Gadgetory

so the same thing kind of always happens when a new phone is announced the media gets the device ahead of time maybe a couple days a couple weeks if we're lucky and we get to use it while we're preparing our review then the date and time of the press embargo arrives the embargo lifts everybody posts their review at once and it is a giant big frenzy of activity there's commenters going nuts and defenders and attackers and it's just a huge explosion for about a day and then everything disappears ensure there's follow-up coverage and stuff as people find bugs people have other stuff to say other devices they they wear a man over the course of a day or so but really nobody ever goes back and revisits these devices after that initial blast of review to see how they feel after a couple weeks so let's do something about it let's have a look at a device when it's a couple of weeks after release and not shiny and new anymore I'm high memory matter with pocketnow.com this is the HTC One X and this is episode four after the buzz my first-ever Pocket PC was made by HTC even though was brand at the compact I pack back in 2002 the design was so good and so well thought-out that it became the reason why most of the devices I've owned ever since have been made by HTC a decade later I was fortunate to be in the audience when Peter Chao announced their new focus with the one series back at MWC 2012 I remember liking what they announced that even what I felt when I held the One X for the first time in the press booth but a lot of which shall claim them the keynote felt unfinished in the demo units we used we also got that same feeling in our review units since but the Vice looked great but the performance didn't live up to the quad-core processor had boasted after almost a month of using the One X as my daily driver we're back with episode 4 of after the buzz to answer the question that everybody's asking is it still worth the buy 1x after a couple of weeks of usage so let's talk about it when it comes to hardware it's tough for me to recommend any other smartphone HTC's design proved did a great job in making this one of the most iconic smartphone designs of the year I'll admit I was initially dismayed by their use of polycarbonate instead of the metallic finish that they gave to the 1s but once you hold it in your hand everything starts making sense the device feels at times like a contradiction since it's just as big as the HTC Titan but it feels a lot smaller and lighter in the hand and it even passes our well instituted pocket tests with flying colors all the machining and precision used into manufacturing this phone will do a good job in making you look good when showing it off no matter what device your buddy has now that doesn't change the fact that it's a big device that wasn't designed for one-handed usability but then again so are the rest of the flagship Android smartphones in the market I got the gray model out of the fact that the white variant is good at picking up dirt from your hands but that was a big mistake this one is also great at picking up hand oils and becoming greasy all around so I guess you'll just have to pick your poison the only thing I don't like about the design is HTC's departure from the single unibody back that we saw with the Titan and with the sensation where all you had to do was replace the battery to make it look like new again if you dented it make sure you either buy it case or simply don't drop the 1x as there are no visible screws in the housing if you want to fix it yourself later on I recommend getting a good TPU case to cover the phone but make sure that it somehow protects the camera lens as it'll show minor scratches in just a couple of days of use now the trick with these TPU cases is that you clean up the phone before using the case dirt and lint will not scratch the phone but the problem is that your hand oils will become a permanent coating with the phone if you slip it into the case and leave it there for a couple days without cleaning it up so make sure you do that now it's far about software since 4.0 has a ton of things to praise and a lot of things to complain about I'll admit it's one of the most elegant and polished user interfaces in the Android ecosystem and it does a great job in matching with the phone's elegant design but sadly at a price you can easily switch off if we start with the good stuff the email application is second to none great use of the screen real estate with intuitive filters that make your way around quite simple and productive since also has a great selection of widgets that lots of manufacturers are still struggling to replicate the fact that contact cards filter the person's social network email activity feeds and everything you care about also raises the bar when compared to similar competing devices small little details like the ring lock screen and the different filters in the app tray make the user interface unlike any other sadly as much of a fan as I am of HTC Sense the problem that everybody has with it is how it slows down the device sense for is far better when it comes to how it performs when compared to the past iterations we had but it's still not as fluid as the stock Ice Cream Sandwich experience that it plans to improve upon it packs a quad-core processor that benchmarks better than almost every phone in the market but it feels no faster than any dual-core phone and day to