smartphone. The picture is very detailed with low noise. There are slight color issues, but OIS makes the video very good quality.

Here's an example of a Full HD video.

The smartphone has a 2.1-megapixel front camera for video calling.

Battery

One of the features of the HTC One is a 2300 mAh lithium-polymer battery that sits inside a metal unibody case. That is, it is non-replaceable, but in terms of capacity it is larger than in HTC Butterfly and the same as in Sony Xperia Z.

HTC has not provided any official data on the battery life of the gadget. But our dedicated battery test averaged 48 hours of battery life using the device for an hour a day for web browsing, video and telephony.

Price

The price of HTC One in the Russian market is 29,990 rubles. This price tag has become commonplace for new flagship devices.

HTC One video review:

1. Positioning the device

The company has business Htc lately they have been going, to put it mildly, unimportantly. Release of very unsuccessful (in comparison with competitors) models One X and One X + did not strengthen the company's position in the world market. The Taiwanese manufacturer, once a leader in the segment of "smart phones", is losing popularity every year, due to which the main competitors strengthen their positions. Htc - Apple Samsung and Sony.

After the release of the aforementioned smartphones, the manufacturer did not offer decent models on the market. The only exception was the smartphone. Htc butterfly, which did not receive support from users due to the high price, a small amount of internal memory without the possibility of its expansion, as well as a glossy, easily soiled, not very reliable case.

In fact, the company needed a single smartphone that would return it to its former positions, a model that would be as popular as the line Galaxy S from Samsung or Apple iPhone 5, and more popular than the successful smartphone from Sony - Xperia Z... The Taiwanese decided to call the new flagship simply - One, without letter prefixes.

In fact, this should mean the completeness of the line, its technological "top", and all the best that was in the smartphones of the line should be embodied in a novelty. And besides, the new model should be free from the flaws that were present in the old models. Let's see if the smartphone has turned out Htc one a fundamentally new model, and what the Taiwanese manufacturer was able to offer us.

A fitness bracelet and a sefli stick, which you can choose and buy on our website, will be an excellent addition to the new flagship on Android.

2. Design, design features, assembly, body materials, control elements

The first thing that you feel when you pick it up Htc one are the materials of the body. The developers have applied in the novelty a new way of making the case - it is almost entirely made of metal.

Unlike other devices with a metal case, Htc one there are almost no plastic elements - taking the smartphone in hand, you will only feel the pleasant coolness of the metal and glass that covers the front surface of the device. The model has an unusual feel and looks the same. Before the release of this smartphone, devices with a completely metal body did not exist in principle. Since metal shields radio waves, manufacturers had to integrate plastic / glass enclosures into their electronics. To avoid this, the company Htc went a fundamentally new way. All antennas and transmitters that are present in the smartphone are taken out - for this purpose, special grooves are carved in the all-metal case of the device.

The antennas, microphones and transmitters located in the grooves are carefully embedded in a special composite that allows radio waves to pass through. This composite also covers the side edges of the smartphone around the perimeter, this solution prevents the smartphone from sliding in hands and on various surfaces. The practicality of such a solution will only be shown by time and operating experience, but at the moment we can say that this technology for manufacturing the case has no analogues on the market and is at least very interesting.

Externally, the device looks very stylish. The design of the smartphone is universal and will be appropriate both in the hands of a respectable, business person, and in the hands of a young person leading an active lifestyle. The model will suit both men and women.

Designers have tried to create a smartphone that will be appreciated by everyone, without exception, and in terms of design, they did it wonderfully well. Thanks to the design features, the body of the new smartphone is monolithic. Nothing creaks, no backlash, and - even more so - does not fall off. We can say that for this parameter Htc one is the best smartphone on the market.

However, there are some drawbacks in the design of the device, and they do not belong to the developers' shortcomings - this is a feature of the metal. If the smartphone is accidentally bumped or dropped, the metal body can bend and, unlike plastic, it is not as practical. In addition, metal is far from absorbing shock so well, therefore, in order to keep the body of the smartphone intact and safe, and to protect its internal microcircuits from damage, you need to put it in a protective case.

Htc one quite heavy - 143g - but its weight is justified by the aluminum body. The model is slightly heavier than Samsung Galaxy S4(130g), but slightly lighter than Sony Xperia Z(146g). The weight of the smartphone does not cause any discomfort, and its weight, coupled with the metal of the case, gives the impression of a solid, expensive thing, in contrast to the same Galaxy S4, which does not create such an impression.

On the front surface of the new flagship from Htc there are two stereo speakers - above and below the display. As for a mobile device, the speakers deliver stunning stereo sound and even bass can be felt. The impression from the sound of external speakers of a smartphone is comparable only to the stereo speakers of the legendary phone Motorola E398, and in terms of sound quality at the output, the novelty is even somewhat ahead of the American device.

But the ergonomics of the smartphone is by no means perfect, and, first of all, it concerns the lock key. Not only is the key located at the top - many users have complained about such an arrangement - but it is also shifted to the left. Because of this, it is very inconvenient for her to use, given the dimensions of the device ( 137.4x68.2x9.3mm ).

Also causes inconvenience volume control key, which is made flush with the body of the device. Aesthetically, this is the right decision, but due to the lack of a clear move, it is very inconvenient to use it, moreover, it is very difficult to find it blindly. Also bewilderment is caused by the block of touch keys located under the screen of the device. It lacks the usual "menu" button; it is replaced by the manufacturer's logo. On the sides of it there are buttons "back" and "home".

The list of open applications can now be called up by double-tapping the "home" button - inconvenient, but you can get used to it. One gets the impression that the device's ergonomics are completely devoted to design, which is upsetting. Although the ergonomics of the device is not all that bad - for example, the cable entry is well located microUSB- from below, offset to the right, and microSIM the card is now inserted into a special tray, as in iPhone- it is very convenient.

The smartphone is available in two colors - silvery and black... It should be noted that fingerprints are better visible on the black version of the smartphone, this problem can only be solved by a special protective film with an oleophobic coating.

3. Screen

The screen of the device did not disappoint at all and is worthy of all praise. The display is built on technology Super LCD 3, diagonal - 4.7 ”with an amazing pixel density - 468 dpi!

This is a full-format FullHD 1920x1980 pixels. The picture quality is amazing, the display Htc one can be safely called the best on the market. Curious that technology multitouch new items can handle up to 10 simultaneous touches, although this requires the corresponding option to be enabled in the menu.

IPS matrix device provides an excellent viewing angle and excellent color reproduction. The screen behaves perfectly in the sun, winning in this parameter as in iPhone 5, so do Samsung Galaxy S4... This feature will be appreciated by everyone - including motorists who are unable to constantly adjust the viewing angle of a smartphone installed in a special car holder.

The touchscreen of the device is very responsive, it responds perfectly to touch with a finger and to touch with a capacitive stylus. The display of the new HTC flagship is covered with protective glass Gorilla Glass 2 This glass is highly scratch resistant. The glass surface has an oleophobic coating to reduce the risk of fingerprints. In fact, fingerprints still appear on the face of the smartphone, but not as abundantly as in other models.

4. Performance, OS, autonomy, quality of communication, communication

Smartphone Htc one is built on the basis of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 quad-core chipset, consisting of a processor Krait with a clock frequency of 1.7 GHz and a graphics coprocessor Adreno 320. The new product has 2GB of RAM, and 32 or 64GB of internal memory, there is no slot for memory cards.

The device works very smoothly, without slowing down, in contrast to the same Galaxy S4 which works with subtle jerks even when rendering the interface. The model is running Android OS 4.1.2 Jelly Bean, there is also a proprietary shell from HTC - Sense 5.0. Compared to the previous version, the shell has been seriously redesigned. Many controls - for example, the weather widget - have lost their animation, but in general, the updated skin leaves a pleasant impression of itself. The most noticeable in the changed interface is the built-in service. BlinkFeed... The service is a kind of widget, a "feed" of constantly updated news. The manufacturer indicates the number of 1400 sources from which news comes to the company's servers Htc, and from them are broadcast to the BlinkFeed feed.

The indisputable advantage of this system is the ability to edit the sections from which the user wants to receive news, you can turn off the broadcast of unnecessary news, streamline the incoming information.

However, the user can receive news only from those sources that are available in the company's database. Htc, you cannot add your sources to your BlinkFeed feed. The cell signal transceiver in HTC One works stably without any glitches. The quality of voice transmission and reception is at a high level, there are no complaints about the connection quality.

The smartphone supports a full suite of wireless communications: Wi-Fi a / ac / b / g / n, Wi-Fi Direct, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS, GLONASS, NFC and LTE. It is also possible to connect an external drive to a smartphone through a special adapter - the drive is recognized by the device as a separate data storage, and it is very convenient to work with it.

The battery capacity of the novelty is 2300 mAh, which is not too high today. However, due to the energy-saving chipset, the device is able to work at high loads for about a day - I am glad that the device will not need to be charged after several hours of active use.

5. Camera, multimedia capabilities

Camera Htc one is the most controversial aspect of a smartphone. The resolution of the main module of the built-in camera has a resolution 4MP, but such a low resolution is due to the fact that the camera used ultrapixel technology. The technology lies in the fact that each pixel is increased from the standard 1.4 µm to 2 µm with a physical matrix size of 1/3 ”.

