[One (M7) General] KidCarter93:
My review

I'll post my review in here so that others will hopefully do the same, instead of creating separate threads for it :)

*NOTE* Please don't quote this whole post. If you only need to respond to part of it, edit the rest out of your reply. This will help keep this thread as tidy as possible :)

I've had the One since March 23rd and I'm extremely impressed with it. Normally I'd test out a phone before I buy it but that would've meant waiting an extra week or 2 to actually get hold of the device. So I did take a risk by doing so but I'm glad I did.

UI

This is something which I didn't think I'd really like considering I've never owned or even used a HTC before and I'm used to the AOSP feel of my Nexus 7 and even AOSP ROMs on my S2 and Xperia S previously. However, I must say that Sense really isn't as bad as a lot of people made it out to be and I rather like the look and feel to it because it just feels extremely smooth and usable unlike some other UIs that I've used before.

Blinkfeed

Again, this is something which I didn't think I would like because it just seemed like another version of Sony's Timescape widget, which I couldn't stand. As of right now, I haven't really gone into Blinkfeed's settings yet and seen the limit on topics which I can add so I can't truly say too much about it, but from what I have seen so far it does seem like a good addition and has a rather sleek look about it which helps it to blend in well with the rest of the phone.

I don't like the fact that it can't be turned off but if I get to the stage where I really don't like it, all it takes is a quick install of a launcher and it'll be gone anyway.

Edit - Ever since HTC allowed us to disable BlinkFeed and custkmize it even more, I've actually been using it a lot more often. I now find myself checking it regularly to be able to keep up to date with updates from my favourite sites. It really was a great addition and a brilliant idea. I'm glad they allowed us to remove it though because if that hadn't been an option I doubt I would've started using it as much as I have been.

HTC Zoe

Surprisingly, this is something which I haven't really tested out yet. Before I got the phone I was saying to myself that Zoe would be the first thing I would want to use but I haven't really had a go yet. I have done a sequence shot but it was more just to see exactly how it worked.

Hopefully I'll get a good opportunity soon to test out it's features on a good image. I really am looking forward to testing it properly though because I can imagine that I'll be taking lots of Zoe's once I'm used to it.

-EDIT- At the time of originally writing this review, I hadn't really used Zoe so couldn't really comment on it. That's now not the case as I've used it many a time and have been as fascinated by it than I was when I initially heard about it.

Zoe is truly a great addition to the HTC One and compliments it really well. It brings the gallery to life with all the moving previews of our most personal recorded moments.

The part I've actually used the most, which didn't surprise me in the slightest, are the sequence shots. This is perfect for me because quite a lot of my friends either skateboard, BMX or do free-running. Sports like that are ideal for the usage of sequence shots because it produces an amazing picture, which would only normally be available by using photo editing software/apps.

The ability to remove unwanted background objects is also ideal for taking snaps of friends in a crowded city centre while shopping. Although this works well to a certain extent, in quite a few cases it has failed to detect an unwanted object when it has clearly been there. At that point, I just have to revert to the older method of removing the unwanted parts manually.

Boomsound

Wow! Honestly, not a lot more needs to be said about this. The volume is really loud which is great for me because it means that my alarm can finally wake me up :D

With the speakers being on the front it really helps spread the sound out when with a group of friends and playing a song or video. The quality of the sound is brilliant aswell and extremely clear, which is just an added bonus when mixed with the volume it can produce.

Damn this thing is loud through the headphones though :eek: The only downside in regards to the sound is that it can be slightly distorted when playing at maximum volume through the headphones. I'm sure that messing around with the equalizer settings would help this but haven't looked into it to see whether it would help or not.

Camera

I can't complain about the camera in the slightest, I really can't. It performs great during the day in bright backgrounds and still produces a great picture. It also performs great at nighttime when taking pictures under lower lighting than normal. A lot of people have been saying that 4MP won't look too great when blown up to a bigger size but as I won't be doing that with my pictures, it's really not a problem. The biggest size screen these pics will be going onto is my Nexus 7. Not a bad thing I can say about the camera quality either.

Size

The biggest phone I've had before the One was my S2 so I thought that the screen might be a bit too big for what I'm used to. This really wasn't a problem because for the past few months I've been using my Nexus 7 basically as a phone so this feels like a pretty decent size. When using the phone for everything except gaming, this phone feels perfectly sized and I can cover the vast majority of the screen when using one hand anyway. When it comes to gaming however, it does feel like a small phone but that's just because I've become too accustomed to using my N7 for gaming. All in all though, the size is perfect in my opinion.

