Gadgetory

hi this is dieter with The Verge and this is the HTC first that's a heavy hitter name for what this phone is the first phone facebook home software preloaded out of the box Facebook integration will actually run on a lot of different phones but on the first it has deeper integration and more explicit Facebook branding the first is hard to categorize on the one hand it's definitely a mid-range phone but unlike every other mid-range Android phone it's not loaded down with ton of garbage from the manufacturer or the carrier it's pure stock Android underneath Facebook home more importantly a lot of people have been waiting and hoping for a manufacturer to finally buck this big phone trend on Android and the first does just that with a 4.3 inch 720p display so now that HTC has done it the big question is whether this smaller phone is like so many other smaller Android phones will it be underpowered or will it be good enough for power users the best answer I can get to that question is probably it's definitely not as fast or as powerful as HTC One or the Samsung Galaxy s4 it has a qualcomm dual-core Snapdragon 400 processor clocked at 1.4 gigahertz with a gig of ram and 16 gigs of storage that means that moving between apps scrolling and everything else feels fine unless you compare it directly with the best stuff that's out there right now it's also not running the latest version of Android 4.2 and HTC hasn't yet said when it will be getting an update even though it's not a flagship caliber phone there's a lot to like about the first for one thing the hardware feels really good it has a polycarbonate shell with a soft touch feel and rounded corners and edges that all just feel natural if you're familiar with the HTC One X imagine it had a love affair with the iPhone 3GS and the first is basically the result of that pairing so while there's nothing especially premium about the hardware on the first it's still a step above most other phones at this price point it doesn't creak or feel cheap at all the speaker on the bottom is reasonably loud but it can get muffled in your hand and call quality and LTE data speeds are both solid the 4.3 inch 720p LCD screen is especially good which is something we've actually come to expect from HTC it has great viewing angles and well tuned color saturation there are three soft buttons back home and menu just as it should be and since there's no s voice or blinkfeed or whatever everything just works as you'd expect there's also a LED notification light but it's inexplicably turned off by default the camera is only so-so it's a 5 megapixel that comported itself better than I expected especially in daylight there's still a little too much post-processing for my taste introducing noise and softening some edges that really didn't need it low-light is also pretty bad by 2013 standards the camera also sits flush with the back of the phone so you need to make sure that you wipe the lens clean if you don't want blurry shots I'm actually kind of stunned that a Facebook phone doesn't have a camera button or a top level shortcut to the camera and since this is stock Android underneath Facebook you're stuck with Android 4.1 camera interface which I find pretty clunky but for a $99 phone this does better than you think even though that's not saying much I have to say I really like using an Android phone that's roughly 5 inches tall by 2 and a half inches wide you could actually reach the power button on the top the notification drawer and everything else with one hand battery life in the first was slightly better than I expected although I drained fast when I was in areas with poor wireless signal I had no real issues getting through even a long day with the first there's no removable battery so you might run into trouble but the benefit of having a relatively pokey processor and a smaller screen is that both draw less power and so your phone simply lasts longer as for the software there are a few things to know obviously the first and most important thing is that it's running Facebook home we have a full review of home separately but I should point out here that it works really well in the first the overall aesthetic of the first matches up nicely with Facebook's Spartan chromeless interface and because Facebook has done so much nerdy coding work there's not a lot of lag or delay though it does make you wait a half-step from time to time home has some interesting new ideas for Android it merges your lockscreen and home screen gives you persistent little chat heads for your ongoing SMS and messenger conversations you can swipe through your newsfeed like stuff and even look at your apps even if you have a pin code enabled by default you enter it after you tap on an app that you can change that in settings Facebook home on the first actually has deeper integration than it will if you install it from the Play Store on another Android phone Facebook puts your notifications right on the lockscreen front and center and you can swipe them away individually or stack them all together with the long press to get rid of all of them on the first you get all of your notifications not just your messenger alerts which is pretty neat but if you're not a facebook junkie the first is interesting on its own merits you can turn facebook home completely off and still use chat heads or turn them off to for a completely stock experience there are only two pieces of AT&T software on this phone that I can find visual voicemail and those little bits that make it automatically connect to AT&T Wi-Fi hotspots both can be turned off that means you have a small and completely cruft free Android experience it's not as fast as the Nexus 4 and it doesn't have the latest version of Android but it does have LTE and for me those are both trade-offs that might be worth it so who should buy the HTC first I think a lot of people actually if you want the best Facebook experience you can get on a phone the first really does live up to that promise despite the fact that Facebook home feels a little bit like beta software if you're looking for stock Android with LTE and don't mind the trade-offs on speed and camera it's basically a no-brainer most of all if you're looking for an Android phone that you can actually use with one hand the first deserves a long look I don't know if I'll be switching to the first but I do hope that it does well enough to prove to HTC Samsung and everybody else that there's a real market for phones that aren't designed for giants and with stock Android the first is great but hopefully the second will do away with compromises everybody seems to make on smaller phones