stop whining about locked bootloaders! May 13, 2012

Reviewer:  C. Wang "Cheng"  (Berkeley, CA) -

I'm tech savvy, but I am also aware that 99% of the users will never bother boot loading their phones, and it's not fair to see the complaints of the remaining 1% occupying 50% of the reviews here, making this excellent phone seem utterly worthless.

Now, for the remaining 99%:

I like new phones, and I've recently moved from a iPhone 4 to Galaxy SII, now to this HTC One X.

First of all, the screen is gorgeous. I loved the Retina Display on the iPhone, and although the Galaxy SII has a vivid OLED display, the resolution is significantly lower, and is further worsened by the larger screen. After getting used to the iPhone 4, I simply can no longer stand pixelation when reading! Another thing about the Samsung OLED is that the color looks a lot more saturated than normal. Therefore the pictures simply look inaccurate - a "normal" looking picture on the phone looks washed out on the computer, and a color-balanced picture on the computer simply looks too saturated on the phone. The HTC One X has a color-accurate IPS screen (so does the iPhone 4), but at the whopping 1280x720 resolution (compared to 960x640 on the iPhone). I simply cannot see how anyone will claim this screen is worse than the iPhone's. HD video simply looks amazing on it.

Did I mention HD video? Youtube HD looks great, but the phone does get a bit hot, and drains quite some battery when doing so. The screen is bright enough for usage under sunlight, but does drain more battery. The screen itself can account for >50% of power consumption. Without watching video, I can get a full day of normal usage with about 30% battery left at the end of the day. But if you are one of those who isn't always on your phone, 10 hours of stand-by drains the battery by only 10% (no kidding! I tried that today).

Another point people love to whine about is its lack of a quad-core processor, available in its Asia market. The fact is, this dual-core is more than sufficient, and I would take a power-efficient dual-core LTE processor anyday, over a power-hogging quad-core without LTE, and without a significant performance improvement. Trust me, you do not need quad core, but you WILL wish you can get 25 Mbps of download speed. Living in Los Angeles, I've been consistently getting LTE in most places. Download speed varies from 25+ Mbps (5 bars) to 8 Mbps (3 bars).

I regretted giving up the iPhone right after I got my Galaxy SII, but the One X has made me a believer in Android. Thank you HTC!

Great Smartphone - six year smartphone user May 17, 2012

Reviewer:  smalltaco "mxted" 

Been using smartphones for last six years including blackberry, windows, and tons of iphones. But this is my first Android phone. Finally decide to try something new to replace my iphone4. Ice Cream Sandwich has a huge improvement from the last time research android phones three years ago. So far this phone is doing everything very well compare to my old phone.

Android has the Google Play store where you get apps, music, movies, etc. I tried out all built-in apps and they all work well except a few I didn't like. The HTC keyboard app is too crowd with options. Download the ICS keyboard. I didn't like the built-in web browser that much. Download the Chrome Beta. Chrome will be the default web browser on the next major Android update. The Chrome browser works just like the iphone one. All pinch-zone, double tap, and other gesture work. I set up the built-in mail apps, gmail, and yahoo to sync with my work Exchange mail and personal accounts. Only complaint is it doesn't have pinch to zoom on the email app for whatever reason. Not a big deal.
Calendar and contacts sync up up fine. All other apps Clocks, Alarms, Youtube, Google Maps, Music/Video player, Gallery, and Camera work very well.

The phone performs very fast. I played some HD 720 videos and it was fast and beautiful. Internet LTE speed is super fast like 30mbps per second. BTW, amazon only offer the 3 GB 30 dollar plan. I had no issues calling ATT after activation to swap it out and put the 15 dollars 200 MB LTE dataplan to save money. I have wifi at home and work.

The operating system is very easy to learn. You should feel right at home after a few hours. Also, search google if you want to learn how to do something. Android is very customizable.

Battery seems decent; With moderate usage in the morning, lunch time, and during my work breaks, I can get a full days use fine. As with most smartphones you usually have to charge it at least every day or other day.

I was certain that the phone would be too big in my hands. But that's not the case. My hands have gotten use to it and I can do most things with one hand if I wanted too. The back of the phone has a smooth curve surface with makes holding it very comfortable. Also, the phone is actually lighter than my old iphone4. Phone fits int he my front pocket fine. I don't use the case. On youtube people done scratch test. There were zero scratch on the screen and back of phone. So no cases is needed.

Charging phone with a/c wall adapter takes 2.75 hrs from 5% to 100%. That same charge on usb cable laptop charging takes 5.5 hours. just an FYI. This is normal cause the a/c outputs twice the amount of amps.

I haven't had any issues with the phone. My wifi works fine. Phone has not crash or locked up. Also, I have my phone encryption and didn't notice any slowdowns.

The three major phones Android, iPhone, and Windows phone now have polished their phone very well. Honestly, you can't go wrong with any of them. It ultimately comes down to if you want to do business with Google, Apple, or Microsoft. Personally, I don't really buy paid apps or media so I have no attachments to any of them. Since I been using iphones since 2007 the new Android phone is definitely a fun new experience so far. Thanks for reading. See ya in 18 months when I get my next phone upgrade.