Pixels take in more light than their counterparts, which, in theory, should have a positive effect on the quality of the resulting photos. In fact, the situation is not so happy. The main problem of the camera in Htc one- this is the detail of images, it is lower than that of the main competitors of the model - Apple iPhone 5, Sony Xperia Z and Samsung Galaxy S4... The photographs are quite grainy, especially when photographing clearly defined objects, such as buildings.

Color rendition is also not ideal - in daylight the camera of the novelty "fills up" the light tones, which merge with each other at the exit. Perhaps these problems are software problems, and will be eliminated in the next firmware versions. Otherwise, there are no complaints about the camera, Htc one shows natural color reproduction, the pictures are not too bright or faded. Mode HDR works well, better than competing devices. There is also a branded Zoe technology, which allows you to take several pictures at once while taking pictures, and then "glue" them into a kind of micro-reel, animation. This is very convenient for shooting moving subjects. The only thing that causes confusion is why the developers gave their own name to the technology, which is present in all top smartphones. In general, the device's camera is now ideal for capturing subjects that do not require excessive detail, such as documents.

As already mentioned, the company's flagship Htc features high-quality external stereo speakers. But demanding music lovers will listen to music on this device without any pleasure. Despite the built-in technology Beats Audio, the device does not perfectly cope with the processing of peak frequencies. When turned off Beats Audio the peak frequencies sound flat and rather dirty, and when turned on, the low frequencies sound too bright, the bass overlaps the rest of the sound. Fine tuning the EQ solves the problem, but not completely. For a user who is not too demanding on the sound quality, the device is quite suitable, and the smartphone copes perfectly with the role of a "music box".

Htc one differs in support of most video formats, and when installing a third-party player, the device will have absolutely no problems with playing videos. Thanks to the stereo speakers, watching videos on the smartphone screen will be especially enjoyable. There is also a built-in FM radio; for it to work, you need to connect headphones, the wire of which will play the role of a radio antenna.

6. Comparison with competitors and general impressions of the model

Among the main competitors of the model, two can be distinguished - these are Samsung Galaxy S4 and Sony Xperia Z... The updated Korean smartphone came out very "raw", it has many problems associated with marriage. These are the rattling of the conversational dynamics, the "falling off" network, the marriage of the oleophobic coating, problems with the display of colors on the screen.

Presently Samsung Galaxy S4 outright loses to the Taiwanese flagship, winning only by the quality of shooting, the presence of an eight-core processor, a more capacious battery and a removable back cover. But the screen of the "Korean" made using PenTile technology cannot be compared with the display Htc one, this is heaven and earth. And in terms of visual, tactile sensations, a novelty from Htc much higher than the competitor. Have Sony Xperia Z there is one significant trump card - the protection of the smartphone from moisture, dust and splashes. However, the Japanese model is less productive, and, apart from the protected case and the presence of a card slot, it has nothing to brag about in front of Htc one... Summing up, we can say that the Taiwanese company has a new flagship Htc turned out wonderfully. The model has so many advantages and unique technologies that the disadvantages of a smartphone - poor ergonomics, not an ideal camera, not the best sound in headphones - are not very visible. But the all-metal body, excellent screen, excellent stereo speakers, powerful "stuffing" and almost complete absence of "glitches" characterize the novelty as the best smartphone on the market, which is very hard to compare with. Bravo, Htc!

One of the most anticipated smartphones of 2013, HTC One, has come to us for testing. There are many legends about this device, because it has a cool appearance, a cast aluminum body, a gorgeous touch screen with the maximum pixel density at the moment, advanced and very productive hardware. But is everything here as good as they write about it?

HTC One is rightfully included in the flagship smartphone club. In addition to him, fall into this category,.

Perhaps the main feature of this device is its appearance. The device feels very cool in the hands. I cannot say otherwise. There is a feeling of reliability and some kind of pride that he is in your hands. This is not some plastic Samsung or Nokia! For me personally, this was a revelation. Only the first iPhone and the Nokia 8800 line aroused similar feelings in me.

Among the special merits of HTC One is the Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 chip with a quad-core 1.7 GHz processor, a Full HD display with a diagonal of 4.7 inches, great sound from both external speakers and headphones. In general, there are many advantages. And where are the cons?

Looking ahead, I will say that the HTC One has some drawbacks. I will definitely tell you about them.

Dimensions. Contents of delivery

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HTC has never been shy about the size of its smartphones. At one time, the company was among the first to introduce a model with a 4.3-inch screen, then 4.7. However, now the realization has come that there is a limit to everything. This limit is 4.7 inches. For this reason, HTC One received just such a diagonal. This is a kind of compress between the mind and the senses.

As a result, the dimensions of the device are 137.4x68.2x9.3mm. They are quite adequate and reasonable. If we compare the dimensions of the HTC One with those of its competitors, then there are no special differences. Yes, the "Taiwanese" is a millimeter longer, but one and a half millimeters narrower. The biggest - .

The HTC One's 143g weight did not strike me as excessive. In addition, the smartphone can be carried without being carried in the pocket of tight clothing. However, if you want a network, you have to pull the gadget out of your pocket.

The delivery set includes:

• HTC One phone
• USB charger adapter
• Computer sync cable (microUSB)
• Stereo headset with 3.5mm mini-jack
• A set of overlays for a headset of different sizes
• Instructions

Design, construction

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HTC One has already been dubbed almost the only alternative to plastic devices and the best device for a painless transition from iOS to Android. In many ways, the device has achieved such epithets due to the design of the case. It is a solid sheet of aluminum. This is a rarity in modern models, so each such model looks fresh against the background of faceless plastic "twins".

Another feature of the unibody case is that the integral part consists of several elements. This is clearly visible on the back, which is divided into three parts. The laws of physics forced such a compromise - metal shields the signal. Therefore, it was decided to build the antennas into the metal panel, which divided it into several fragments. It is worth noting that the speaker covers above and below the screen are also made of aluminum.

The build quality deserves the highest praise. Everything is very reliable.

The devices are available in two colors: white and black. In both cases, fingerprints and dust do not remain on the case. The exception to this rule is the screen.

Almost the entire front of the smartphone is occupied by a large 4.7-inch touchscreen display. Above it is a speaker hole. To the right is a camera for video calls (2 megapixels), and to the left - all kinds of sensors and sensors: motion sensor, light sensor, G-sensor. In the right corner there is an LED that lights up while charging, and also blinks when you receive SMS, calls or a discharged battery.

There is a second speaker under the screen. I can say with confidence that the stereo speakers in HTC One sound extremely loud and of the highest quality. The stereo effect is very strong. Feeling as if a good audio system was turned on nearby. The rest of the smartphones fade against the background of the flagship from HTC, giving out a completely indistinct cacophony in comparison with it. Contrary to fears, even if you put the smartphone face down on any surface (be it a table or a soft sofa), the audibility remains excellent.

The backlit touch buttons located under the display will take some getting used to. At first, I really want to press the HTC logo placed between the two keys. After several unsuccessful attempts, one has to come to terms with the idea that the logo does not bear any functional load.

On the right side there is a volume control button. On the opposite side is a microSIM slot. The SIM card is inserted using a lock pick, which is supplied in the kit. You can also use a thin paperclip.

The button to turn the device on and off, as well as to lock the screen, is located on the upper end. There you can also see a hole for connecting headphones with a 3.5 mm jack. At the bottom there is a connector for an interface cable and a charger.

On the back is a 4.1 megapixel camera with autofocus and LED flash. The battery is not removable.

In ergonomics, HTC One easily bypasses and is not inferior. The build quality is excellent. During the test, I did not find any external defects. The impressions are extremely positive. The smartphone is assembled at a factory in Taiwan.

Screen. Graphic capabilities

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HTC decided to experiment and equip the smartphone with a 4.7-inch matrix, while the main competitors put 5-inch screens in their flagships. At the same time, the resolution for all models is the same 1080 × x1920 pixels. This resulted in a fantastic pixel-per-inch figure for the HTC One, reaching 468 ppi. However, in terms of image clarity, it is impossible to notice the difference with. All three devices demonstrate a perfectly clear picture.

The HTC One screen is a Super LCD3 matrix. In terms of characteristics, it most of all resembles the IPS display of the iPhone 5, only the brightness reserve of the Taiwanese device is more modest.

The brightness is adjusted both manually and automatically, based on the operation of the light sensor. Naturally, there is also a proximity sensor that locks the screen when you bring the smartphone to your ear. Multi-touch technology allows you to simultaneously process up to ten touches.

The screen of HTC One is protected by Gorilla Glass of the second version. During testing, no scratches appeared on it.

User interface

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HTC One runs Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean operating system. The software can be updated over the Internet. On top of the operating system, its own Sense 5 shell is installed, which greatly changes the usual appearance of the android, so it hardly makes sense to complain that someone has a more up-to-date version of the OS.

The user interface on HTC One has been seriously redesigned. The consequence of this was a complete misunderstanding of what and how it works here.

