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HTC One S Review
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Introduction:
HTC One S is the middle child in the new One series of the Taiwanese smartphone maker, taking it down a notch from the flagship HTC One X, while floating above the One V munchkin in terms of hardware.
It has a lot going for it, though, being HTC's thinnest device to date, sporting a metal ceramic-coated or anodized chassis, and featuring the fourth generation of Qualcomm's Snapdragon chipset plus a dedicated HTC ImageChip for the camera. Not to mention that it comes with the latest Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and the tailored for ICS Sense 4.0 user interface overlay.
It also has a lot not going for it, especially if you frown at the trend of smartphones with non-removable batteries and lack of memory card slots for storage expansion.
Can the compact design, premium chassis materials and powerful hardware overcome the sealed battery and lack of microSD card slot well enough for the HTC One S to avoid the “middle child” syndrome? Is it priced right for what it offers? Read on our review to find out...
Design:
The first impression upon grabbing the HTC One S is how compact it is for a 4.3-incher.
The handset's 0.3” (7.8mm) thickness makes it one of the slimmest and most compact Android phones out there, and the only place where the slightly curved design gets thicker is the 8MP camera lens circle protruding slightly on the back, hinting at an HTC design heritage. The lens's rim is blue in our anodized aluminum unit, and red on the black version with the ceramic metal coating. The One S is definitely a break from the Sensation line slabs, but as with all very thin phones, it is a bit fiddly to pick up when lying on a flat surface.
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The HTC One S is very compact for a 4.3-incher | ||
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You can compare the HTC One S with many other phones using our Size Visualization Tool.
Despite the chassis made of anodized metal, our gradient blue HTC One S is also remarkably light at 4.2oz (120g) – this is almost as light as the 4.1oz Galaxy S II, which carries a display of the same size, but is all-plastic. The chassis has a fairly narrow and elongated profile, too, which helps with one-handed operation, allowing your thumb to reach across the display easier. The volume rocker on the right and the power/lock key up top are easy to feel and press, with good tactile feedback.
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Android buttons | Front-facing camera |
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Volume rocker (right) | Power key and 3.5mm jack (top) | microUSB port | Bottom edge |
The sides of the HTC One S | |||
The top and bottom parts of the back are plastic, though, for easier antenna signal penetration. The top piece, which is painted in a slightly lighter hue than the rest of the phone, can be easily pried open for inserting a micro-SIM card, but that's that. No microSD card slot there, and no way to swap the battery without cracking the phone open, which might be a dealbreaker for some.
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Camera | micro-SIM card slot | Speaker grill |
Display:
The front features a waterfall design, with the edges falling off seemingly uninterrupted to the sides, like on the One X, but upon closer inspection the screen part is still very slightly recessed, so it's mostly an optical illusion.
The 4.3” display is of the OLED variety and of a Samsung make, like the S-LCD piece on the One X. That means you get vibrant, yet quite oversaturated colors and pitch blacks, resulting in an almost infinite contrast. The cold colors that plague Samsung's Super AMOLED screens are present here as well, especially when you tilt the phone from about 30 degrees onwards – white quickly starts to turn even more blueish. Otherwise the viewing angles are excellent, and the image doesn't fade or lose brightness almost until the end of the curve.
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Whether due to the 30% less pixels in the PenTile arrangement that allow more backlight to pass through, thus making the screen much brighter, or due to good antireflective coating, outside visibility is very good. Even with the sun shining directly on the screen, you are still able to work with the interface comfortably, which usually comes with displays north of 500 nits of brightness, and that's what we have here. Not an HD display, but still a very decent screen is what greets you on the HTC One S, unless you are striving less “eye-popping” color gamut.
Drag the picture or use the keyboard arrows to rotate the phone. Double click or press keyboard Space to zoom in/out
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49 Comments
4. baldilocks posted on 05 Apr 2012, 09:30 5 7
Inferior Screen in both size and resolution. Lower graphics performance. Higher score from PhoneArena. LOL.
Maybe it's because it doesn't get 'warm under a heavy load'....
26. ngo2dd posted on 05 Apr 2012, 16:10 4 0
You can't say a screen is inferior because it is smaller. Lower graphics performance but better CPU, it is a trade off. Just stop
5. baldilocks posted on 05 Apr 2012, 09:32 8 2
Almost forgot. The One S has half the built in storage. That gives it a higher score from PhoneArena too.
7. PackMan posted on 05 Apr 2012, 09:40 10 0
Different Reviewer. Maybe Daniel P. would have given HTC One X higher score.
10. moyourBB posted on 05 Apr 2012, 09:45 7 0
Oh you are correct. Daniel may have a different perspective with Android device. :)
9. moyourBB posted on 05 Apr 2012, 09:42 1 1
I thought Ray compared two ONE series devices with their designs. There's no doubt the One S has a better material chassis than One X. And I guess the browser issue in One X gave a bad image to Ray.
29. cheetah2k posted on 05 Apr 2012, 20:27 0 0
Aircraft aluminium vs polycarb. Either one is pretty awesome, and much more durable in a fall than the iphone's glass-aluminium composite.
I don't know why some people don't like the one piece polycarbonate bodies. The N9 is rather damn good actually, so whatever tickles your fancy..
30. Mario1017 posted on 05 Apr 2012, 22:22 0 0
The X doesn't have poor browser performance, HTC phones always come out of the box with text rewrapping automatically turned on, that is why it it pauses for a bit. turn it off and the browser is buttery smooth. just doubletap to rewrap text after zooming in
6. cripton805 posted on 05 Apr 2012, 09:40 2 0
The one reviewing the phone was an Applefanboy. You could tell during the review and when they pitted it against the iPhone. It was that same guy. "What a surprise". This seems to be a more reasonable guy and the score seems more justified.
8. PackMan posted on 05 Apr 2012, 09:41 3 0
Also dont let Victor H. review anything. And this score is correct i think but One X should have got 8.5.
42. sudhar131998 posted on 08 Apr 2012, 10:10 0 0
do you know that the snapdragon chip inside this phone has a better processor because of the processing technique.
inside htc one x runs tegra 3 which is based on 48nm or 42nm processing
in htc one s is 32nm processing with krait cores for faster speeds
therefore htc one s is a little bit better in terms of cpu tasks but the htc one x is still a winner in terms of gpu
43. DylRicho posted on 11 Apr 2012, 09:35 0 0
You would be surprised. The Snapdragon CPU in this phone scores better in all benchmarking apps that I have tried. Also, just because it doesn't have the HD resolution of the One X, doesn't mean it should be scored down. In fact, it has a better display technology than the One X and is made out of aircraft-grade aluminium which has been oxidized to make it four times as strong as stainless steel. The scores are probably based on overall performance and user experience, and with the One S featuring the better CPU with the same amount of RAM on a smaller screen, will perform better.
14. ZEUS.the.thunder.god posted on 05 Apr 2012, 10:21 3 0
why couldn`t you review One X ?
i am sure it deserved an 8.5.
18. saket.shrivastava posted on 05 Apr 2012, 11:07 0 0
pls do it at ur earliest ..................
my exam is on sunday and i am buying it first thing on monday mornin :-)
11. maxkobi posted on 05 Apr 2012, 09:45 6 1
i think it got a higher score because as a middle tier phone its pretty decent
21. anirudhshirsat97 posted on 05 Apr 2012, 11:40 5 1
You are very correct my friend. Some people just lack common sense.
