HTC at MWC 2012: One X, One S, and more – The Verge

HTC finds its way: Sense 4 and the One line

2012-03-06T14:25:01-05:00

HTC One Family 640

HTC's new One series of Android smartphones garnered much of the attention and praise at Mobile World Congress this year. That's partially because the One X, One S, and One V are each compelling phones, but mainly the attention came because the One line represents a significant change in strategy for HTC. For the past few months, HTC has been a company adrift, losing marketshare and mindshare to its competitors.

The One series represents HTC's attempt to get back on course, both in terms of hardware and software. HTC's AVP of User Experience, Drew Bamford, explains that all of HTC is aligned behind the new strategy: "Over the past year ther …

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HTC says Sense UI ‘got cluttered’ before latest redesign

2012-03-02T20:01:03-05:00

Gallery Photo: HTC One X hands-on

HTC's Sense Android skin was revamped at MWC with Sense 4.0, a lighter version of the UI that focuses on the phone's camera and audio. Now, HTC chief product officer Kouji Kodera admits that the redesign was meant to fight the creep of unnecessary clutter into Sense. "From the original Sense up to Sense 3.5 we added too many things. The original concept was that it had to be simple and it had to be easy to use and we had that philosophy, but over time it got cluttered," said Kodera. "Even on the home screen we had four or five icons before consumers got a chance to add things themselves. For the HTC One range we have taken it down to Sense 2 …

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HTC’s dark materials: hands-on photos with the gray One S, black One X

2012-02-28T11:20:20-05:00

Gallery Photo: HTC One S in gray and One X in black hands on photos

HTC is touting the design quality of the One X and One S heavily and one major focus isn't the shape of the phones, but the materials that they're made of. The One X has a polycarbonate body that we like almost as much as the Lumia 800, but it's materials on the One S that really stand out. The One S has an aluminum shell with one of two finishes: a straightforward, gray aluminum body with a "gradient anodized" finish that has a very subtle light-to-dark shade. Android Central first spotted the gray version and so we swung by Google's booth to check it out for ourselves. It has a slightly cleaner, simpler feel compared to the complex feel of …

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HTC One X car dock and media dock hands-on photos

2012-02-28T09:52:32-05:00

Gallery Photo: HTC car dock and media dock

Sense 4.0 on the HTC One line of phones has a very excellent car mode, which gives "fat finger" access to contacts, navigation, and music. All that goodness isn't much use if you're keeping the phone in the cup holder, so we took a quick look at the car dock for the One X. It is a straightforward charging affair with no extra frills, you click the phone in and charge it via microUSB. Hopefully its simple nature means it will be fairly low-cost, but we wouldn't have minded seeing a car dock that utilized the charging pins instead of the microUSB port, but sadly that wasn't the case.

Those charging pins will also come in handy when HTC gets r …

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HTC Media Link HD will stream DRM movies from HTC Watch

2012-02-28T09:32:13-05:00

HTC Media Link HD 2

We spent some time at HTC's booth here at MWC and learned a few new details on the Media Link HD. Like its predecessor, the HTC Media Link, it acts as a straightforward DLNA receiver if your television doesn't support it. The HD version adds a few extra HTC touches, including the ability to stream movies wrapped in DRM from the HTC Watch movie service. HTC says that is had to put together a proprietary solution in order to get around the fact that DLNA doesn't support the DRM on streaming video, not to mention Sense 4.0's ability to stream a video while still using the phone to do other tasks. HTC may open up the protocol to other app develo …

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HTC One family portrait

2012-02-26T17:54:54-05:00

Gallery Photo: HTC One Series hands-on photos

HTC has graced MWC with three new Android smartphones, forming its all-new HTC One series. The One X, One S, and One V all run Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich with a Sense 4 skin on top. They all feature a significantly enhanced suite of camera software and slim unibody designs. Unfortunately, HTC wouldn't let us see the One V turned on - the software isn't yet final - but you can get a better sense of what the trio look like by seeing them side by side in the galleries and video below.

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HTC One X and One S thickness comparison

2012-02-26T17:05:42-05:00

HTC One X and One S

One thing that really struck us when we first approached the hands-on area at HTC's press conference today is that it's genuinely difficult to tell the difference between the One X and One S at first blush, particularly if you don't have both of them handy at the same time. Thanks largely to a lower-res AMOLED display, the One S is supposed to be considerably thinner - 1.1 millimeters thinner, to be exact - but in reality, you really need to be looking for the variance. HTC has a long reputation of making thick devices seem thinner than they actually are through creative use of contoured edges (the Sensation, for instance), and the One X's sl …

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HTC One V pictures and hands-on preview

2012-02-26T15:52:41-05:00

HTC One V hands on main

HTC's One V is the "budget" offering in its 2012 lineup and has the specs to match: a WVGA screen, 1GHz processor, 5-megapixel camera, and 4 gigs of storage. There's nothing embarrassing about a phone that's not featuring the latest specs or the thinnest body and that goes double for the One V, which takes the classic HTC Legend form factor and updates it for 2012.

The aluminum unibody frame curves around to a glass screen that is not quite flush, at least on the pre-production model we tried. The phone actually felt small and particularly narrow, at least by the "new normal" of super-sized phones in 2012. The prominent chin at the bottom r …

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HTC One S pictures, video and hands-on preview

2012-02-26T15:51:52-05:00

Gallery Photo: HTC One S hands-on photos

The HTC One S is the best designed phone of the year so far. It measures just 7.6mm in thickness but feels even thinner thanks to its slanted sides and the way the front glass surface slopes off the edges. For a 4.3-inch phone, the One S feels remarkably light and easy to handle. If you think back to the leap HTC made between the Desire HD and Sensation - making its 4.3-inch Android flagship significantly thinner, lighter and more ergonomic - the same delta is apparent between the Sensation and this handset. Part of that is down to the company moving to a Super AMOLED screen with the One S, allowing for a thinner display construction and impr …

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HTC One X for AT&T pictures, video, and hands-on preview

2012-02-26T15:51:46-05:00

Gallery Photo: HTC One X hands-on

HTC's new flagship is here: the HTC One X is in the vanguard of not just the new "One" lineup, but of HTC's mini-revival for 2012. Based on our brief time with it, we think the phone will manage to pull off both of those heavy tasks, though whether it will be enough to fend off Samsung's rumored Galaxy S III is sadly going to be an open question until later this year. For now, the HTC One X impresses on its own terms and specs, and what great specs they are.

The first and most important thing about the One X is its screen: a 4.7-inch 720p "Super LCD 2" panel that is simply better than anything we've seen on the market. It's bright and crisp …

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