The fact is that in Sense 5 the so-called Blinkfeed shell appeared a la live home screen with all the statuses, news and similar information. The main screen displays messages from all social networks, the data of which you feed to the phone, plus the selected news feeds. At the very top of this list, there is a clock and a weather forecast, while at the bottom there are five icon buttons all the time - almost the only reminder of Android. Blinkfeed is convenient for those who cannot live without social networks, but it seems to be impossible to remove from the desktop in any way, and this is very, very wrong. You cannot impose highly specialized options on the user.

Another reminder about Android is the icon strip at the top. If you pull it, the familiar "android" menu will drop out. It's just that HTC removed the wireless interface switches from it a long time ago and still can't return it, although it's already 2013 and such switches are a generally accepted ergonomic standard.

Interestingly, you can now create folders in the application menu - a great way to hide all your infrequently used applications.

Telephone functions

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Telephone functions, weak to God, were not touched. First of all, these include "Phone", "Contacts", "Messages". They're all at the bottom of the HTC One home screen.

In the "Contacts" application detailed information about telephone numbers and subscribers is stored. A specific record can have two dozen fields, be it last name, first name, patronymic, mobile number, home phone number, email address, date of birth or personal ID, Skype, etc. The search in contacts occurs at once in all fields of the client, that is, you can dial the number, first name, last name, etc. Each subscriber's profile can be linked to his social media accounts.

The drawing of keys, numbers and letters of the number dialing and the virtual keyboard for typing SMS messages is very convenient. During an incoming call, the screen displays a photo and the number of the subscriber from the phone book, or, if the subscriber is not known, a picture of a green man.

Text and multimedia messages are grouped by subscriber. By clicking on a specific contact, you can view the history of correspondence with this person.

Multimedia capabilities

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The music playing application allows you to play files: MP3, AMR, AAC, AAC +, e-AAC +. There is a sorting by artist, album, genre, composer.

A regular headset is included in the package. Thanks to the 3.5 mm jack, you can pick up any headphones.

The "Video" item displays videos taken both by the camera of the device and downloaded from the Internet.

A kind of thematic browser of photo and video files is the item "Gallery". All files are divided into folders: photo and video clips, music.

Camera

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Although many people know that megapixels are not an indicator of camera quality, they measure this quality out of habit in mobile devices. Thirteen megapixels is good, five is bad. And when HTC announced the 4 megapixel camera module in the flagship One, the public took it with confusion.

The fact is that the vendor decided to use an alternative imaging technology, calling it "ultrapixel". Here, as in the confrontation between point-and-shoot cameras and DSLRs with the same matrix resolution, the pixel size is important. The larger the pixel, the theoretically less noise and other artifacts should be. Accordingly, in the so-called ultrapixel camera of the HTC One, the pixel area is three times larger than that of a conventional 13 megapixel camera in a smartphone. That is, the HTC One's matrix receives more light and - again theoretically - better shoots in the dark, and generally creates less noise. That being said, the camera module is still not very large and does not require the phone to be thickened.

Real pictures from the HTC One camera upset. The quality hasn't gotten better. Good old megapixels gave a light to newfangled "ultrapixels". Photos are noisy and somewhat blurry. Night shots in automatic mode are terrible, the "Night" mode saves the situation a little, but all the same, the Taiwanese flagship is very, very far from competitors. Otherwise, everything is good, the photos are sharp, with good white balance.

The only plus of the newfangled camera is that photos take up much less space.

Memory and speed

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The flagship from HTC is built on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 chipset, which consists of four Krait 300 computing cores, clocked at up to 1.9 GHz. The Adreno 320 HF chip is responsible for the graphics, 2 GB of RAM is enough with a margin for everything. The built-in memory is only 32 GB, this volume cannot be expanded.

The smartphone will easily "pull" any Full HD video, and it seems that there are still no games that lack the performance of the One filling. All interfaces fly, there are no delays. The only moment, when the load on the iron is high, the phone heats up noticeably.

Communication capabilities

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HTC One works on 2G GSM and 3G WCDMA networks. The smartphone supports the HSPA + standard to ensure fast wireless data transmission in mobile networks. It also has support for fourth generation (LTE) networks, including its Russian version at 800 MHz and 2.6 GHz.

In addition, the smartphone supports the Wi-Fi standard (802.11 a / b / g / n). The device is equipped with Bluetooth version 4.0, NFC, DLNA, MHL and OTG support. There is a possibility of direct communication with other devices via Wi-Fi Direct, as well as organizing a Wi-Fi access point.

An infrared port suddenly showed up on HTC One. It is hidden in the phone's power button. Accordingly, with the help of the appropriate application, you can control TVs - fortunately, the universal program remote control is already preinstalled.

Duration of work

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The smartphone has a 2300mAh Li-ion battery. In testing conditions with the number of calls 60 minutes a day, Wi-Fi always on and browsing the Internet for about 1.5 hours, listening to an mp3 player through a headset for about 2 hours a day, the device worked for 24 hours. If you turn on navigation, and also allow several applications to work in the background, then the time will drop to 10-12 hours. The large display and productive hardware still take their toll! If you watch videos in FullHD quality, the smartphone will work for about 3-4 hours.

Is one of the flagship smartphones of the Taiwanese company HTC. It began to be produced in February 2013. The smartphone has 32 gigabytes of internal memory, a 2300 mAh battery, and a 4.7-inch display. RAM - 2048 MB. A slot for an additional memory card is not provided. Also HTC One M7 is equipped with a Qualcom Shapedragon 600 quad-core processor with a frequency of 1.7 GHz. It is controlled by the Android 4.1.2 (Jilly Bean) operating system, but it is also possible to update to newer versions. The operating system is dressed in the HTC Sense shell, traditional for HTC devices, which greatly changes its design. It should be noted that the body of the smartphone is almost entirely made of aluminum, there are no plastic elements. To prevent the metal from creating problems in the operation of the antennas, special holes were made in the case. The HTC One M7 weighs 143 grams.

The display is protected by heavy-duty toughened Gorilla Glass 2 and covered with an oleophobic coating to prevent greasy fingerprints. The device has a sensitive touchscreen that quickly responds to touch with your finger or stylus. It should be noted that considered a smartphone with a high pixel density display. Screen expansion - 1920 × 1080 pixels. HTC One M7 has an LED on the right corner that glows when charging and blinks when you receive an SMS, make a call, or when the battery is low. The smartphone came out in white, black, blue, red and gold cases.

HTC One M7 also has a built-in 4 ultra-pixel camera. Pixel size has been increased to 2 microns (standard size is 1.4 microns). This allows more light to enter the camera's sensor. The smartphone is equipped with two stereo speakers - this is the so-called Boom Sound technology, which increases the amount of sound frequencies emitted by the HTC One M7. The speakers are located on the front of the smartphone, below and above the display. In addition, HTC One M7 is equipped with built-in Beats Audio technology. Supports all major wireless communications - Wi-fi Direct and Wi-fi 802.11a / ac / b / g / n, LTE, GLONASS and GPS, LTE, 3G, GPRS, EDGE, NFC. In addition, the smartphone has an infrared port - it allows you to perform the functions of a TV remote control.

In addition to technical innovations, new services have been developed for the HTC One M7, the most notable of which is the Blink Feed news app. The service collects news from various sources and creates from them a single, constantly updated feed. However, the number of sources from which news can be obtained is limited. It also became possible to create folders in the application menu. But many features remain unchanged, such as phone features, music apps, or the photo and video gallery. There is a sorting of audio recordings by artist name, album name or the corresponding genre. In the gallery you can watch both files downloaded from the World Wide Web, and filmed with a smartphone camera.

In addition to the above, the smartphone has a long battery life. With Wi-fi turned on and 2 hours of Internet surfing a day, HTC One M7 works for about a day. But if you turn on the GPS and increase the time on the Internet, the duration of the work drops to twelve hours.

These are the main technical characteristics of one of the flagship smartphones manufactured by HTC.

Smartphone photos

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HTC One M7 64GB / 32GB

HTC One M7 64GB / 32GB

HTC One M7 64GB / 32GB

HTC One M7 64GB / 32GB

Introduction

I usually start reviews of flagships with a story about what happened to the company shortly before the release of the model in question. This time there will also be such a story, but in a short version, because we have already examined HTC One from several different angles and there were materials on the site from Eldar Murtazin and from me about this device even before the release of the new product. I suggest you read them if the topic is interesting.

For HTC the previous year, as well as partly in 2011, turned out to be a crisis. At first, the company, along with the growing popularity of the Android platform, stood on a par with brands like Samsung, Apple and Nokia, and then, over the course of several years, it lost a significant part of its loyal audience. The rave reviews of the IT press and individual users on some HTC products did nothing in terms of improving the brand's position in the market and sales. All this time, the situation has not changed much, despite various statements by HTC that the company will focus on top-end products, everything continued in the same spirit. The release of a new smartphone, and then many variations of it, conditionally, then the devices of the middle class one after another without any differences. At the same time, HTC was never a large company and did not become one in an instant after the success of its first Android smartphones, but inside HTC it was decided to expand the model range and since then we have all been witnesses of this process.

With the announcement of HTC One X, it seemed that the situation had begun to change and the company would once again concentrate all its forces around one top device without any compromises, but the release of this model and the subsequent flurry of simpler devices and variations of the HTC One X itself showed that the situation is not changing. The release of the HTC One X + smartphone looked especially strange on the part of the company just six months after the start of sales of the original HTC One X. Both flagships were unsuccessful in the market and the difficulties within the company only worsened.

