[HTC One X] Asheel:
http://www.knowyourmobile.com/blog/1615088/htc_one_x_review_first_look.html

HTC One X+ review: first look

Richard Goodwin

It’s got a faster processor, more storage and Android Jelly Bean, but does HTC’s One X+ offer enough, or should you opt for the 4G One XL?

Published on Oct 2, 2012

HTC tells us that with the One X+ it’s ‘taken its best smartphone – the One X – and made it better.’

It’s done this by ramping up the processor’s clock speed, adding a new version of Sense UI, increasing the storage, and kitting it out with the latest build of Google’s mobile OS, Android Jelly Bean.

As updates go, this is quite a weird one. HTC has introduced some rather significant alterations to the device’s hardware but has opted to leave the overall design and finish of the phone alone, meaning it’s very difficult to tell the One X and the One X+ apart, as all the changes occur under the hood.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing, the One X is a gorgeous handset, but we were slightly disappointed to hear that the One X+ would only be available in black. The reason behind this, according to HTC, is to do with aesthetics: black looks more professional compared to white, and that's where it's pitching this device: at professional types.

We happen to agree, in this instance – black is definitely more conservative and suited to business users, but it’d still have been nice to have the option, regardless.

On the outside it’s very much business as usual. Inside there’s quite a few changes. The most significant of which are the inclusion of a quad-core CPU clocked at 1.7GHz, the addition of 64GB of storage, as well as the usual 25GB Dropbox deal, and the presence of Android Jelly Bean, which, of course, brings with it Google Now and the company’s Butter UI refinements.

It uses the same display as the One X, meaning you get an excellent 4.7-inch IPS LCD2 (720x1280 pixels) setup with a pixel density of 312 ppi. There’s also 1GB of RAM and the handset cuts more-or-less the exact same figure as its predecessor, with exact measurements being around the 134.4x69.9x8.9mm-mark.

So while there’s not much to get excited about in the looks department, there’s plenty of new stuff going on under the hood. Performance was exemplary, with the camera application opening and firing in rapid succession, and there was zero lag present whilst whizzing around HTC’s Sense UI (now on version 4.0).

With Sense 4.0 you can now take pictures from the lockscreen, although you cannot access any galleries until the phone has been unlocked. Rapid burst mode is present as is the ability to shoot 1080p video whilst capturing images via the handset’s 8-megapixel main shooter.

HTC has also bumped up the front-facing shooter to 1.6-megapixels and included support for ‘portrait mode’ – a feature that automatically edits out things like skin imperfections and makes your mug look a lot better, apparently.

Both cameras are now tied to HTC’s image processing chip and should yield some rather impressive results – more on that in our full review, though. Sense 4.0 now pulls down all your images into one application for your viewing pleasure in a similar fashion to the way Windows Phone does. Facebook, Dropbox, Google+ are all supported, says HTC.

The Music app, which supports Beats Audio technology, has also been unified and now includes support for Spotify, as well as a variety of other third party music services. It’s unclear how this works in practice but we’ll be looking at it in greater detail during our full review. One thing we’d be very interested to know though is whether the Music app also supports Dropbox?

The One X+, like HTC’s recently announced Windows Phone 8X and Windows Phone 8S, will not ship with a bundled pair of Beats headphones. The reason for this, HTC tells us, is to do with cost – those headphones don’t come cheap, y’know – and consumer preference –– not everybody likes Beats headphones, apparently.

The One X+ is now also PlayStation Certified, meaning you’ve got access to tons of classic games and content via Sony’s official PlayStation application. But users will have to download the app via Google's Play store as it does not come pre-installed on the handset.

With Sense 4.0, users can now setup their new HTC handset the comfort of their PC, laptop, or tablet before they've even bought it. To do this, simply create a Sense username and password and log into the web portal. From here you’ll be able to pre-configure your handset with applications, games, widgets and wallpapers before you’ve even purchased it.

The HTC One X+ will launch in mid-October, run Android Jelly Bean, and no doubt be priced at a rather premium price tag given that it is packing 64GB of internal storage.