Happily converted from iPhone 4 to HTC One X (AT&T) June 18, 2012

Reviewer:  Miftah Khan  (Hillsborough, NJ USA) -

Here are the ways my android phone kicks iPhone 4's butt, even with iOS 6 down the road:
+ Camera: Fast camera with lock screen access, zero shutter lag, and ability to take photos while taking or even viewing videos
+ Signal: AT&T signal at my office in Manhattan is infinitely better than AT&T signal was on iPhone 3gs or 4. Plus, 4G LTE is super fast in Manhattan.
+ Hardware: HOX has a big beautiful screen, thinner profile and great build quality.
+ Google Voice integration: Native calling and texting through GVoice instead of Carrier. Great for international calls.
+ Widgets: Ability to view photos, weather and stocks, and control settings right on the home page
+ Navigation: Turn by turn navigation with Street View. Plus the GPS accuracy seems better in HOX than iPhone 4.
+ Open: Support for competing mp3 stores, e.g. Amazon MP3.
+ Flash: Great for watching Amazon Video, which requires Flash support.
+ Better email and calendar app (e.g. reply all to calendar invite, view calendar conflicts before accepting an invite)
+ Much better keyboard options, e.g. choice of 3rd party keyboards (Swiftkey is amazing!!), haptic feedback, built in dictation
+ NFC: Looking forward to using my NFC tags for quick settings in my car and nightstand.

Great phone, if you care about the phone. May 7, 2012

Reviewer:  NK "NK"  (Hollywood, Ca United States) -

1. Locked bootloader, doesn't concern me, don't need it and I'm sure when I do, someone would have figured out a way.

2. 16GB memory with 12GB available to use. Knew about it when I bought the phone, can't complain.

3. No micro SD slot. Knew about it when I bought the phone, would have kept my samsung galaxy skyrocket if this was a deal breaker.

4. The screen is great in general and I know it's HD, but I would prefer to watch 720P/1080P movies on my 55" big screen than a 4.7 inch phone. It's more for convenience, not a home theatre replacement. That should free up the 12GB available for more movies rather than trying to squeeze 720P movies into a phone.

Hands down, best android phone out there. Can't stand Samsung's build quality, even the new S3 is not going to cut it in that department.

Best (Android) phone money can buy. June 29, 2012

Reviewer:  Linh Nguyen  (New York City) -

First, let me say that I've tested all three smartphone ecosystems: iOS, WP and Android. I enjoyed them all, especially my recent purchase of the Nokia Lumia 800 (which I posted a review a while ago). So I'm pretty unbiased when it comes to pointing out pros and cons of each system, at least I'd like to think so.

Ok, now onto the actual review.

HARDWARE & DESIGN

I think this is absolutely the best looking smartphone HTC has delivered, and arguably the sexiest smartphone available on the market. Some might prefer the square edges of the iPhone 4S, some might like the Galaxy S3's curves. I just love the One X. It's the perfect combination of great clean and feel good design. I bought the white version. I think Apple would be proud to call this one of their own.

Now the screen. Best. Screen. Ever. It's big. It's bright. It's sharp (720p!). It's LCD2 and not pentile (haha Nexus). It's super sensitive.. Oh, and it's super battery-consuming. I can get maybe 4 hours of screen usage out of every full charge. And this is at 20-30% brightness (which is still plenty with this screen). The 4.7" size can be difficult to use with one-hand at times, but it's not really a problem unless you have super small hands.

The rear camera is also the one of the best. Sure, it still can't compare to a good P&S but in good lighting, you can get some terrific shots. The camera app is also awesome and very customizable. I love the Best-shot feature which lets you take a burst of shots then pick the best one to keep.

The only things I (personally, some of your might think otherwise) don't like about the design are:
a) power button is on top. It works for the iPhone, but when you have an almost 5" phone, it can be a little difficult to press the button with my index finger while holding the phone. I think Samsung got it just right with the power button on the right side of the phone.
b) micro-USB connector is on the left vs. at the bottom. This is not really a big deal, but I believe that we'll never see an elegant charging dock thanks to the horrible placement.
c) loudspeaker is on the back.

Bonus, there's also an LED notifier which I think should be on every phone. Very useful and saves battery too since I don't have to turn on the screen to check for new notifications.

SOFTWARE

It runs Google's latest big upgrade, Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0, (JellyBean 4.1 doesn't count) out of the box. This is expected (shame on you Sony) of any flasgship Android phone coming out in 2012. HTC customized it with their own Sense user interface, and you either love it or hate it. I personally think Sense 4.0 is a huge improvement from 3.0. They've removed a lot of the bloated stuff that slows down interface and cleaned it up more than a little. It's very usable and I quite enjoy it.

Ice Cream Sandwich is.. ICS. All I'll say is that there's not much it can't do. It's hard to review something that has been discussed to death. It's smooth, it's fast, it has tons of nifty features built-in. The notification system is still above and beyond that iOS is capable of. If you want a more detailed look at ICS, all you have to do is search on Google.

There's one major gripe I have with HTC though. The multitasking system they implemented. Using the excuse that the phone only has 1GB of RAM, they're handling multitasking very aggressively. Apps are being terminated too quickly and have to be reloaded. This is utter crap. I can live with it, but I hate it.