And now, the beginning of the next year, the Taiwanese manufacturer presents the next flagship - HTC One. Again, a lot of hope, a lot of joy and some surprise, all this happened after the release of HTC One X and is repeated again. With the difference that HTC One really looks more interesting than its predecessor in terms of design and body materials, and this model really takes into account some of the mistakes of the past. But there are also new controversial and incomprehensible moments. In this review, I will not answer the question of whether the HTC One will become a worldwide successful and popular "people's smartphone", but I will try to answer, will I buy it myself when I have a choice between the HTC One, Samsung Galaxy S4 and Sony Xperia Z?

Design

HTC has been growing in terms of design in my opinion over the past few years. This can be clearly seen in the example of the flagships HTC Desire HD, HTC Sensation, and then HTC One and HTC Butterfly. The manufacturer is not afraid to experiment with the materials and shape of the case, it is not always successful, for example, for some reason they brought a glossy Butterfly to Russia, but in general it is difficult not to notice the progress.

Despite its large dimensions and boring colors, HTC One is available in silver and black (in the future, possibly in red), the device looks nice and interesting. This is achieved due to different details - the shape of the case, the curved backrest, symmetrical speakers located relative to the screen, unusual for a smartphone. We can talk about the similarities between HTC One and Blackberry Z10, but this can only be done by a person who did not hold both smartphones in his hands. In reality, there is no similarity between these models.

It seems to me that HTC One perfectly demonstrates the modern capabilities of companies in terms of the design of their smartphones. On the one hand, we hear universal phrases that every smartphone with a large touchscreen is certainly a display and a case in the form of an appendage, and that nothing new can be thought of here, on the other hand, there are vivid examples of the opposite - Sony Xperia Z and HTC One. However, if with Xperia Z everything is not so simple, because the glass used in a smartphone is far from universal material and, more importantly, not quite familiar to smartphones, then in HTC One the combination of design and materials is simply a win-win - a lot of metal, familiar classic colors and no bling.

Body materials

The main body material is aluminum. The base of the smartphone is a completely aluminum "bath" cut from a single piece of metal, it contains electronics, a display and other elements, above and below the screen there are aluminum inserts, they are attached to the main part (in the picture - elements with slots for speakers).

Black smartphone - painted aluminum. For two weeks of active use, my black HTC One has not lost its presentation at all, no scratches or chips have appeared on it, I also cannot find areas with peeled paint. On the other hand, two weeks is not too long, so I will not speak confidently about a slight wear on the case.

Below you can watch a video that briefly shows the process of making the aluminum body of the HTC One:

A separate task for HTC engineers and developers was the issue of placing antennas in the smartphone, because the body is all-metal, and the only pair of holes in it are for the camera and the slot for the microSIM card. As a result, the best solution was found to place the antennas outside the case. They were taken out into small grooves on the outside of the back of the smartphone and filled with plastic. Thus, those two decorative plastic inserts that we see on a smartphone are precisely the antennas hidden here for the operation of wireless interfaces.

The side edges of the device are also filled with plastic, here it is painted in the color of the case. The screen is protected by a layer of Gorilla Glass 2, practically no prints remain on it, and those that are there are invisible. In order to take a picture with prints on the display, I had to try pretty hard.

As for possible scratches, everything is as usual here. On paper, glass is very resistant and can be scratched with a knife, scissors and other objects - there will be no scratches. However, after a month of operation, small scratches on the device may still appear. So it is worth remembering that even Gorilla Glass or its analog is not a 100% guarantee that the screen will be as good as new throughout the entire time of using the smartphone.

Another topical issue is the soiling of the case as a whole. I don’t know how things are with the silver HTC One, but the black phone gets dirty surprisingly quickly and the marks and stains on the back of the phone are clearly visible. Especially greasy fingerprints. You can wipe it or put up with a constantly stained smartphone - everyone decides for himself. From time to time I wipe the body of HTC One with anything (my sweatshirt, for example).

Assembly

From the fact that HTC One uses a unibody case without removable elements (except for a slot for a microSIM card), it follows that the device's assembly is excellent. Yes, I understand that this rule does not always work, it is enough to remember HTC One X with peelable glass during "monolithic" assembly, but in HTC One there is no such problem (pah-pah-pah), and others are hard to come up with. The case looks very solid and solid.

Dimensions (edit)

Unlike the main competitors, which are equipped with 5 "screens, HTC One retained at least a little" humanity "in relation to users, it has a screen with a diagonal of 4.7", which is good in terms of device size.

The dimensions of the HTC One are 137.4 x 68.2 x 9.3 mm, and the weight is 143 grams. This is smaller than the dimensions of the HTC Butterfly. Below are the dimensions of other popular smartphones for comparison:

• Apple iPhone 5- 123.8 x 58.6 x 7.6 mm, 112 grams
• Htc butterfly- 143 x 70.5 x 9.1 mm, 140 grams
• - 137.4 x 68.2 x 9.3 mm, 143 grams
• Nokia Lumia 920- 130.3 x 70.8 x 10.7 mm, 185 grams
• Samsung Galaxy Note II- 151.1 x 80.5 x 9.4 mm, 183 grams
• Samsung Galaxy S4- 136.6 x 69.8 x 7.9 mm, 130 grams
• Sony Xperia Z- 139 x 71 x 7.9 mm, 146 grams

It should be noted here that, despite the 0.3 ”smaller diagonal compared to the SGS 4, the HTC smartphone still has comparable dimensions, while the Sony Xperia Z is already larger.

By modern standards and against the background of some other smartphones (SGS 4, Meizu MX2, LG Optimus G Pro), the HTC One has a thick frame between the screen and the edge of the case, it is almost half a centimeter, while for the above models it is about 3-3.5 mm. In practice, I do not think that reducing the thickness by a couple of millimeters would give a tangible gain in dimensions, but the smartphone would definitely look more spectacular. Although in terms of design, everything is fine.

Carrying HTC One in a trouser pocket is quite comfortable, it is still a smartphone that fits in one hand and you just need to get used to it. More precisely, to its dimensions.

Control elements

Once again, HTC is redesigning its control system. This time, there are two buttons left under the screen, to the left and to the right of the HTC logo. The button on the left is Back, the button on the right is Home. If you hold down the Home key for a couple of seconds, the Google Now application starts, if you quickly press it twice, the utility of the last open applications starts in the form of a matrix of mini pictures.

Both buttons are comfortable, they vibrate when touched and are backlit, but the main question is this: who is this smartest "designer" inside HTC, who was able to push the idea that the HTC logo between two keys instead of the third is cool and beautiful ? Honestly, I really want to see at least some logical explanation of this decision, because so far it seems absolutely useless to me. And not only me, xda-developers are already actively discussing this problem and looking for ways to solve it.

At first, they decided what to make of the area on which the logo is located, a full-fledged key would not work, and a picture of one of the spare parts of the smartphone even went to the topic:

Screen

The HTC One has a Super LCD3 display. The characteristics of the screen are as follows: diagonal 4.7 ”, resolution 1920x1080 pixels (FullHD), pixel density - 469 ppi, which is higher than any other smartphone on the market.

Traditionally, I can describe the impressions of the screen of the next HTC smartphone with one capacious word - amazing. The display has maximum viewing angles, no matter what angle you deflect it: diagonally, edges or ends - the picture is not distorted. There is a good margin of brightness and the screen remains readable in the sun. The color rendition is close to natural, the colors are moderately saturated and juicy, but not overly contrasting and not acidic.

Viewing angles

Automatic brightness control does not work correctly in all situations, but in general I had no particular complaints about its work. In the screen settings, you can select the font size for menus and programs.

The only complaint, perhaps, is not quite a deep black color when comparing the display with AMOLED screens, but personally I am ready to forgive this moment to the HTC One display, because in return I get calm colors and a picture on the screen, from which the eyes do not get tired and do not leak on the floor after half an hour of working with the device.

Camera

The main camera is perhaps the most sore point of the new flagship from HTC. There is hardly a person who has not yet joked about the 4 megapixel module in the 2013 flagship. Of course, now we need to take into account that the smartphone software has not been brought to perfection, and as far as the camera is concerned, as HTC notes, there will be still serious improvements in future firmware, but we are still working with what we have. The main series of pictures below was taken on HTC One with the penultimate stable firmware - 1.28.401.7, most of the reviews on the web, both foreign and in other languages, were carried out on it. I also had another sample in my hands with a more recent software - 1.29.401.5. Examples of pictures from HTC One with this firmware can be found in the comparison with HTC Butterfly. Looking ahead, I will say that there is no particular difference in quality (or rather no) between the pictures, so we continue to wait in unison for the final firmware, with which the smartphone will go on sale.

Let's take a look at the characteristics of the main camera module available on the official HTC website.

