[HTC One X] iamadoctor:
Hey guys,

I picked up my One X earlier today and thought I'd share my impressions too in case anybody finds them useful.

First up a bit of backstory (feel free to skip ahead), I'm coming from a HTC Desire that I ripped sense off of as soon as I could, so I've not used sense for a few iterations.

Hardware

Obviously the first thing that hits you with the One X is it's design. This is a hefty phone (to me anyway) jumping from a 3.7" screen to a 4.7" was something that concerned me, but HTC has done a fantastic job trimming the fat wherever possible. I was really concerned I wouldn't be able to use it one-handed due to it's size but I found it very usable so far and without much need for finger gymnastics, this is mainly down to it's slim profile and as always your mileage may vary but I think HTC's done a fantastic job here - especially when you compare it to a handset like the Xperia S with a 4.3" screen but almost as large a footprint and a tad thicker.

The build quality too is top notch, the back of the device to very grippy and has a premium feel to it, it certainly doesn't feel like plastic. My one concern is the camera lense, it's not recessed - not even in the slightest and I'm quite concerned without care it'll get badly scratched. I'm really disappointed by this, a little extra bulk here wouldn't really impact the feel of the device (to me anyway) and I'm certainly going to be more cautious when I place the phone down.

The screen is stunning, it's difficult to convey just how stunning it is, I think there are several factors at play here:

- The panel has a relatively high pixel density, everything is super sharp and the clarity is suberb.

- The colours are vivid whilst retaining good colour accuracy.

- The panel is optically lamented to the touch-screen, the screen appears to be on the surface of the device.

- Whether it's the sheer power of the Tegra inside or Nvidia is using Direct Touch here I don't know, but the touch-screen is extremely responsive.

When you bring all of these together you get an incredible window into your phone, the picture quality is stunning and you honestly believe this is something living you're interacting with. There's nothing jagged or pixelated on-screen to remind you of reality, there's no gap between your finger and the content below it it really feels like you're interacting with whatever is on-screen in front of you.

Moving onto the camera, I'm quite impressed, I've seen people take much more impressive photos than I'm taking and it's the potential that really interests me (put that one down to my lack of talent with photography though). Out of the box it has a slew of features and I expect people will be pleased with the results and features on offer, I'll finish it there - I'm not the best for an in depth review here.

As for what's beneath the hood, it's an absolute beast - what else am I going to say?

Sense

As for Sense, I'm actually very (pleasantly) surprised. I think we've reached a point of diminishing returns - there's so much power to harness here that it flies right through anything Sense throws at it. Before I got the handset I was planning on removing Sense as soon as I was able to, and I probably will because the developers here will no doubt work absolute wonders with the hardware on offer. But HTC has put up a hell of a fight here and there'll be things I miss - I'm worried they may not open source whatever needed to take advantage of their Image Sense and this would really be a shame as it's one of the big strengths of the X.

I'd like to see a lot of the additions and features from Sense rolled into Android at some point, mainly the camera interface and features, and on the whole Sense is a pleasant enough experience.

Conclusion

I'd strongly recommend anybody vaguely interested in the X check it out in person and see how it measures up to their exceptions, there are a few minor issues for me but even so it's a still the best phone on the market in my eyes.

As for issues like the battery and lack of micro-sd slot, it's sad to see manufactures deviate from what was the norm but it's not something that really impacts me. That's not to say it doesn't bother me, but I never carried a spare battery before from my Desire nor did I often swap out the SD, the fact you don't have the option is frustrating but don't let it cloud your judgement if you genuinely need these things the phone is quite likely useless to you however if not don't write the phone off because of this.

There's many factors that hadn't impacted my decision and have been pleasant surprises, for example the X's audio; the loudspeaker is fairly powerful and the headphone AMP and DAC seem (to me, although I'm no audiophile) quite impressive.

In closing, although this may or may not be the phone for you (I know a lot of people are holding out on the S3) it's defiantly worth considering as it'll no doubt be one of the biggest handsets of the year and even if you do go and buy something like the S3 you can be sure the X will have influenced it's design.

PS: Sorry for my rambling, I've been lurking around here the last few days and owe a great deal of thanks to contributes here, I hope people find this useful and I manage to give a little something back, sorry for the length and poor quality of writing, I've spent most of the day playing with the X and one half of my brain is still blown away by it whilst the other has now fallen asleep.