OTHER THOUGHTS

Battery is really bad, and since the One X has a unibody design (which I love), there's no swapping batteries :) If you need a phone with super long battery life, then the One X is not for you. Or do what I did, buy an external battery pack.

AT&T required their One X's bootloader to be locked. But nobody should be complaining about this now since it's already unlockable with 3rd-party softwares. I've unlocked mine and flashed a custom ROM with no problem.

Google just announced that JellyBean will be released for their Nexus line in mid-July. It's super super smooth with a handful of new features. Let's hope HTC won't drop the ball on this.

Overall, this is an amazing phone. It's not perfect, but the flaws are outweighed by the amazing things HTC were able to achieve with designing this flagship phone. 5 STARS!

Outstanding phone - my first Android/HTC May 9, 2012

Reviewer:  Donald R. Floyd  (NY) -

I've had the One X for about a week and just love it after my iphone 3S finally died. I was a bit hesitant to move the the Android eco system but the process is very smooth and Google has alot more features than Apple (like Google play, its free music cloud). The One X is beautifully designed and anybody who has seen it does a double take. Performance is fantastic including the battery which easily goes a 1.5 days w/ moderate use - I haven't come close to draining it in a day even with heavy use. Its very fast in general and the camera is the best on the market - fast, great zoom, etc. HTC's "sense" software makes for easy navigation and is a joy to use. After a week of use, I feel sorry for the folks who bought iphones recently as the hardware and overall experience is vastly inferior. Bravo HTC!

AWESOME PHONE! August 9, 2012

Reviewer:  Binary Spin  (US) -

Update 9/23/12: I just downgraded my review of this phone from 5 to 3 stars for two reasons:

1. Battery life is worse than advertised and battery is non-replaceable.

2. This phone does not have an SD card slot and only about 8GB of space is available for storage. I knew this when I bought it, but wasn't concerned because the AT&T sales rep who sold me the phone in an AT&T store showed me in the HTC USER MANUAL where it comes with 23GB free space on dropbox (for two years), and dropbox is integrated into the latest HTC Sense operating system.

According to the manual, after setting up dropbox, photos and videos are automatically uploaded to dropbox after capture. Had also read several reviews that mentioned HTC was doing this due to the lack of an SD card slot. So when I recently started running out of space after several minutes of HD videos (one of the phone's best features) I went to claim my 23GB free space on dropbox (supposedly automatic after completing the "getting started" steps). But it was not to be. HTC & dropbox now say that AT&T is "not participating in this promotion" and only the 2GB free storage is available (with a little more if you jump thru dropbox hoops and invite friends, etc.).

The problem is that the user manual says NOTHING about any "promotion" or required carrier participation. The dropbox storage is depicted as a feature of the phone in the user manual (even the manual currently on the AT&T site), which makes sense due to the miniscule and non-upgradeable on-board memory. And now I see that AT&T is offering a competing online storage plan that you is PAY after 5GB. Maybe that's the reason AT&T?

In any case, this is unseemly, cheap and probably illegal, since it is advertised and sold as a feature of the phone, and is further depicted in the user manual as such. It also makes a phone that does excellent 1080p video virtually useless for events (sports/outdoor activities, weddings, parties, etc), with 8GB or less usable storage. Really wanted a phone that does great pics & video (which it does) so I wouldn't have to carry another camera along.

AT&T and HTC should correct this oversight now, or stop with the false advertising! With only 8GB of storage available, this phone is much less appealing and much less useful.

*************** END OF UPDATE ***********************

I've had this phone for almost 2 weeks - upgraded from a HTC Inspire 4g. Wasn't going to bother since I really liked the 4g and didn't think it would be that much of an improvement. I was very happily surprised! HTC really hit the sweet spot with this phone, because:

- The SCREEN is just absolutely gorgeous! Much deeper colors, much brighter than the 4g and I can see it perfectly fine in bright sunlight (one drawback of the Inspire 4g). And the colors are ACCURATE (unlike Samsung screens), which is great for photos and videos.

- I've now totally given up on carrying a digital camera for anything. The camera on this phone is simply amazing - photos and video are at least as good as most point-and-shoot digital cameras. You'll be surprised how good it is.

- The larger screen size is just right - wasn't sure I wanted to go larger than the Inspire 4.3" screen, but now I love the One X 4.7" screen. The extra size makes texting, email and videos much easier to do.

- The phone itself is not much larger (screen goes closer to the edge), but it is very noticeably lighter than the 4g.

- No problem at all running Ice Cream Sandwich, which is much easier to use than Gingerbread. Everything happens much faster.

- Does everything faster - only have 4g where I live, but I get about 30% faster speeds than with the Inspire 4g, and web pages load about 3x faster due to the speed and better CPU.

- Battery life is excellent. It seems even better after the update which downloaded about a week ago (will prompt you and will only download over wi-fi).

- The beautifully sculpted body and gorgeous screen make iPhone 4 owners jealous.

If you're eligible for an upgrade, get one. You won't regret it.

