After not so successful attempts in 2012 with their HTC One X, yet the Taiwanese company renewed the same title for their new flagship of the year 2013, the HTC One.
Unlike last year, when HTC unveiled their flagship the HTC One X at the Mobile World Congress 2012 but this time they did it just before MWC 2013 in simultanous press events at London and New York.
HTC One comes crafted with an premium look and feel, boasting 468dpi on a 4.7-inch 1080p Super LCD 3 display and protected by Gorilla Glass 2 in a machined aluminum unibody. It is one of the first smartphones to feature Qualcomm’s quad-core Snapdragon 600, clocked here at 1.7GHz paired with 2GB RAM.
Weighing in at 143 grams and measuring 5.4 (137.4mm) x 2.7 (68.2mm) x 0.37 (9.3mm) inches, the HTC One’s thickness puts on par with the BlackBerry Z10 despite of its metallic construction. Considering this slim build, for the integrated 2,300mAh Li-polymer battery, radios for WiFi a/ac/b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC and 32GB or 64GB of storage with no further option for memory upgradation.
The latest flagship also features dual stereo speakers (featuring dedicated amps) surrounding the screen, a 2.1-megapixel camera with 88-degree wide-angle lens capable of 1080p video recording on the top, soft keys (one for back, one for home) and the IR blaster (integrated in the power button).
HTC’s UltraPixel camera outfitted with a 4-megapixel BSI sensor and f/2.0 lens, such that each pixel is meant to gather 300 percent more light than the current crop of smartphone sensors. The camera unit also features optical image stabilization and HTC’s ImageChip 2 for HDR, 1080p and 60fps video introducing a new service called Zoe, which allows users to capture and share short videos, much like Vine, via HTC’s dedicated site.
HTC’s Sense also got a version upgrade with Sense 5 running on Android Jelly Bean (4.1.2) bringing a lot more UI changes like the default BlinkFeed homescreen (a Flipboard-like social feed) which needs to be explored when the phone arrives for the public.
HTC One will be available from over 180 operators and retailers, globally starting somewhat by March end. Let’s see how market responds to HTC this time.