day use things like the multitasking UI look nice and unique but if I had a choice between quad-core speed or flashy eye-candy I know a lot of you would agree with me and sticking to the basics the fact that there's always a persistent menu button covering a good portion of the pixels just makes you wonder if the I will start out enough all these features made sense when Android didn't look as cool back in the Froyo days but things are very different with Ice Cream Sandwich and what's broken shouldn't have been fixed unless ACC was capable of improving it now this comes from a power user standpoint many of you won't mind the device takes one more second to load a folder to launch the app tray some of you don't even like the Tron ish and blueish design that stock Ice Cream Sandwich and jelly bean brains so if you're looking for the device that will probably bring you more out of the box and you don't need to be installing stuff you get the best widgets and everything since 4.0 is definitely for you so let's talk about the rest of the user experience the 1x being one of the top smart phones in the market delivers in a lot of places it should the camera for example is one of its high points it's extremely quick to launch in the UI allows for quick video recording and even taking photos while you're filming which is really awesome the resulting photos are in simple terms very good but you'd have to get a Galaxy s3 or an iPhone 4s and you want the perfect camera on a smartphone I will praise its low-light performance when using the flash though as I find a far superior to any competing device so far video recording is also very good where 1080p does a similar job to any mid-tier consumer camcorder you no longer need to buy now what makes the photos look even better than they really are is the super LCD to powering the display I have yet to find the better screen on any smartphone in the market and I'm really not exaggerating great viewing angles great visibility in direct sunlight and it just seems like if everything was painted on the screen it's just hard to go back to a Super AMOLED pentile display after using the One X for more than a day as a phone it provides great cloth quality and great data speeds over HSPA+ and Wi-Fi and I haven't had any drop calls to complain about battery life will get you through the day but it depends on your usage if you're a heavy gamer you'll notice that the back of the phone is prone to heating and drops your battery life significantly once you start playing word of advice leave the hardcore stuff per good room temperature unless you want to see your battery meter take a quick dive speaking of gaming the 1x is one of the benchmarks to beat when it comes to performance sadly Tegra 3 brings a feature you'll all join me in Haiti see none of the game loft games that I've already purchased on the Play Store compatible with it you can't even install them EA games do work but if you want to get the Tegra 3 punch in graphics you'll have to buy an extra copy from the Tegra zone which is pointed fortunate your only other option is to get the AT&T Snapdragon s4 variant of the One X which is the one XL but you'll lose 16 gigabytes of storage and remember there's no expandable storage here now the keyboard is something that I do recommend you replace when you pull the phone out of the box and no exceptions for some reason the past HTC Sense keyboards were actually good when it came to text prediction not sure what's wrong with this one as much as it does add swipe functionality it's size is so big that it makes finger travel uncomfortable or even straining to the rest of your fingers to keep the phone in plays while you're trying to type my best advice to you is to get swifty or any other keyboard substitute that's smaller and handles prediction a lot better another sad reality of the 1x in year 2012 is the lack of a voice assistant many of you may not care about this feature but a lot of us that come from syrian s voyage do it's sad to know that you won't get the feature on a device that's in the same price range as other devices that do include it so bottom line what I still recommend that you get a 1x after a couple of months of use this is a tough one now that the galaxy s3 is in the market at a similar price well the faster quad core Exynos processor expandable storage and a replaceable battery I still feel that the One X has a better design a better screen and believe it or not a better user interface when compared to the nature UX in the galaxy s3 let's just say the One X will surf both the regular consumers and non-demanding power users just fine and the Galaxy s3 is more than the device I'd recommend for the most demanding of power users I was one of those that chose the One X over the galaxy s3 because the whole package suited me fine but your mileage may vary believe it or not the only thing that this device needs to go from good to great is jellybean it would bring performance where should be and a voice assistant needs will be solved by the new voice search and Google now now HTC has been relatively good at bringing updates to their phones but the longer they take the more the galaxy s3 gets sold this has been Jaime with Parker now calm thanks for joining me in episode 4 of after the buzz be sure to share your experiences with the One X and the comments down below and also leave us a thumbs up if you liked what you saw thanks for watching