Beats the Galaxy III and iPhone 5 October 5, 2012

Reviewer:  James C. Westland 

I purchased this from ATT after baptizing my Atrix 2 in Pepsi (it didn't survive). I had gone in for an iPhone 5 (which is gorgeous, but smaller) and didn't want to wait for a month for delivery. The HTC One X was $99 with 2-year plan (reduced because the One X+ quad-core is coming out). I couldn't be more impressed, and having owned this for three days, feel that is it significantly better than the Galaxy III or iPhone 5 (but for different reasons).

I looked at the Galaxy III. I had previously owned a Galaxy II and hated the interface, plus it was fragile. I was interested in whether the Galaxy III had improved ... but it hasn't. The main draw of the Galaxy III is the big AMOLED screen, which, frankly, is not really that nice. The main drawback is Samsung's interface (you absolutely have to root the Samsung's to eliminate their poorly designed interface and get back to native Android). Samsung also has extremely poor sync software.

In contrast, the One X keeps most of the Ice Cream Sandwich interface (a good thing). There is some ATT bloatware, but you can go into Settings->Apps and disable most of these (just like on a rooted phone). HTC doesn't have an unlock for the bootloader yet, but I presume this should be on the HTCdev site shortly (HTC is pretty good about this). Given the native quality of their Sense user interface, it may not be necessary to root at all (I know that not everyone likes Sense, but I find it much better than Samsung or other handset interfaces).

As for the iPhone 5 ... pictures don't do it justice. It is beautiful to hold and use. But! The screen is much smaller than the One X (Retina is not an obvious improvement on the One X screen) and the iOS interface is not as customizable as ICS, while being equivalent in 'user experience'. So I give the edge to HTC One X.

HTC One X's camera is better than any of the competition, because it has a larger lense (f/2.0) which gives it better low light performance. The native camera software is also much more usable (and faster) than the Galaxy III ... comparable to the iPhone 5.

Build quality appears solid, and the phone feels good in the hand. The sync software works as advertised ... no problems.

Cons: (1) lacks SD slot and removable battery. Neither is an issue for me. Battery life has been good so far. (2) not quad-core (as is the International version) or the new One X+. Again, not a problem, since the other two cores are only used for games (which is not how I use my phone). In fact, this was a + for me, since ATT dropped the price from $199 to $99 in anticipation of the quad-core One X+.

Best phone available in the U.S. right now; love it for streaming music May 22, 2012

Reviewer:  JLA  (Vienna, VA United States) -

I waited a little too long to upgrade from my old iPhone 3G (not even a 3Gs). Having experienced just how slow a smartphone can get before becoming completely obsolescent, I wanted a phone with enough RAM and processing power, to remain fast for the next two years until I'm eligible for my next upgrade. I also wanted a bigger screen and 4G/LTE for better streaming music performance.

After a LOT of research, I narrowed my choices to three phones: the HTC One X, Samsung Galaxy 3, and iPhone 5. Only one of those phones is available NOW in the U.S. (May 2012): The HTC One X. I'm glad I didn't wait. It is a beutiful phone with an incredible display and a great "feel" in the hand. It is also FAST--no matter what I throw at it, it doesn't slow down.

If my old iPhone could have held on until this fall, I'd probably wait for the iPhone 5, but I didn't want to settle for a 4S with half the RAM of high-end Android phones like the One X, a 3.5" screen, and only 3G connectivity. Likewise, I considered waiting until the U.S. version of the Galaxy 3 was released, but I just couldn't wait any longer and wasn't convinced it would be a better phone for me than the One X in any case.

I read a lot of reviews comparing the One X to the Samsung Galaxy 3. Bottom line: it is probably a draw for the most part, with most professional reviewers prefering the case design of the One X, but noting the onboard storage advantage of the G3 with its removable micro sd card.

More onboard storage would be nice, but there is no need for tons of onboard storage if you embrace "the cloud." I use Google music to access my music library, but rely mainly on streaming music (Spotify, SiriusXM) with my unlimited AT&T data plan and solid 4G LTE coverage where I live (D.C. metro area). The phone also comes with a Dropbox Pro account with 25 GB of cloud storage for two years.

If you need a phone now, and don't want to settle for an iPhone 4S with only ~half a gig of RAM, 3.5" screen, and 3G, this is the best phone available in the U.S. It will probably be a draw between the One X and G3 if you can wait until mid- late-summer. If you can wait until the fall, it might be worth seeing what the last device designed by Steve Jobs--the iPhone 5--looks like.

love it June 5, 2012

Reviewer:  michael 

I have used many android and iOS devices over the year and have to say this device took me by surprise. At first it felt a bit big but after a short time it begins to feel amazing in your hand. The combination of material and design really feel at home in my hand. and that screen... oh my it is very very nice. I find myself reading a lot more blogs and movies on my device then before.

The camera is simply stunning - i am having a great time besting my friends with iphones at bars and bright day light with this camera. People now are asking to use my phone in favor of others to capture moments together. The great display and advanced tools really make editing pictures on the device possible.

I also really like what HTC has done with Sense it has become very light and the device feels nimble. I use the device a lot for business so a solid exchange mail client is a must. The way I am able to customize tabs, have multiple folders and accounts really makes this a power user device when it comes to getting work done.

