There’s little question that HTC wishes
2012 had gone just a little better — the
beleaguered smartphone company posted
awfully disappointing results quarter after
quarter, while rivals like Samsung and
Apple continued to hit milestone after
milestone.
CEO Peter Chou firmly believes that the
worst is over though, and that the
company he helms can truly turn its
fortunes around. Now, here in New York
(as well as at a parallel event in London),
HTC has just introduced the device it
hopes will help do all that — the HTC
One.
Frankly, there’s not a lot here that hasn’t
already been spoiled by an insane number
of leaks over the past few weeks, but the
Jelly Bean-powered One is still a terribly
pretty handset. The One sports a 4.7-inch
1080p display (pixel density: 468ppi)
flanked on either side by white or black
trim not entirely unlike the BlackBerry
Z10. Naturally, the internals are nothing
to scoff at either — inside its sleek, gently
curved unibody chassis, are one of Qualcomm’s
new quad-core Snapdragon 600 chipsets
clocked at 1.6GHz, 2GB of RAM, and 32 or
64 GB of internal flash storage.
Here’s the thing about the One hardware
though — it almost seems like an exercise
in restraint. Its 4.7-inch 1080p display
isn’t the largest they’ve put out (that
distinction goes to the Droid DNA and its
ilk), nor is the chipset powering the show
the fastest that Qualcomm has to offer.
These days companies like HTC and
Samsung are downplaying the perceived
strength of their devices’ spec sheets in
favor of pushing differentiating features,
and the One has no shortage of those.
The company’s focus on improving mobile
sound quality has led it to add a pair of
front-facing speakers complete with their
own amplifiers and obnoxious name
(really? “BoomSound”?). As you’d expect,
HTC has also gone to town with the One’s
camera — with its so-called “Ultrapixel”
sensor HTC is trying to transcend the
megapixel race entirely. An f/2.0 helps the cause here, but the company
insists that its newfangled sensor collects
“300 percent more light” than those of its
rivals. Through in a living room play in the
form of an IR blaster and a HTC-branded
remote control/guide app powered by
Peel and you’ve got yourself a neat little
package.
Of course, the hardware is but part of
HTC’s vision for the One
Of course, the hardware is but part of
HTC’s vision for the One — just as those
leaked screenshots indicated, the new and
improved Sense 5 UI is Sense 5 is easily
the cleanest, least obtrusive version of
HTC’s custom UI to date. It’s a drastic
step away from the sorts of overly gaudy,
overwrought interfaces the company used
to be so fond of.
Google’s Roboto typeface is featured
prominently throughout and Sense’s icons
and widgets are flatter and more in line
with Jelly Bean’s cold digital aesthetic.
The biggest addition though is a new
feature called BlinkFeed, which pulls in
content from thousands of (think ESPN, AOL’s media properties, The
Verge, Reuters, and more), and dumps
them into an activity stream that acts as
the device’s homescreen.
Meanwhile, a series of four (that’s a hard
limit) more standard homescreens can be
accessed by swiping to the left from
BlinkFeed. For better or worse, there’s no
way to turn the feature off — rather,
users can pop into the settings and trim
down the list of sources that BlinkFeed
pulls its content from.
HTC has said that the One will ultimately
be available from 185+ wireless carriers
the world over starting in March, but here
in the States, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile
will be the ones to carry HTC’s latest
flagship. Sorry, Verizon fans — there’s no
official word on why Verizon turned down
the One, but it’s not a huge shock
considering that the Droid DNA is still
relatively new to their lineup.
The big launch event is still underway
here, so stay tuned — we’ll be hustling to
get our hands on a One in short order for
more
detailed impressions of HTC’s would-be
savior.
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