HTC UltraPixel Camera:

• Pixel size 2.0 micrometer, sensor size 1/3 ", backlit matrix
• Dedicated HTC ImageChip ™ 2 processor
• F2.0 aperture and 28mm lenses
• Built-in multi-axis optical stabilizer for smooth, professional video
• Smart flash: one of five flash levels is selected automatically based on the distance to the subject
• Front camera: lens with 88 ° capture angle and HDR
• Full HD 1080p video recording from both main and front cameras
• HDR Video
• VideoPic function: shoot video and take photos at the same time
• Slow motion video recording and playback with speed control
• HTC Zoe ™ with event recording and service for sharing them HTC Zoe ™ Share

First, I will briefly describe the software innovations of the camera, and then I will give the floor to Roman Belykh, who will comment on the quality of the pictures taken on the HTC One.

One of the main features of the HTC One's camera, besides the use of "ultrapixels", is the HTC Zoe technology. This is a set of tools for shooting and subsequent editing of images. Turning on the Zoe will capture frames a few seconds before and after the moment you shoot, so if the shot itself failed, you can select from the images that were saved in memory thanks to Zoe. Another interesting feature is editing a picture, in particular, if you take a series of shots, where, for example, there is a person who is present in each shot, then you can completely remove the person from the frame using a special tool. That is, the system glues together different areas from different images.

There are other editing tools, in portraits or just pictures where faces are present, you can change the geometry of faces, make them a little puffier or slightly elongated, and so on. The most important thing is that these tools really work and you can use them to edit pictures on your smartphone. Yes, it will be basic editing, but nevertheless, it is possible and it will not spoil the photos.

The camera interface is as similar as possible to that of HTC Butterfly, all settings are available from a special pop-up menu, the more important ones are located at the top, the minor ones are below. The maximum image resolution is 2688x1520 pixels for widescreen mode.

The following settings are available:

Plot

• Normal
• Portrait
• Landscape
• Backlight
• Text
• Macro

Modes

• Normal
• Expanded panorama

By the way, the HTC One does unfolded panoramas very well, in my opinion. Take a look at this example of such a snapshot:

You can also adjust the ISO value (Auto, 100-1600), white balance, exposure, contrast, saturation and sharpness of the image. There is continuous shooting with a very high rate of fire, you can take up to 20 frames at a time.

Just in case, let me remind you that you can check out our comparison of cameras on HTC One, Samsung Galaxy S4 and Apple iPhone 5.

And now I will hand over to Roman Belykh.

Comparison of cameras (Roman Belykh)

Before we briefly describe the quality characteristics of the HTC One camera and camcorder, it is necessary to note an important thing: HTC says that the smartphone software will still be updated (before or after the start of sales - unknown), so we will prepare material on the One camera now and we will try to update it immediately after the update is released.

UltraPixel technology

Naturally, this technology also has a disadvantage, and a significant one. The fact is that the sensor was so physically large that the camera module stood out on the back of the Nokia 808 smartphone: the thickness at the thickest point was as much as 14 mm. And it affected the weight (169 grams).

The next experimenters in the field of mobile "preservation of moments" were "HTC-ishniki". A few days before Mobile World Congres (MWC 2013), traditionally held in Barcelona, ​​the Taiwanese smartphone manufacturer unveiled the HTC One. It became the first device to receive a new technology with the loud name UltraPixel. At the presentation, they tried to convince us that "happiness is not in the number of megapixels", so the images from the One camera have a size of only 4 megapixels, but what kind! In part, the developers are right: the user does not always need a huge frame resolution, especially if the images were obtained using cell phones, and even, often, of mediocre quality.

The main feature of the technology is the large pixel size on the matrix: it is 2 micrometers. For comparison, the average pixel size of a 13MP camera is 1.1 micrometers.

Thus, each pixel of the matrix captures 300 times more light. In theory, using UltraPixel technology, coupled with high-aperture optics (F / 2.0) and a special second-generation ImageChip processor, HTC One should produce excellent shots in low light conditions.

In addition, do not forget that the new camera has a multi-axis optical stabilizer (slightly different from the stabilization in Nokia Lumia 920). Other features of the One camera include sensor size (1/3 ") and wide-angle optics (28 mm).

Photo quality

Good lighting level

Positive points: correct definition of white balance and high sharpness. Negative: despite the excellent lighting level, specific color noise is still noticeable (more like suppressing artifacts), a rather narrow dynamic range, and often excessive contrast.

Separately, it should be said that before taking a photo, you need to wipe the camera eye, since the surface of the protective glass of the lens is quickly covered with fingerprints, and the frames around the edges are a little blurry.

Digital zoom operation:

Insufficient lighting level

Capturing shots in such lighting conditions is the "strong point" of the HTC One camera. It does an excellent job of suppressing noise thanks to UltraPixel technology, slow shutter speeds, image stabilization and a cool fast lens (F / 2.0). Focusing is fast and accurate, color reproduction is natural, and white balance is almost always correct.

If we talk about the modes of operation, it is worth noting the "night mode". In it, the frames come out a little lighter, with the correct WB and even sharper.

Normal and night modes

Normal	Night

Portrait and macro photography

Shooting portraits and small objects is always interesting. This device produces just excellent results: nice bokeh, fast focus, good sharpness.

HTC cameras have recently started to have a "cool" shooting mode HDR (High Dynamic Range): shadows are brightened, and bright areas are darkened. No other device can boast of such results. It is difficult to describe in words, so it is better to take the frames ourselves once and appreciate the beauty of the HDR mode.

Normal	HDR

Comparison of pictures taken with HTC Butterfly and HTC One

Judging by the obtained photos, HTC Butterfly copes well with automatic selection of the white balance, which cannot be said about the Van. The detailing is about the same, with the only difference that the Butterfly has a higher resolution, so, sadly for One, some small details are better distinguishable on Butterfly. If I were HTC, I would not be smart: I would use a camera from Butterfly and “cheat” with image processing algorithms.

Night frames for HTC Butterfly (Auto mode) and HTC One (Auto / Night mode):

Photos with home lighting HTC Butterfly and HTC One:

Macro HTC Butterfly and HTC One:

HTC Butterfly and HTC One lyrics:

Comparison of pictures taken with Nokia 920 and HTC One

The first thing to note is the different viewing angles: Nokia has 26mm, while HTC has 28mm. "Nokievskaya" optics are a little less high-quality, therefore weak blurring of details is easily noticeable at the edges. The second is saturation: Nokia "embellishes" the image a little, HTC - on the contrary, tries to adjust the camera settings to more natural shades, but somehow it does not work out very well: the image receives less color, therefore it looks a little dull.

In terms of detail, it was about the same if HTC had an 8MP camera. In this case, the shots from Nokia Lumia 920 come out a little more detailed: if you zoom in to 100%, you can see the smallest details.

In general, the shots taken on HTC look like an 8MP or 13MP image was "resized" to 4MP and applied contour sharpening.

Night shots on Nokia Lumia 920 and HTC One

The white balance lies at first one device, then another, but a little more often it is still HTC. Smartphone Nokia in night mode increases the shutter speed, regardless of the light level, so often the frames come out overexposed.

Sharpness is slightly better in the shots taken on HTC, since it does not try to turn night into day by increasing the shutter speed. Therefore, pictures on the Lumia 920 are more likely to be blurred by hand shake.

Video quality

Traditionally, flagship smartphones shoot video at a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels at 30 frames per second (maximum 20 Mbps). There is an additional HD mode at 60 PFS (maximum 12 Mbps). Below are the characteristics:

• Format: MP4
• Video bitrate: AVC, 20.0 Mbps
• Resolution: 1920 x 1080 (1.778), 30 fps
• Audio bitrate: AAC, 192 Kbps
• Channels: 2 channels, 48.0 kHz

The most interesting thing is that the image stabilizer also works in video mode. The picture is quite smooth. But we must not forget that it was difficult to make the stabilization mechanism in a miniature body, so the video is of imperfect quality: the image is slightly blurred at the edges during strong shaking of the camera.

The sound is recorded very cleanly, but the volume is low. The stereo base is extended, i.e. you can clearly hear which side the sound is coming from.

Comparison of video recorded on Nokia Lumia 920 and HTC One

The image on Nokia looks much sharper, the focus doesn't “float” as much as on HTC. However, the choice of automatic exposure is depressing: the picture looks much darker than on HTC.

The stabilizer, shall we say, works more pleasantly on the Lumia 920, since the One, as I said earlier, slightly lathers the picture on the sides.

The sound is definitely better on the HTC One: it is louder, the stereo is perfectly audible (the sound is mono on the Nokia 920), the automatic recording level adjustment works well, i.e. harsh sounds are muffled.

It should be remembered that the firmware on the HTC One is not final, but the most recent. So, the hope remains that the developers will do everything possible to maximize the final result.

Sound

Beats Audio... In addition to the traditional Beats Audio logo on the back of the smartphone, the company offers users a few more improvements to the HTC One. But I'll start with Beats. On the first HTC smartphones, where the so-called "enhancers" from Beats Audio were responsible for the sound, the situation was like this. When you plugged in headphones and listened to music with Beats turned off, the sound was normal. As on previous smartphones of the company. That is, it was a good sound and, for example, I used to listen to music with Beats turned off. Enabling this thing made the music compositions more bass-heavy, or I don't know how to better describe it. In general, with the inclusion of Beats, the music was dominated by low frequencies and this was noticeable.

