HTC at MWC 2012: One X, One S, and more
HTC is revamping its Android lineup with the One series of marquee phones. The company has just introduced the One X, One S, and One V Android phones, and it has also announced Sense 4, the newest version of the love-it-or-hate-it Android skin. Keep up with all of the announcements and hands-on impressions as they come in here.
Mobile
HTC finds its way: Sense 4 and the One line
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...
Mobile
HTC says Sense UI 'got cluttered' before latest redesign
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...
Mobile
HTC's dark materials: hands-on photos with the gray One S, black One X
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...
Mobile
HTC One X car dock and media dock hands-on photos
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...
MWC 2012
HTC Media Link HD will stream DRM movies from HTC Watch
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...
Mobile
HTC One family portrait
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.
Android
HTC One X and One S thickness comparison
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...
Mobile
HTC One V pictures and hands-on preview
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...
Mobile
HTC One S pictures, video and hands-on preview
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...
Mobile
HTC One X for AT&T pictures, video, and hands-on preview
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...
MWC 2012
HTC Vivid to get Android 4.0 and Beats Audio in 'coming weeks'
The most exciting announcement for AT&T today has been the One X, but let's remember that it's not the first LTE-enabled HTC device to hit the carrier — that title would go to last year's Vivid, and owners have cause to celebrate this afternoon. Buried within the One X's press release, AT&T has announced that the Vivid will be getting Android 4.0, an "updated Sense experience" (presumably based on the new Sense 4), and Beats Audio profiles "in the coming weeks." Of course, the retrofitting...
HTC One V revives Legend design, adds Android 4.0
Bringing up the rear in HTC's 2012 cavalcade of new phones is the One V, a 3.7-inch Android 4.0 smartphone with an aluminum unibody design that evokes the well-liked Legend handset of 2010. It mostly keeps things simple, with a 1GHz single-core processor, a regular-sized SIM card slot (unlike its One series siblings), and a 5-megapixel camera. Although its sensor differs from the 8-megapixel unit inside the higher-end models, the One V benefits from the exact same software enhancements.
C...
Android
HTC introduces new car software with Sense 4
HTC has just announced a new app for in-car integration built into Sense 4 which will be available to all of the newly-announced One series, and any phone running HTC's latest Android skin. The app consists of three touch-friendly panels for contacts, navigation and media, and is triggered automatically when you dock your phone. The company will be selling a wireless clip alongside its One Series handsets which plugs into the 3.5mm jack of any car stereo to allow for audio passthrough. We're...
T-Mobile USA announces HTC One S for spring launch
While AT&T has landed the One X as an exclusive,T-Mobile USA says it'll be the first carrier in the US to launch the One X's thinner cousin, the One S. Like the AT&T-branded X, the S features a 1.5GHz Snapdragon S4, which should really scream since it's based on Qualcomm's new Krait architecture, but this phone opts for a smaller 4.3-inch AMOLED display at qHD resolution. The lower-res screen isn't without its reward: the One S is just 7.95mm thick, becoming T-Mobile's thinnest smartphone and...
HTC One S official: 4.3-inch Super AMOLED display, Android 4.0, thinnest HTC phone ever
The long-awaited launch of HTC's next mainstream superstar phone is upon us and its name is the One S. Eschewing the tired motifs that have characterized HTC design over the past year, the 4.3-inch One S looks bold, distinctive, and extremely slim. Its software is right up to date, shipping with Android 4.0 plus added Sense 4.0 skinning, it features a dual-core 1.5GHz processor, and its 8-megapixel camera is the same as on the HTC One X. Combining an f/2.0 lens with a backside-illuminated...
Mobile
HTC Media Link HD wireless streaming adapter announced
HTC has just announced its Media Link HD wireless streaming adapter here at MWC 2012. We haven't heard too much on the product yet, but you can connect it to any television over HDMI and then stream video, photos, or music to your big screen. All you need to do to send a video or photo to the television is swipe three fingers up the on the phone's screen. The Media Link will support dual-display mode, so you can use your phone while streaming video to the TV. The whole setup sounds quite a...
MWC 2012
HTC One X is AT&T's first Android 4.0 phone with LTE; also headed to Asia and Australia as the One XL
Concurrent with HTC's event in Barcelona today, AT&T has announced that it'll be carrying an LTE-enabled version of the flagship One X smartphone as an exclusive "in the coming months." By all appearances, this is going to be one of 2012's more exciting handsets thanks to a 4.7-inch 720p Super LCD, Android 4.0 (with Sense 4) out of the box, a 1.5GHz Snapdragon S4 processor, and some serious photography chops — f/2 optics with an 8-megapixel back illuminated sensor and 1080p video capture....
Android
HTC One X announced for April release with quad-core Tegra 3, 4.7-inch HD display, and Android 4.0
Shockingly, the rumors were all true. HTC has today confirmed the existence of a 4.7-inch, quad-core superphone, which it is dubbing the One X and using as the hero device of its new One smartphone family. The Tegra 3-powered One X will feature Android 4.0 right out of the box, alongside a streamlined new version of Sense, fittingly called Sense 4.0. Equipped with NFC, 32GB of built-in storage, and a 1280 x 720 Super LCD display, this is what HTC describes as its "all-in device." The camera...
MWC 2012
HTC officially announces Sense 4.0 Android skin with improved camera, Dropbox integration
HTC CEO Peter Chou has just announced that Sense has been updated to version 4.0. Long a bane to users who bemoaned Sense's heavy, slow interface, it looks like HTC is changing things up. The main two foci in Sense 4.0 are the camera software and the audio. HTC believes that these two areas are the most important for a phone's core experience.
"ImageSense" is designed to give you "perfect shots — every time," and is capable to taking a photo in just 0.7 seconds with a 0.2-second autofocus....
