nasa jewel: HTC One S review (European version)

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

HTC One S review (European version)

HTC knows it has to deliver in 2012. The past few months haven’t been kind to the veteran Android manufacturer, with tumbling revenues and unrelenting competition from Samsung and Apple. And so, as it hopes to reclaim some lost glory, HTC has launched its new range of “hero” handsets, the HTC One series.

Much of the media attention since the HTC One announcement at Mobile World Congress has been focused on the new flagship product, the One X. And with good reason -- the One X is a fantastic phone, and one that makes smartphone history as the world’s first quad-core phone. But equally alluring is the X’s smaller, sleeker sibling, the HTC One S -- a 7.8mm-thick, metal-framed device powered by a next-gen Snapdragon processor. Unlike the polycarbonate-clad One X, the One S retains the classic HTC aluminum unibody design, with both vanilla and plasma-fried flavors unveiled at MWC. Though it lacks the pin-sharp 720p display found on the One X, the One S nevertheless is a premium product.

But now that it's actually available to purchase, where does the 4.3-inch One S fit in the broader Android landscape, and has HTC been able to cram all this high-end hardware into the phone’s slender shell without compromising in other areas? Find out after the break, in our definitive HTC One S review.

An unbelievably thin phone with superlative build quality. Performance is speedy thanks to the Snapdragon S4 CPU. There’s also the same fantastic camera that’s found in the One X, and great battery life to boot. HTC Sense 4 compliments ICS rather than replacing it.	USB storage is limited to 10GB. Although superior to other PenTile displays, the One S’s qHD screen will be a turn-off for some, as will the lack of removable storage and battery.

The One S will inevitably live in the shadow of its big brother, but it’d be foolish to overlook this device. Despite its position in the middle of the HTC One series, this is no mid-range handset. The One S is a smaller, sleeker, leaner version of the X (with much better battery life, we might add), and it’s just as capable a smartphone as HTC’s new flagship. If you can get past the lower screen resolution, it’s definitely worth a look.