Gradually the situation changed so that it was impossible to listen to music in a standard HTC player without Beats turned off - the sound was just strange and incomprehensible. The clearest example of this situation is just HTC One. When you listen to music with Beats on (and it's on by default), you're fine. As soon as you turn it off, the sound becomes just awful, as if when you turn off the Beats you are activating the most clumsy "preset" of the equalizer. I don't know how things really are, but even my poor hearing allows me to hear the difference. One gets the feeling that HTC just left the normal playback mode and called it Beats, and then heavily programmatically spoiled the player and made it so that when you turn off Beats, you hear some kind of porridge in your ears. I would like to think that I'm wrong, but how else to explain that with the Beats turned off, the sound in the smartphone is so terrible - I don't know. Before, I repeat, this was not the case.

By the way, with Beats turned on, the smartphone sounds great, to my simple village ear.

BoomSound... Above and below the screen on the front side there are two very high-quality speakers for a smartphone. Together they give out an even, deep and pleasant sound, as if you are listening not to a smartphone, but to some kind of compact, but still separate and real speaker. Both the stereo effect and the depth are felt. The speakers sound especially great if you listen to instrumental music or tracks with pronounced vocals on your smartphone.

I would like to note that in terms of volume level, the call speakers of HTC One cannot be called excessively loud. Yes, they really have a volume reserve, but not excessive, while the most important point is not the volume, but the quality of the sound produced by the speakers.

SenseVoice... Another sound feature on HTC One is SenseVoice noise cancellation and two microphones for voice recording. In practice, the operation of these two technologies is clearly visible if you use a smartphone as a voice recorder. The device writes a voice very efficiently and cleanly, without extraneous noise, even if they are present not far from the source of the voice. At the same time, the voice is clearly distinguishable on the dictaphone recording, even if the interlocutor was at a distance of 2-3 meters from the smartphone during the recording. This is if you listen to the recording on the smartphone itself, when listening on the PC, it seemed to me that the recording sounds not so loud anymore, although maybe it’s me just so deaf.

Music player... The audio player in HTC is traditionally with good functionality and beautifully executed in terms of the interface. Music can be presented as a library with albums, artists and genres, or you can choose a simpler view - folders. Using the Gracenote service, the player downloads album covers and artist photos for the library.

When the player is on, it appears in the notification bar with album art and control buttons.

If you choose a lock screen with a player, then you can not only flip through tracks and pause music without unlocking your smartphone, but also choose one of several albums to play.

Autonomous work

The smartphone uses a 2300 mAh non-removable Li-Pol battery. Compared to HTC Butterfly, we see one more step forward, the battery capacity has slightly increased, however, there are no significant differences in real operating time between these two smartphones.

While HTC Butterfly lasted 6 hours and 49 minutes in video mode (playing a 720p video in a circle), HTC One worked for 8 hours. Yes, the difference is more than an hour, but in real use there are almost no differences in battery life between HTC Butterfly and HTC One.

My HTC One sample lasted on average until 7 pm-8pm with the following load: 40-60 minutes of calls, 10-20 text messages, Gmail in push-mail mode, 3-4 hours of listening to music and about 1-2 hours of active using the mobile Internet (photos on Instagram, reading the feed on Twitter, Facebook, browser). In a similar mode, HTC One X was discharged in the middle of the day, that is, at about 16-17 hours, so the progress is huge, at least in my mode of using the smartphone.

The smartphone has a power saving mode, which can be turned on to significantly save battery power. In this mode, the brightness level of the screen is reduced, data transmission is turned off when the display goes out and vibration is turned off.

Platform, memory

The smartphone is built on the latest platform Qualcomm APQ8064T (Snapdragon 600) with a quad-core 1.7 GHz processor, graphics subsystem (GPU) - Adreno 320. HTC One has 2 GB of RAM and 32/64 GB of internal memory for storing user data. In Russia, only a 32 GB model will be sold, of which about 25 GB is available for downloading data, the rest of the space is occupied by service files, the system and Sense. So we can talk about the 25 GB version of the smartphone, there is no slot for a memory card in HTC One.

If in the case of HTC One X and HTC Butterfly, the absence of a slot for a memory card could still be perceived like this:

Then the lack of a slot in the next flagship, HTC One, I only have such a reaction:

In my opinion, 25 GB for an android flagship is not enough. Now many popular games on Google Play take 1-3 GB of space on the smartphone after installation, the size of each photo taken with the HTC One camera is about 1.5 MB, and a video in 1080p quality with a duration of about 5 minutes is 1 gigabyte. And this is if you do not take into account the fact that many people download their favorite music to their smartphones and watch movies and TV shows on it. Needless to say, a two-hour 1080p movie is rarely less than 5-10GB in size?

Performance, tests

The overall speed of HTC One is excellent: desktops are flipped instantly, there are no delays or jams when launching applications and switching between them. With a large number of programs running, the smartphone does not slow down or think. Below are the results of testing the HTC One in various benchmarks.

To evaluate the performance in games, I ran on HTC One: GTA: Vice City, Nova 3, Dead Trigger and a couple of other toys. All games on the smartphone run smoothly, without slowdowns and freezes. When downloading games to your smartphone, you need to be prepared for the fact that some of them (I think there are still many) are not optimized for such a high resolution and the picture in them will simply be stretched by the system to fill the screen.

Now a little about video playback. I ran a few 1080p movies on the HTC One to see which clips it could handle. As a result, the picture is as follows - movies with a resolution of 1920x800 or 1920x1080 pixels, a bitrate of 10-12 Mbps and a weight of about 10-15 GB, the smartphone plays smoothly on the whole, there are some delays in very dynamic scenes, but in general, video in this quality can be watched comfortably. Accordingly, any video of lower quality (bitrate or resolution) the device also loses without problems. The standard video player in HTC One is very simple and you shouldn't use it if you are going to watch video on the device. There is no support for track selection or subtitles, it is better to install something like Dice Player or MX Player.

And one more point related to performance. If you play on your smartphone for a long time, 10 minutes or longer, the device gets very hot. At the same time, if you measure the temperature of the battery at the time of heavy load using the Stabilty Test program, it will be about 47-48 degrees, this is not so much, an indicator comparable to Google Nexus 4 and other devices. For example, after 30 minutes of load using the Stability Test, the Google Nexus 4 battery heats up to 57 degrees, in the Sony Xperia Z up to 47 degrees, Meizu MX2 up to 52 degrees, in the Samsung Galaxy S3 up to 42 degrees. video portal Mobiltelefon.ru).

However, the smartphone feels very, very hot in the hand, I don't even have anything to compare it with in this parameter. It becomes a little uncomfortable to hold the device in hands. I do not know if it is possible to correct this moment or not and how, but so far the situation is exactly like that. The use of aluminum affects, when the HTC One heats up, its entire cover acts as a heat sink (and not just the frame, as in Meizu MX2, for example).

Interfaces

The smartphone works in networks GSM (850/900/1800/1900), HSPA (850/900/1900/2100) and LTE (800/1800/2600), LTE network is supported, including in the version of the smartphone for Russia. You can turn interfaces on and off through the settings or by adding one of several widgets to the home screen. Unfortunately, a convenient tab with interface switches has been removed from the Sense of the latest versions, and who did it only interfere with?

For synchronization with a PC and data transfer, a complete microUSB cable is used. USB 2.0 interface. A 1 GB file is copied to the HTC One memory in about 55-60 seconds. In the connection settings, you can select the mode of an Internet modem (Internet access via a smartphone) or a pass-through Internet connection. Modes "Disk drive", HTC Sync and others are no longer there, when connected to a PC, the smartphone is defined as a portable device and you can work with its memory either through Explorer or any other file manager of the system, or using the HTC Sync program.

The microUSB connector on HTC One supports USB On-The-Go (USB OTG) - you can connect a flash drive and other storage devices to a smartphone via an adapter, for example, a camera to transfer pictures from it to the device's memory. The system in HTC One allows you to read and copy information from flash drives formatted in FAT / FAT32 / NTFS file systems (I have not tested other FS).

A funny moment should be noted here. On the one hand, you can connect a USB flash drive to HTC One through an adapter, on the other hand, you cannot read data from it using standard tools, because the smartphone does not have a file manager, it must be installed from Google Play separately. HTC is one of the last to still not equip its smartphones with an out-of-the-box conductor.

Bluetooth... Built-in Bluetooth 4.0 module with A2DP support. We could not find information on bluetooth profiles supported by the smartphone.

Wi-Fi (802.11а / ac / b / g / n)... HTC One uses a dual band WI-FI module. You can leave it to work in automatic mode, or you can manually specify the operating frequency band for Wi-Fi - only 5 GHz or only 2.4 GHz.

The Wi-Fi module works flawlessly. In advanced settings, you can set the maximum performance mode, as well as enable or disable automatic connection to the last saved active network. The device does not heat up when the module is in operation.

Wi-Fi router... HTC One has the ability to share 2G / 3G / 4G Internet connections via Wi-Fi. In the menu of wireless interfaces, select the option "Mobile Internet Sharing" and then "Wi-Fi router". Here, at the first start, you need to select the network name, password, and the type of connection (WEP, WPA, WPA2). Also, here you can set the maximum number of connections to a smartphone (1-8) or separately prohibit or allow each new connection. When the utility is enabled, you can connect to the Internet “distributed via Wi-Fi by a smartphone from any device, be it a laptop, another smartphone or tablet, and so on.