All in all the device has been a real surprise. I have a lot of faith in Android after using this device. It really has turned this around. What a great product!

Nice Phone With Some Issues July 10, 2012

Reviewer:  James 

I'll preface this review by saying that I'm not a multimedia buff at all, so I can't speak for the quality of the camera or music quality. Both are good enough for me.

What I was a lot more concerned with is the speed and battery life of the phone. This is an extremely snappy phone. The international version has a quad core Tegra processor while the AT&T one has a dual core Snapdragon one, if those names mean anything to you. However, according to most of what's been reported, the Snapdragon is actually faster than the Tegra despite having two less cores because the software is more optimized for two cores rather than quad four. Also, the Snapdragon is a bit more power efficient and allows the phone to have a much better LTE implementation. There's a bunch of tech details supporting that, but most of it went in one eye and out the other. Whatever the reasons, the HTC One X for AT&T is very fast. And on LTE, if you're lucky enough to live in a place with LTE coverage, the One X is blazingly fast with download speeds greater than 20 MB/s.

Just a sidenote, what AT&T calls 4G is actually HSPA+, which is only marginally faster than 3G. What the rest of the world calls 4G AT&T calls 4G LTE. A bit confusing, but even on HSPA+, I get download speeds of around 4 MB/s, which is still respectable.

In terms of battery life, my phone is pretty good, but I definitely can't get it last for longer than a day. Mine lasts a full 9-hour work day with moderate use, but it needs to be charged afterwards. By moderate use I mean HSPA, email, web browsing, music, and some gaming. I haven't turned down the brightness of the screen or fiddled with the sync settings though, so I could probably extend it a bit if I did. I haven't been able to test battery life on LTE yet, but battery life will definitely be a bit worse with it. I'll update my review if/when I get a chance to use LTE for an extended time.

I'm actually going to go a bit off-topic here to talk about battery care in general so skip to the next paragraph if you just want to know about the phone. I've heard a lot of people talking about letting your battery run all the way down before charging it in order to extend your battery's life time. I'm not a battery expert, but from what I understand, doing this every time is commonly held to be useless and probably harmful for current battery technology. It was recommended back when NiCd batteries were commonly used, but now we use NiMH batteries. NiMH batteries have a set number of charge cycles; you won't increase or decrease significantly this through your charging habits. It might help to fully discharge the phone to once a month, but the benefit should be negligible if you only have the phone for a couple of years.

Storage however is a bigger problem. I don't know why AT&T limited us to the 16 GB (~12 useable) version AND opted out of the free 25 GB dropbox deal the rest of the world gets. They probably didn't want us using too much of their network by constantly downloading and uploading, but it's pretty annoying. Maybe if enough of us complain they'll change they're stance, but I'm not holding my breath for it.

The multitasking is pretty annoying too. For those of you who haven't read the thousands of angry internet posts about it, the HTC One X closes an app around 10 seconds after you relegate it into the background. It still remembers what you were doing; it just needs to reload. So, for example that means you stay on the same webpage but it reloads, and it doesn't noticeably affect things like music or movies. HTC is standing firm maintaining that this is a power-saving feature rather than a bug, so I'm not sure if they're changing it soon.

However, like the issue with the locked boot loader, I'm sure some people on the interwebs will think of ways to fix the multitasking. That's the beauty of the Android platform. If you look around, maybe there's even something already out there to help.

Beautiful Design. Screen, and great performance. June 3, 2012

Reviewer:  Dan Levy "Dan Levy"  (Long Island, NY) -

Hey guys. Writing this review as an android enthusiast, coming from an Atrix 4G.

--Design--

As far as this phone goes, the design is beautiful. Unibody construction, fluid design, smooth surface, semi-gripped outer finish, and glass curved into the design of the phone.

Two buttons, a single lock button, and volume control. Aux jack on top.

Front Facing camera's slightly embedded into the phone, pushed back a few mm.

Back of the phone is very minimal-single LED Flash with camera, Speaker grille on the bottom center, under the removable sticker with your Serial/etc on it.

Nonremovable battery (unfortunately), and micro-sim slot next to the lock button.

Three touch buttons on the bottom; no menu.

The screen is again, absolutely beautiful. IPS display, highest resolution on the market today. Colors are clear, perfectly saturated, and the brightness on this screen (the maximum) is blinding. Easily viewable in sunlight, or at any (yes, any) angle.

--Performance (OS and Camera)--

The phone runs a dual-core 1.5 GHZ S4 setup, unlike the global version. Personally, I've seen little to no lag going through every process, from setting up the phone, to installing new apps, to performing root operations.

Opening and closing applications is quick, no lag.

The multitasking built into sense (by HTC) works very well. I've heard of complaints about it being too aggressive, but it seems to work quite well, and memory is managed efficiently between sense, background apps, and foreground-running apps.

Sense 4.0 is the cleanest version of sense i've ever seen, and the fastest running too. No bugs yet, and all of the widgets and effects are flawless. Just the way i'd expect ICS to run.

The one flaw I had with the phone is the lack of the menu button. Using all apps, a small bar is added on the bottom of all apps running that can be used to hit menu. This is decently annoying because this shrinks the actual usable screen area, though not by much. This is also especially frustrating with third party launchers; the bar takes up valuable space.