Weight

The weight of the One is great considering the size of the phone. I thought it would be about the same weight as the S3, considering it's the sane size, yet there's a significant difference in weight and this simply makes the S3 feel bulkier than ever.

I think the only downside to being so light is that it could potentially be more likely to be dropped because you expect it to be heavier than it actually is.

It kinda feels weird with the weight of it because it weighs about the same as my S2 yet because it's a lot bigger, it just feels strange but that's not exactly put me off the phone :p

Battery

Another important aspect amongst any phone is the battery life and is a deciding factor with a lot of people.

In this case I've been lucky because I've been able to test the battery life while not using it at work and also over the last 2 days which I've had off work. Thanks to that, I've really been able to see the life in it.

Over the couple of days I was at work, I was only able to use it briefly at lunch and then for about 5 hours after work and it just about lasted over those 2 days. That really impressed me because there had been really mixed reviews about battery life and the only other time I've seen battery life like that is with my N7.

Now, throughout the 2 days I've been off work I've still noticed pretty decent battery life with it lasting throughout the day (just about) and then having to charge it at night when I'm asleep. That's been with about 6 hours of music playback, an hour of video and the rest being general browsing of the net and XDA. That's not exactly my average usage but it was a pretty good test of it.

This phone really does seem to have the whole package.

Design

As we all know, it's a lovely phone and it looks amazing. I don't really like the look of the black One but the silver model looks sleeker than you'd expect. It was actually the design of the One which originally caught my eye and got me interested, as I'm sure is the same for a lot of you, but with all the features and power also built into the phone, it made it a must for me.

Heating

Heating is something which will get spoken about quite a lot in any device forum across XDA and with good reason.

A lot of devices will heat up so much that it can actually hurt a little bit if you touch the device. My S2 was like that a lot of the time but only on the screen. The rest of the device was fine.

With the One there has been mixed response about the level of heat and from which situations the heat issue occurs. In my experience, the One only has a heat problem if I've been charging it for ages and am constantly using my phone throughout the charging period. Even when I feel the heat, it's very moderate (so yes you can feel the heat but it's not bad enough where there's a chance of burning yourself).

Of course this issue may vary between different people dependant on your usage or the build date of your phone. The above is purely my experience.

Damage

Now, when I say damage I don't mean that I've done drop tests or anything remotely similar to that. I simply mean that I've dropped it a couple of times.

The only situation I'm going to mention is when I dropped it onto the tiles on my kitchen floor (simply because the other couple of times have been onto a carpet and therefore wouldn't produce any damage unless thrown onto the ground).

I only managed to drop it because I was about to put my phone into my pocket and I missed and it dropped right to the ground. (Silly, I know.) The moment I dropped it I was thinking, "Sh!t". Obviously the first thing I checked, which I'm sure we'd all do the same, is that the screen wasn't damaged in any way. Luckily it wasn't because it had landed on the back. I then checked the back cover to see if there was any signs of damage and there was none :D

The only sign of damage on my phone is a couple of light scratches caused by having my phone in my pocket with my keys or lighter, so nothing to do with the drop at all.

Of course this is nowhere near definite proof that the One is a damage-free phone, because I'm sure that's far from the truth, but it was just great to see that it hadn't been damaged in the slightest :)

Edit - I actually managed to slightly crack the screen across the top left corner, courtesy of dropping it. It's not a major crack and honestly doesn't bother me as it doesn't restrict my view whatsoever anyway :)

Apps

I know this section isn't related to the phone as such but it's still relevant. While a lot of the main apps I use work great, some apps and games won't work yet either because of the screen resolution OR not optimized for the phone yet.

I know the same can be said about a ton of new phones which are released but I feel a lot of the HTC One users will benefit even more once more apps are made available. Not a major problem but figured I may aswell mention it while I'm here :p

IR Blaster

The IR Blaster is something that is really useful and a lot of fun, all at once.

I, like most of you, will probably only use this on our TVs or at least mostly on our TVs. As such, that's all I've tested it on. Therefore I can't comment on how well it may/may not work on either products.

The only downside is how long it takes to set it all up. You need to be specific about country, model, manufacturer and that's all before you're even allowed to set up the controls.

Once you get to setting the controls up, however, although it seems like quite laborious task to input each button individually but it doesn't actually take too long. Simply face TV remote towards the IR Blaster and press the relevant button on the remote so that the phone can recognize it.