DLNA, HDMI... The smartphone supports DLNA technology, so if you have a DLNA-compatible media server and other devices at home, you can use Butterfly with them. For example, to output sound or video from the device directly to the TV. The HTC One also supports HDMI, the connector is combined with microUSB (MHL), so in order to use HDMI, you first need to buy a special cable.

NFC... Like in the two previous models, HTC One has NFC support, but so far there are not so many scenarios for using this module, and HTC does not equip its devices with special NFC tags. But with the help of this interface, you can check the number of remaining trips in the metro pass on your smartphone!

Navigation

HTC One has GPS / Glonass support, it takes a minimum amount of time to search for satellites, from 5 to 15 seconds. The device is preinstalled with Google Maps and Google Navigation. Google Navigation is used as the main navigation program; the application with maps based on Route 66 data has been abandoned. On the one hand, this is for the better - navigation from Google is now developing very actively, besides, it is free, on the other hand, now you cannot use offline navigation, because Google Navigation requires a constant Internet connection. Therefore, if you decide to go somewhere and use HTC One as a navigator, it is better to take care of finding navigation software in advance.

For convenient work with a smartphone when it is in the car in the mount, there is a special mode "In the car". When you turn it on, you see large icons on the desktop, there are also special enlarged versions of the main applications: address book, music, settings, dialing. If desired, you can add shortcuts to other programs in this menu. In this mode, you can use a special assistant, a utility that performs voice commands like "Call + contact name", "Play + track name" and some others. It is worth paying attention to this program if you are going to use HTC One behind the wheel, it really works and recognizes commands well if you speak them more or less loudly and clearly.

Text and voice text input

The HTC One uses the traditional HTC proprietary on-screen QWERTY keyboard. And it still remains one of the best keyboards available for Android in my opinion. And it also has one important drawback that has persisted for many centuries ... The fact is that when you enter text in the Latin alphabet, you see on the keyboard the markup not only of the letters themselves, but also of additional symbols. And to add a "dog" symbol, a pound sign, a percent sign or something else to the text while typing, you do not need to go to a special menu, just hold one of the letter buttons for a couple of seconds.

In this case, it is worth switching to the Cyrillic alphabet, as the markup of additional keys from the keyboard disappears.

If we compare the sizes of the keys in both layouts, it turns out that the buttons in the English keyboard are slightly larger, but it seems to the eye that the markup of additional characters will fit well on the buttons in the Russian layout. Judge for yourself:

Each time you press an on-screen button on the keyboard, the device vibrates slightly, which makes typing easier, makes it more realistic, and helps to get used to the on-screen keyboard. Language switching is done by pressing one key, quickly and easily. By holding down the key on the other side of the spacebar, you can call up the voice dialing of messages. Voice typing in Android works very well if you pronounce the message clearly, coherently and with pauses between words - it will be typed almost without errors. The only drawback of the voice dialing system is the inability to put punctuation marks.

In order to move the cursor inside the text, you just need to touch any letter, after which a small "tweak" appears to move inside the text. There are also four directional keys at the bottom of the keyboard to navigate within text. If you double-tap a single word in the text, it will be highlighted, then you can select other pieces of text to copy or cut them.

There is a "Trace keyboard" option in the keyboard settings. If you enable it, words can be entered with one movement of your finger, without having to take off to enter the next letter, this is an analogue of the Swype keyboard. In the settings, you can change the line color for the Trace keyboard.

The keyboard contains a personal dictionary, where the device stores new words that you often use. The dictionary can be edited and also synchronized with a backup on a memory card.

HTC BlinkFeed

The new flagship HTC One is the first device from the company with BlinkFeed pre-installed. HTC makes a big bet on this service, judging by how much they talked about it, besides this, the BlinkFeed screen is the main one in the system by default.

HTC BlinkFeed is a kind of news aggregator from various sources: websites and social networks. Why peculiar? The fact is that the news that is shown in BlinkFeed first passes through the HTC server, is compressed, reformatted, and only then gets to the smartphone screen. This was done to reduce traffic costs for the service, as well as to increase the speed of its operation. News is displayed on the home screen in a tile format, much like on Windows Phone. The tile can be larger or smaller, depending on the picture available for the news. As a whole, the news feed looks nice and neat, subject to the selection of successful sources. But, if in words the capabilities of HTC BlinkFeed seem interesting, in practice this service is still of little use if you are going to read news with it. I will try to argue my opinion.

Firstly, HTC BlinkFeed now has some obvious shortcomings that will probably be fixed, but they spoil the first impression of it. When the screen with BlinkFeed is set as the main screen in the system, you can return to the latest news on it by touching the Home button, this is convenient. But if you make the main screen any other, and move the screen with BlinkFeed, then the house key will return you to the main screen, and not to the latest news in the feed. In practice, this means this: if you missed a day or even a brocade of BlinkFeed viewing hours, then in order to return to the latest news in the service, you will have to scroll through the entire feed with your finger during this period of time (for a day, for example). It can be hundreds of news and a minute or even more time, when you just mechanically leaf through the news with your finger, from bottom to top, bottom to top, bottom to top ...

Secondly, and this is the strangest flaw of the service, in my opinion, you cannot add your own news sources to HTC BlinkFeed. The company says that complex compression algorithms are used for the service, and in the future HTC itself will try to add the most popular resources to the feed so that they can be selected, but the possibility of adding their own sources is not even considered yet. And this is in the flagship of 2013 on Android 4.1, on a system for which there are a dozen good RSS aggregators, and people all over the world read a variety of sites, so everyone will definitely not please. In my opinion, the inability to add your sites to BlinkFeed makes the service not interesting for a lot of people.

Third, in BlinkFeed, you cannot even choose to display sites in multiple languages. That is, even if you are approached by sites about equipment that BlinkFeed offers in Russian (nomobile, vesti, russia today), but you also want to read news from Engadget, The Verge, and so on, you cannot add them to the feed. Either sites in Russian from the Russian-speaking segment, or in English or some other. We can only congratulate the developers who created HTC BlinkFeed, they invented the 2013 news ghetto for Android smartphones, not otherwise.

Fourthly, even optimization and the passage of news before being shown on the screen through "special HTC servers" do not save them from the presence of low-quality pictures. It's hard to blame HTC for this, because on a screen with a resolution of 1920x1080 pixels, most of the images will seem low-quality, but they obviously had to foresee this. In the meantime, many news in HTC BlinkFeed are displayed with a porridge of pixels instead of a clear image, simply because the source site publishes the news not with a 1000x1000 or higher picture, but with an image of something like 500x300, for example.

Fifth, and this is the strangest thing, in my opinion, HTC BlinkFeed cannot be completely removed. Yes, you can uncheck all the resources so that the service does not consume traffic, but even in this case, you will have one screen occupied by BlinkFeed and there is no way to get away from it. For most, this is probably a trifle, but there are users who love minimalism and try to place all applications on one or two screens, and now they, it seems to me, will not like it.

HTC Sense 5

The smartphone runs on Android 4.1.2, HTC promises to soon release an update to 4.2, but the very fact of not using the latest OS version is a little upsetting. Traditionally for HTC - the Sense shell is used, here it is HTC Sense 5 - the newest version of the company's proprietary interface.

I'll start with a brief description of the external changes in the interface. I, like many other HTC fans, at one time did not like the transition from the traditional Sense design, which we saw literally in the first version to the third, to something more "fresh" and airy in HTC Sense 4. Now the situation is the opposite - I personally am very I like Sense 5 from the point of view of design and graphics, with the exception of the font.

In HTC Sense 5, the base color scheme is dark gray with black elements, the standard combined clock and weather widget with schematic weather icons looks very cool, for my taste, it is easy to read, but not dazzling. Additional clock widgets, too, as for selection, beautiful and concise, there is plenty to choose from.

I would also like to note simply gorgeous desktop pictures from the standard set of HTC background pictures. For my taste, here one image is better than another, personally, this is my first smartphone, where I have been using only standard background images for a month now.

In HTC Sense 5, as in previous versions of the shell, you can choose one of several lock screen options: with a clock and weather, with a music control panel, with photo albums, with panels of recent events, or, you can simply remove the lock screen. The disadvantage is that you cannot change the set of standard shortcuts on the lock screen, that is, just like the “Phone”, “Messages”, “Browser” and “Camera” shortcuts stood at the bottom, they will remain there.

By the way, to change the shortcuts in the fixed bottom panel in Sense 5, you need to go to the application menu and drag icons to this panel from here, you can also remove icons from the panel only when you are in the application menu window. If you try to remove the shortcut from the fixed panel while on one of the shell screens, nothing will work - the shortcut will simply be duplicated on the desktop. Why the simple ability to change the set of shortcuts in this panel is made so unobvious - I don't know.

The program menu has been changed, if in previous versions of Sense it was a classic window with a fixed matrix of icons, then in Sense 5 you can choose a grid size: 3 x 4 or 4 x 5. This window also has a clock and weather widget on top, remove it it is forbidden. In the program menu, you can sort them alphabetically or by recently added ones. And also just place in a convenient order for you. Another innovation in the application menu is that you can now create folders here.