..Camera..

The camera on this device is BEAUTIFUL. It shoots very fast, with a good continuous shot amount. The aperture of the lens is f/2.0, which is great. Haven't had any experience shooting lower light photos, but i'd imagine this kind of aperture performing very well in combination with the added graphics chip for the camera.

1080P Video looks very good, and photos are crisp and minimally saturated/minimally noisy. Best camera on a phone i've seen (though, iPhone 4S comes very close to beating it).

No FPS issues as displayed in some YouTube videos.

--Data Speeds, Connectivity, Calls, Speakerphone--

As far as data speeds go, I can only comment on HSPA+ connectivity. I live in an area that does not yet have LTE (at least, AT&T LTE), Long Island, NY. HSPA speeds have always been up and down on the various HSPA devices i've owned (Inspire 4G, Atrix 4G, this phone).

I can get anywhere from 1.3MBPS on an average day, to 7.9MBPS (DOWNLOAD) on a great day (or at 5AM any day of the week). Upload speeds are usually around 1MBPS, never lower than 0.9MBPS.

At the time of this review, data was measured to be: 5.97MBPS DOWN, 1.21MBPS UP, WITH 68MS PING ON HSPA at 3:24AM on 6/3/2012.

On this phone, I am getting a constantly higher data speed than on my other previous phones. The ping also appears to be lower in the various apps i've tested with; a good 50ms faster.

Connecting to data is usually snappy, though, loading some applications can be a drag. That's AT&T though, not the phone.
As soon as LTE comes into my area i'm hoping for around 20MBPS+ (DOWNLOAD) as many people have been getting not too far from me (NYC).

Anyway.

Signal strength on this phone seems to be very good, as many other reviewers have said. It rarely ever drops, and data connection seems to stick. SMS, MMS, and Calls are VERY FAST. Calls connect within two seconds, on average. Text messages are sent within three to five seconds (which is average) but MMS messages are sent much quicker than on any other phone i've tested. And i've owned "a few" smartphones (Backflip, Atrix, Inspire, iPhone 4, HTC One X).

Calls sounded very clear on my end, with no distortion.

On speakerphone, voices and treble did seem a bit muffled. It doesn't get very loud, and it isn't powerful at all. But it's tiny, as the back grille shows you. This phone's more of a music phone (as in headphones, using the aux jack) than speakerphone. So I understand HTC's cutting corners here.

-----Final Thoughts-----

This screen is huge. Coming from an Atrix, this phone is totally different. Though, because of how beautiful it is, I can CONFIDENTLY say I have no regrets. One suggestion I do have, for consumers- get a case. And a good one, apparently this screen breaks easily if dropped.

Other than the size, everything about this phone is beautiful.

The following things are rated from 1-10.

Design: 10
Weight: 10
Price: 10
Connectivity (Data): 9
Speed (Data at Time of Review): 8
OS and Software (Preloaded): 10
Storage Space Available: 7
Expandability (Space): 6 [No SD Slot, though the 23GB of DropBox is GREATLY appreciated]
Camera (Photo/Video): 10
Carrier: 7
Calls, Audio: 10
Battery: 8
******* *******
Overall Rating, out of 100: 93%

If you have any questions about my review, or this phone in specific, feel free to leave a comment on this review.

Good luck.

Bought both Samsung S3 and the HTC One X: HTC wins June 18, 2012

Reviewer:  Melchior  (London, United Kingdom) -

As I work for an Android development firm we got a selection of devices recently. Included in the selection was both the HTC One X (the X) and the Samsung S3 (the S3). Both devices run the Android operating system or a flavour tweaked by either HTC or Samsung. Overall, the performance differences between the two devices are limited. Visually the two devices are quite different to look at. But just feel, the HTC wins easily. Feels much better in the hand than the S3. Personally I prefer the unibody build which HTC have used in this phone. Both devices have ARM-based Quad processors. Pixel density in the screen is higher in the X than the S3. One must remember that Samsung are in the display market in a major way. But again the difference in display density is small (312pixels per inch vs 302 for the S3). I didn't see any difference between the screens, even though they definitely use different technology. Find the HTC Android cleaner and more vanilla than the S3. But you can always put your own Android on a device or tweak the interface. S3 has a lot of bloatware included. Found it irritating to flip through all the apps and prefer the HTC Sense UI. The HTC Sense UI does integrate a lot of services I use, like Dropbox and Skype. You can add these yourself with the S3 but again, its not as intuitive. In terms of camera, the HTC wins for me. Should be noted that both are 8MB. Recording video with the HTC was definitely better. Battery wise, my HTC was running on average 28 hours without a charge. The S3 was running 31 hours on average without a charge and normal daily use. In a normal day, I usually charge at two points anyway - the office and at home. So battery shouldn't be such an issue. There have been some complaints that the S3 doesn't read some NFC tags. The HTC worked with all tags we had.

The HTC to me is a better build and HTC have enhanced Android far better than Samsung. It feels strong, like it'll last a long time with the chassis. The S3 feels a bit too fragile and I did scratch the S3 quite easily by mistake. Both phones are very similar. Best to go out and get a feel for both of them. My recommendation is the HTC. Really have to tip my hat to the guys developing it. Really great device. The HTC just won it for me.

