HTC One hands-on preview
HTC One hands-on preview at the New York City event
We got the HTC One in our hands as a preview here at the New York City event, and though the devices were tethered down, we still got a pretty good feel for the hardware and just a quick look at the software. Our initial impression of the HTC One is that it's a very nice phone with a good display.
The first thing we noticed is the HTC One's aluminum body. HTC mentioned during its presentation that it tried very hard to make a seamless body construction with the HTC One, and as far as we can tell it succeeded. It was nearly impossible to get a real feel for just how thin the device is, or its weight, because it was tethered. But the edges are tapered down pretty thin, so we'd imagine it is as sleek all around as the HTC 8X.
We immediately fell in love with Sense 5.0, HTC's custom UI overlaid on Android with a new Blink Feed stream feature. Sense UI was probably our least favorite thing about HTC's devices in the past; its beautiful hardware was often ruined, at least for us, by the clunky and unattractive UI. But this is different - Sense 5.0 is more modern and its lines and design elements are clean. The dialer looks much better and so do the messaging apps -- the things you'd find yourself using the most. HTC definitely took some inspiration from Android's stock design and Sense 5.0 shows it.
Of course, HTC's biggest claims are that the HTC One's speakers and camera are better than the competition. We couldn't really get a feel for the sound because the environment was loud, but we did get to play with the camera a bit. Low light performance does seem better than its competitors, although the images are slightly grainy. We wonder if, coupled with HTC's UltraPixel technology--or larger pixels--is coupled with a bump in ISO speeds to capture low-light scenes. Again, it's too early to tell because this hands-on with the HTC One was very brief, but so far it seems like it has a chance to live up to the claims.
The HTC One begins shipping in late March, so we're just weeks away from being able to purchase the device. Keep your eyes peeled for our review until then.
