Wednesday, April 4, 2012

HTC One X: Should you buy or wait?

So, one of the most anticipated devices of 2012 has been released, and is even available in Pakistan. HTC One X is meant to be the HTC flaghship for 2012 and tops their new brand of 'One' nicely, the other two lesser devices being One S and One V.


HTC One X

In many respects One X is already a success. It restores some of the glory to the HTC brand which it lost during 2011 thanks to a sprawling product line up, branding confusion and frankly, quite capable but ultimately ordinary devices. One X also ushers in the 'One' brand which in itself is very strong, and its strength is redoubled when coupled to HTC's rediscovered penchant for product design.

Their 2011 flagship line, Sensation, played second fiddle to Samsung Galaxy S2 on the high end and was beaten on price very nicely to boot. It also had pathetic battery life among other failings, though by no means a bad device.

2012 brings in the era of quad-core devices and HTC seems first out of the gate with NVidia's Tegra 3 quad-core chipset. Here is a quick overview of what makes One X special:

1) 1.5 Ghz quad-core Tegra 3 processor
2) Android 4.0 married to HTC Sense 4.0 skin
3) 32 GB built in memory
4) 4.7 inch 1280x720 resolution SuperLCD2 screen
5) No card slot and fixed 1800 mAH battery
6) 8 Megapixel wide angle camera

If you skim through the reviews, the following key points emerge:
1) The screen is the best on any mobile device
2) Sense 4.0 is, unlike previous version, is very light and understated
3) The phone is fast, but not as fast in web browsing as exepceted
4) Camera is very good and very very fast
5) Battery life is, once again, pathetic

For me the last point is key. For years HTC handsets have been notorious for their lack of battery life and this seems no different. I have another reservation, which is the phone having physical buttons at the bottom while Android 4.0 natively has virtual on-screen buttons (an infinitely superior solution).

Even then, the sheer style, coupled with those specs and that screen, makes the phone worth a consideration especially if you are a HTC loyalist. However, I would suggest to WAIT for Samsung's announcement regarding the successor to Galaxy S2. By then, the price of the set will also have fallen to a more reasonable level/ 

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