HTC gets it right. Likely to see mixed reviews May 22, 2012

Reviewer:  Billy Y. 

This phone functions as a phone, which leaves little to be desired.

I never thought such a product could come from HTC. The old HTC, was a company that touted to the super users, from their early windows phones. I couldn't wait to get my HTC out the box, and start seeing what I could break or customize on my own. Quickly jumping into hacking my Androids into root and playing around.

This phone is entirely different.

Out of the box:
This is a uni-body phone, which means you have no access to the battery. They have left the option out of adding additional memory via a memory card slot. At first you may be skeptical, but to the average user, this gives a level of security. HTC is taking the concerns out from under you, and promising that the phone doesn't need modification. The same feeling exists when first turning it on.

HTC's Sense UI combined with Android 4.0 leaves very little to be desired. The interface is smooth, and easy on the eyes. Highly customisable, but not overly cumbersome for the average user to figure out.

HTC is no longer touting to the fanboys. Ultimately this is a good thing.

What I want out of a phone, and what this phone offers.
pretty interface,
simple to use,
lots of apps,
finally a clean sms chat interface,
Music and sync capability,
Screen shot capability (hold down the power button and volume down at the same time for 1 second)
Business e-mail
VPN
quality camera
HD video
front facing camera

Ultimately I want a phone that works out of box, no need to break in, in order to get things running. Anyone can use a phone like this, and there are no strange glitches or broken functions. It works, which is rare when buying an Android phone.

HTC is making a statement by building a phone like this. They are now making phones that not only work, but work well in all the basic ways you expect a phone to work.

Negating a review based on lack of memory card slot, or no battery replacement is old hat. Rarely would you see a review drop a star on an iPhone for the same reasons. Interesting how Cnet authors, and so many people on here are downing it for this reason. We're in a new era, where battery and extra memory shouldn't be a concern. In the future if you want a phone with more memory, you will buy a phone with more memory. Cloud storage has replaced most of these needs for high memory, and with 4G, it is even easier to sync with the cloud.

I am glad that HTC is moving in the current direction. Simple, beautiful, effective, and efficient. If you want something cumbersome, go back 5 years. Move ahead with the times, it's time we the users got something we wanted, and not something that looked cool, but only to have basic phone functionality broken. Well there's an app to fix that usually, but who wants to download and pay 10 dollars for business e-mail apps, swipe to text, screen shots, or VPN.

Ultimately fan boys should stay away from this phone, or get with the times(as I will be).

Better than expected August 9, 2012

Reviewer:  Disappointed 

I was looking to upgrade from my old HTC Aria and considered the Iphone 4S, Galaxy Note, Galaxy SIII and HTC One X. I went with the One X mainly because I could get the best price on it (picked it up for $99 from AT&T before Amazon dropped the price). I was looking for a top of the phone that would last me through my next upgrade and I am very happy with my choice!

Pros: Fast processor (apps launch fast, phone starts up REALLY fast, never encountered any lag); Great screen; fast camera; 25GB dropbox space FREE for 2 years (look it up!); Beats audio; 4G LTE (faster than any wireless network I connect to);
Cons: Currently, Skype Video calls do not work well on this phone. This phone is not currently considered to be supported by Skype, but I'm sure they will produce an update in the near future to fix this.

As far as the concerns in other reviews (battery life; internal memory; bootloader locked, etc) I have not found these to be a problem.
-Battery Life: I can get 2 days out of it easily, but I'm not using it for video and gaming on a regular basis. I put it on Airplane mode at work and turn on the WIFI to get email, internet. I do stream music pretty much all day and I'm typically at 60% battery at the end of the day.
-Internal Memory: 16GB is more than I had before! Plus, you get a free 25GB dropbox account with this phone, you just have to jump through some hoops.
-Locked bootloader: I don't care and I'm sure the majority of the other people who will buy this phone won't either.

Get this phone, you'll love it and can't beat the price right now!

Better than I expected! July 8, 2012

Reviewer:  Richard L. Weatherly "RichWeatherly43"  (North Richland Hills, TX (near FT Worth)) -

I decided to purchase the HTC One X based on its impressive reviews and because I've come to appreciate the Android OS on my Kindle Fire.

While performance reviews were impressive, I was skeptical. Not anymore!
AT&T 4G LTE is lightening fast as is application performance.

I've never seen such display quality, HD resolution, great dynamic range, realistic colors and bright.

The 8 mega pixel camera quality is exceptional and it comes with editing features and special effects.

Audio quality is the best I've heard on a mobile device.

Appilications I purchased for my Kindle Fire were readily available as were digital music downloads.
The Amazon Wireless price for this phone blew me away!
I highly recommend this smartphone!

Amazing phone - now with an unlockable bootloader! May 25, 2012

Reviewer:  Daryl Kurtz  (BEAVERTON, OR, US) -

This phone is fantastic. Rated 5 stars because I can't do 4.5

I have a couple of gripes:

1. No removable battery - the phone has great battery life, and a hard reset option built in, but if you run out of juice you can't swap out the battery.