Once you've set it all up, that's when the fun begins. First of all, it's really useful if you're having a lazy moment and can't be bothered to go across the room to get the remotes. You can simply grab your phone and navigate to the TV app and control it right from there. It was good to be able to control the volume of the TV by using our volume buttons as well :D

It can also become a really funny feature though. Here's how - My sister came and stopped at my house for the night. She woke up the next morning and instantly put Spongebob Squarepants on my TV. It's safe to say that I can't stand that program and knew I could have some fun with it. I just casually sat down and started turning the channel onto something which I wanted to watch. Obviously she was confused as to how it happened and tried changing it back. At that point I turned the TV off with my phone and now she thinks the TV is broke. RESULT!

Build Quality

I wasn't going to address this section because I personally don't think it's a big deal. I'm only covering this section because of all the complaints across this forum.

Have I got a perfect device? - No, of course not. No one has. BUT it's still the best phone I've ever had and it's gonna take a lot to beat this phone.

On 3 of the 4 corners, there's the well-documented problem with a lift of the material, so that it's not 100% flush with the rest of it. The only corner which doesn't have this problem is where the power button is.

I'm not bothered about these slight imperfections because it's still an amazing phone. I'm not silly enough to let such minor problems make me want to get a replacement or change to a different device.

While I'm here, I also have a group of dead pixels on the top right part of my screen. Again, as it's such a minor problem, I don't care about it.

Do some people care about build issues? - Yes of course they do but that's because, in their mind, they should have an absolutely perfect phone considering it's costing them around £500 to get it SIM free (just based on prices in the UK).

There's one thing which people need to realize, no matter how much you want it to happen, there will never be a perfect device. EVER! This is because phones are made and designed by humans and we all make errors. Regardless of whether a phone is built by hand or by a machine, the root of it all is still humans so there will always be imperfections.

Overview

As you can tell from reading above, I truly think that this is an amazing device with minimal things that could be improved upon. As I've never had a HTC before, I was worried about it but the One had made sure that I keep looking back to HTC when on the hunt for future phones. Just gotta hope that the One can bring HTCs sales back up and keep them in strong contention for the best phone around.

One Year Later

As I bought the phone exactly a year ago, I figured it would be a good idea to update this review to reflect how well the One has aged thus far and how I feel about it.

Well, the fact that I've still got my One shows that I'm still loving it. I generally get rid of my phones pretty quickly if I don't like them and upgrade to something else. The only other phone I've had for this long was the SGSII, which was an amazing device.

Even though I got the initial crack on my One not long after I wrote this post, I've dropped it a few times since then and haven't had any more damage so it can definitely take a bit of a beating anyway.

Considering I'd never owned a HTC before this, they really won me over with this phone and have continued to do so ever since. The main thing I was impressed with was their dedication to getting the 4.4.2 update rolled out within their timeframe. I wasn't sure of their history with regards to updates but it was definitely a nice surprise to see them keep their word.

Over all the updates the One has gone through, it's now more stable on 4.4.2 than it has ever been. The two main things I've noticed have improved throughout these updates are the battery life and the general performance.

I never found battery life to be an issue as it was always good so I've not seen a huge improvement throughout the various updates but a huge improvement hasn't been needed. I have seen a slight improvement throughout its life so far though. (I've messed up my battery a bit myself but having my phone on charge way too much but I still get great battery life regardless.)

General performance is something which I also felt didn't need improving but it has been quite a lot. Gaming performance has also improved a lot in the latest 4.4.2 update so some games which were suffering are now running perfectly at full speed.

Even though we've clearly got a huge variety of great ROMs available to us, I feel that the One is good enough where it doesn't need a custom ROM to improve it. I know ROMs often add features/performance to the phone over General improvements but I can add such features using xposed or separate apps anyway. Initially, I was testing out a lot of the ROMs (purely to see if I was missing out on something amazing) but I felt that they all took something away from the stock Sense experience.

I especially love how, even now, this phone still has people intrigued when they see it and gets them interested and wanting to get One for themselves. Apart from one guy who thought this was the iPhone 5 -_-. It's safe to say that I soon walked away and didn't carry on the conversation with such a person ;)

I'll end this final section here as I didn't expect it to get this lengthy (even though this whole review is huge). In short, even a year on this is still a great phone to have and I'd still recommend people to get one now. It's honestly going to be quite a while yet before I feel the need to upgrade to a new phone :)

Sent via my HTC One using XDA Premium