In my opinion, if earlier the menu was just a "warehouse" for all the shortcuts, now it is a full-fledged analogue of the desktop, only if a fixed number of elements is placed on the desktop, you can place them as much as you like and move between them by scrolling up and down.

Standard Applications

Now let's take a quick look at the standard programs preinstalled in HTC One. I will try not to describe each application from and to, but only tell you about the interesting, in my opinion, the capabilities of this or that program.

The address book... The changes are mostly cosmetic - the appearance of the tabs has changed, the list of contacts has become stricter and more accurate. In the contact card, half of the screen is still occupied by a photograph of a person. For an incoming or outgoing call, the photo is also located about half of the screen.

By the way - HTC has come up with a very neat solution to the problem of low-resolution contact photos. If you have contacts with such "pictures" in your address book, then when you open a contact card or start calling him (or he calls you), you also see a photo on half of the screen, but with a special effect, as if you are looking at it through a lattice (I don't know how to explain it better, see screenshots).

Recently launched applications... Double-tapping the "House" button launches the utility with the last open programs, they are arranged in the form of mini-pictures with a 3 x 3 grid. Any application from here can be swiped up from the corresponding mini-picture with a gesture.

Time, weather... These applications have hardly undergone any changes, except that their appearance has changed a little, and more schematic icons appeared in the weather program instead of the previous ones.

Tv... Separately, you need to talk about the TV program. It combines several functions. The first is the TV program schedule for the selected operator in the selected country. That is, you specify the provider of home TV and you can watch the schedule of all programs and films in the program. The second is a remote control for a TV, set-top box or video player. The type of equipment is selected, its manufacturer, model, and then you can control this technique using HTC One. The infrared port is built into the power key.

HTC promises to soon add Russian TV providers here, but they are not yet available. I would like to believe that these promises will come true, but still we need to keep in mind the fact that we have been promised support for HTC Watch for several years.

Child mode... HTC One has a so-called kids mode, by enabling which you limit the capabilities of your smartphone, keeping them to a certain minimum - you can launch selected programs and perform some other actions. The operation of this mode is simple - HTC has the Zoodles service installed, which is the very "child mode". After enabling it, you first need to set up the rules and add allowed programs, as well as accounts (for several "children", for example).

Then it just remains to turn on the service every time you give the smartphone to your child for joy. In Zoodles, he will be able to run authorized programs, as well as draw, listen to audiobooks with pictures (information is downloaded from the network) and, of course, play games.

Flashlight and voice recorder... Two traditional programs in HTC - here they also exist and work great. With the help of a voice recorder, you can write conversations, but at the same time you will only hear yourself well on the recording, but the interlocutor will barely be heard (the recorder does not write from the line).

Service htcsense.com

With the release of HTC One, the company is re-launching the Sense web service. Or rather, it restarts, because not so long ago Sense already existed, but then it was closed. The new Sense service should be more beautiful, better and more useful, although personally I do not understand why HTC is launching it again. The main idea of ​​the service is the ability to quickly remotely configure the device through the website.

In addition, HTC Backup can be called a part of the service - with it you can save smartphone settings, account data, installed programs, bookmarks and a dictionary for the keyboard. An important point is that HTC Backup stores data from a smartphone in Dropbox, and not on its servers, so using HTC backup you will depend not only on HTC, but also on the stable operation of Dropbox. The second important point is that by turning on HTC Backup, you automatically turn off the data backup that was originally installed in Android and tied to your Google account. That is, you need to make a choice right away.

The third point - now the official website htcsense.com in Russian looks something like this:

I don’t know about you, but I would not use a service that I could not even properly translate (completely, and not in pieces, and choosing the correct fonts) into Russian before launching.

Conclusion

For almost a month of using the smartphone, I had no complaints about the signal reception quality in HTC One. The device catches the network well, and the sound in the conversational dynamics is clear, without wheezing and extraneous noise. In addition, there is a good volume margin and you can speak on the phone even while on the subway. The vibration alert in HTC One is powerful, it is well felt even when walking when the smartphone is in the pocket of your trousers. The volume of the ringing speaker is above average. I can't say that it "yells" directly, but compared to the loudness of previous smartphones from HTC, the difference is quite noticeable with a plus sign.

The smartphone should go on sale at the beginning of April, the pre-order price will be 28,000 rubles (27,990), and in retail the first time the device will cost 30,000 rubles (29,990). The start of sales has already been postponed several times and this, of course, slightly darkens the impression of the launch of HTC One, because initially the smartphone was supposed to start selling food if not together with the announcement of the Samsung Galaxy S 4.

To compare HTC One with the previous flagship of the company - HTC Butterfly, there is no particular sense, as it seems to me. Especially if we are talking about versions of smartphones for Russia, because HTC Butterfly came to us completely neutered - without a slot for a memory card (only 16 GB), and even with a glossy lid. This smartphone can now be called an intermediate link between HTC One X and HTC One.

Let's take a look at the strengths and weaknesses of the HTC One.

pros:

• Display excellent in all respects (brightness, viewing angles, color rendition, contrast)
• Moderately large dimensions (the smartphone is comparable to the HTC One X and more compact than the HTC Butterfly)
• Excellent design and use of aluminum (all-metal body and glass - what could be better?)
• High speed of work in various modes (when working with the menu, in games, when watching a video)
• High-quality stereo sound in the call speakers
• Good headphone sound
• Excellent camera in video recording mode
• Good battery life (compared to previous HTC smartphones)
• Beautiful shell of HTC Sense 5 (if you close your eyes to the strangely elongated fonts)

Minuses:

• Large sizes (it seems that modern flagships cannot get away from the "shovel" form factor)
• Only 32 GB of internal memory without the possibility of increasing this volume (about 25 GB available to the user)
• Lack of touch-sensitive menu key
• Controversial 4 megapixel camera (yes, progress is visible and HTC's desire to untie users from the megapixel race is commendable, but the first pancake was rather a lump and the quality of the pictures is not particularly better than the average for the smartphone market, and in some situations it is worse)
• Inconvenient power and volume keys (a trifle, but unpleasant)
• Non-removable battery (when traveling, you will have to take an external battery with a cable instead of a pair of compact standard batteries)
• HTC BlinkFeed

As usual, HTC has turned out to be an interesting smartphone in general and, as usual, it is a set of largely compromise solutions in different areas. If a non-removable battery or a 4 Mp camera can be easily explained logically - in the first case we are dealing with a non-separable body, in the second - with the company's desire to stand out and offer the market something new, then the absence of a card slot is again surprising. How surprising is the decision to abandon the menu button and stick the htc logo instead. Yes, this is a trifle, but it is the trifles in total that give us an idea of ​​a particular device and from such trifles opinions about the products are formed: “HTC One does not have a memory card, but Samsung Galaxy S4 does”. Isn't that an argument?

Probably the most important question before buying an HTC One - am I willing to put up with its shortcomings for the sake of its benefits? And the new HTC flagship has a lot of positive qualities, although the main thing, in my opinion, is the excellent design and body materials. When you take this smartphone in your hand, you feel a real thing, a device with a capital U, which is simply pleasant to use and pleasant to hold in your hands. Every next year, this is an increasing rarity for smartphones, the world has already been filled with plastic products of all sizes and textures, so the value of a solid aluminum case and the feeling of real quality can hardly be overestimated. And the HTC One is exactly what it feels like. Otherwise, this is a good, well-built flagship with its positive qualities and shortcomings.

I don’t know about you, but I have already chosen a smartphone for the next six months - it will be HTC One.

Specifications:

• Class: company flagship
• Form factor: candy bar
• Body materials: aluminum unibody-body
• Operating system: Android 4.1.2, HTC Sense 5 proprietary interface
• Network: GSM / EDGE, WCDMA, LTE
• Platform: Qualcomm Snapdragon 600
• Processor: Quad-core 1.7 GHz, GPU - Adreno 320
• RAM: 2 GB
• Memory for data storage: ~ 25 GB (32 GB declared) without the possibility of expansion, there is also a 64 GB version, but they do not plan to sell it in Russia
• Interfaces: Wi-Fi (a / ac / b / g / n), Bluetooth 4.0 (A2DP, aptX), microUSB (USB 2.0) for charging / synchronization, 3.5 mm for headset, HDMI (via microUSB), DLNA, NFC
• Screen: capacitive, Super LCD3, 4.7 "with a resolution of 1920x1080 pixels (FulldHD), 468 ppi, automatic backlight level control
• Camera: 4 megapixels (maximum image resolution 2688 x 1520), use of "ultrapixels" size 2 micrometers, autofocus, BSI, f / 2.0, optical multi-axis stabilization, video is recorded in 1080p (1920x1080 pixels), LED flash (works as a flashlight)
• Front camera: 2.1 MP, f / 2.0, wide-angle (88 degrees), video recording in 1080p
• Navigation: GPS / Glonass (A-GPS support)
• Optional: accelerometer, light sensor, proximity sensor, FM radio
• Battery: non-removable, Li-Pol, 2300 mAh
• Dimensions: 137.4 x 68.2 x 9.3mm / 4mm (max / min)
• Weight: 143 grams with battery

Roman Belykh took part in the preparation of the material, for which many thanks to him!