2. No SD card and only 16 GB storage

Other than that, this phone is amazing! Super fast with a gorgeous display - this phone has one of the best displays I've ever seen. Almost as sharp as the iPhone 4s, and much larger.

AT&T didn't want the bootloader unlocked, but thanks to the folks at XDA the bootloader can now be unlocked with ease.

Overall, this is the best phone I've ever owned!

Sweet Phone! Excellent Camera May 12, 2012

Reviewer:  M. Dunbar  (Englewood, NJ) -

The phone is awesome, loving the speed of LTE in my area. Camera is fast for a phone and takes excellent pictures. Excellent upgrade from Samsung galaxy S2 and dismal Sprint network. Recommended!

Great phone! May 11, 2012

Reviewer:  jessikargh 

I've only had the pleasure of playing with the phone briefly (as I'm still waiting for it to be off back-order with AW) and it blew my mind. Currently, I'm an iPhone user and this phone really shatters nearly everything about the iPhone 4S. I'm still quite confused as to why they didn't follow in Apple's footsteps with Siri, but whatever. Over all, it's a great phone and the screen is unbelievable! I just wish it had a home button, that way it wouldn't take two hands to unlock the device. I'm sure that's something I can get used to.

Great for Internet, Apps, Photos; Terrible for Emails and Texting May 21, 2012

Reviewer:  Sevag Demirjian  (Los Angeles, CA) -

I have had the HTC One X Phone for a Week now, and I am debating whether to return it. I switched from a blackberry torch, after being a blackberry user for many years. I won't repeat all the great reviews about this phone's amazing screen/color, HD Quality, Camera and processing speed. Yes, these are all true about the HTC One X. I also like the swipe texting, and so far every app I downloaded installs easy, is free, and works great. Unfortunately, as great as this phone is at doing photo/video/internet tasks, it sucks as a device to text and email people with. Most of the problems I list here MAY be fixable with an upgraded Ice Cream Sandwich operating system, or maybe it's just my specific phone, but such an update is not yet available:

1) Major Notification Issues:
At least several times a day, I won't get a notification when texts come in. Only when I manually enter my text message app will I see that I have new texts. I had to download a separate SMS popup notification app just to know if I have a text message.
Emails will not update/sync unless you enter the email app yourself and wait for it to refresh, no matter what amount of "sync every 5/10/30 minutes" option I enter. And the sync is slow. Seems to be a bug in the OS. Also, if yahoo mail requires you to enter those annoying words in the box to login to "protect spam", your phone's email app won't be able to login and check your yahoo mail. Don't know if this is yahoo's fault or HTC's.
FB, Instagram and other apps will not display a small mark on their app icon to indicate a new message has been received. Seems so simple a feature to lack.
2) Sometimes, WIFI signal cuts in and out, even if I'm in the room with the router, it shows 0 signal and I can't browse internet when it cuts out, unless I turn off Wifi and use up my data minutes.
3) Phone has major trouble processing mass texts. Labels them "MMS" and then you have to click "message details" to see if there is more than one recipient, then it only shows 2 of the recipients. If you click "recipients" it crashes the message program altogether. Half of all mass texts sent never get delivered or freeze on "downloading". Speaking of MMS, I have only been able to receive about 25% of the picture messages sent to me on this phone.
4) Sometimes shows "loading" screen for 5-30 seconds if you jump from internet browser to homepage. Dual-core processing??
5) My connection to the AT&T Network turns off overnight sometimes. I have to restart the phone to get it back on. Displays network on, but shows an "x" for a signal. No explanation.

More Minor issues, probably correctable by messing with the settings:
6) Email links are not hyperlinked. You have to adjust the settings for emails to "max size", and then most hyperlinks will be available. No excuse for a phone this powerful not to have default hyperlinks in emails.
7) Speakerphone. Clearly it's something I'm doing wrong, but it never seems to stay on while I am trying to use it. Keeps switching back to handset mode. There's some setting about flipping it over to automatically turn on/off speakerphone.
8) No micro-sd slot? Not a bug, but a complaint. I guess 16 GB is enough, for now. Micro-sd slot helps make your phone more of an mp3/movie player though.

I know there is an unofficial update which supposedly fixes the text message notification bug and the wifi bug, but I am hesitant to install it until it is an official release, lest I void my warranty. Returning the phone seems to be the only course of action at this point. May go for the Galaxy 2S Skyrocket or Nokia Lumia 900. If you stick with this phone, download the update, and get a cover!

UPDATE: I returned my HTC One X for the Nokia Lumia and I couldn't be happier. To Commenters: Todd: You misunderstood me. Yes, it does come with Ice Cream Sandwich; I meant an upgraded ICS OS, such as version X.2, which fixes the bugs in the initial release of a software. I am not surprised you are a manager at AT&T as it was the AT&T employees who convinced me not to get the Lumia 900 in the first place, and to get the droid instead. I have over 600 contacts and I used the outlook contact sync, it took about one minute to get all my contacts over to the Lumia. The only issue is the unavailability of many apps, and the desire of Microsoft for you to use their apps instead of googles, but I knew that issue going in and decided it's not as important to me as a good phone. I'm off to write my rave review about the Lumia now. Thanks Valentin, you were right!