Our review of the HTC One X

[howard]

Here’s our review of the HTC One X on Rogers. The Rogers version is the North American One X variant which only has a dual core processor while the rest of the world gets a quad-core processor. 4 > 2 right? Let’s find out.

Last year was a banner year for Android hardware. It started off with the Motorola ATRIX. The ATRIX was my first dual core phone, plus it was the first one to have a 960x540 display. Its problem was that it didn’t seem fast for a dual core phone and its display and camera were lackluster. We also got the LG Optimus 2x. It had a beautiful display but also wasn’t very fast, also had a lackluster camera and it also shipped with an outdated version of Android. The Samsung Galaxy S II was a strong package but most variants had a lower resolution display (which looked outstanding). But there were also too many versions, if you wanted LTE you had to get one version, if you wanted penta-band then another. Choice is good but too much choice is confusing. The HTC Amaze and Raider where strong offerings but again you had to pick and choose. the Amaze had a penta-band radio but was stuck with a cheap looking display. The Raider had LTE but a slower processor.

It’s like Goldilocks and the five bears (ATRIX, Galaxy S II’s, Optimuses, HTC’s and Motorola’s) except that none was just right.

Now we have the HTC One X. It sports a new dual core Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8960 processor which is more efficient clock-for-clock than older versions plus has the Adreno 225 graphics processor which is also improved. There’s also a dedicated camera processor (which makes a huge difference) and the best screen ever put in an HTC product. Is this the one that’s just right?




Before I continue, I just want to point out that there are 2 versions of the One X. An international version (which I’ll call the quad core) which lacks LTE but has 32GB of storage and a quad core Tegra 3 processor and the North American one (dual core) I’m reviewing here, which has LTE but it only comes with 16GB of storage and a new dual core Qualcomm processor that I mentioned earlier.



There are other minor differences: The dual core version is slightly longer, it has a bigger ‘circle’ around the camera, the power button is harder to press but they’re not that important.



Really, inside they’re two completely different phones. I’ll cover the quad core one more in-depth in a separate article.




Let’s start with the display; It’s an LCD screen that measures 4.7” with a resolution of 1280x720.



It’s razor sharp - slightly sharper than the Galaxy Nexus’ display. It has stunning viewing angles which are the equal of a Super AMOLED display. Outdoor performance is also identical to Super AMOLED.

While not as deep as an AMOLED display black levels are still really deep.



Interestingly, the quad version has off angle colour shift - it goes slightly green. I’m not sure if all quad core versions have this or if it’s just mine.

I didn’t notice it at first, but the dual core One X’s colours are sometimes off. I’m not sure if it’s the picture viewer or what, but sometimes the whites are a little warm while the greens are yellowish. In addition to this, everything always looks brighter/lighter compared to other phones. The brightness always reduces/eliminates a lot of shadows. It’s not to say that AMOLED is perfect either; my Galaxy S II is a bit bluish while my Galaxy Note turns slightly green when viewed at an angle.

While I thought the colour accuracy could be better I still think that the dual core One X’s display looks great. HTC is going to sell a lot of them based on the screen alone.



Like the Nokia Lumia 800/900, the One X has a polycarbonate plastic unibody. I prefer the One X’s because its a little more interesting looking and the sides are polished. It’s a unibody because there are no screws on the outside, meaning the body is one piece. I must say, the One X is probably the best looking white coloured phone that I have ever seen.

One thing to remember is that polycarbonate is a type of plastic, so it lacks the heft of a metal bodied phone like the HTC Amaze 4G. Typically, polycarbonate is used to make plastic glasses/sunglasses. It’s not as hard as glass so it’s less likely to shatter but at the same time, since it’s not as hard as glass, it scratches easily. That’s why when it comes to glasses, plastic lenses get scratched up while glass ones shatter.

The screen is a curved piece of Gorilla glass. While Gorilla glass is more scratch resistant than plastic, be careful if you drop it. Forum member WorldIRC dropped from a height of 1 ft and it caused the screen to shatter. It’s not to say that Gorilla glass shatters easily. It’s just that it will shatter if you drop it and it lands on the right spot at the right angle.



I didn’t have the One X long enough to say that it won't’ scratch but over the past couple of days I’ve been carrying it in my jeans pocket and it still looks good. My only scare was I thought my dark jeans stained the corner of the One X. Fortunately, the dark spot came off when I wiped it with a wet cloth.

Tour:



microSIM slot plus hole to insert pin to eject it, power button, headphone jack, microphone



microUSB slot



volume buttons

There’s no microSDHC card slot. There’s 16GB of storage of which only 10GB is available. Ouch! As if that wasn’t bad enough the quad core version has 32GB of which 25GB is available. Where did the other 3GB go?

Anyways, I copied some files from my computer via USB and saw speeds of around 11MB/s. That’s a little above average. The quad core version has write speeds of over 15MB/s - that’s pretty fast!

Unlike the Galaxy Nexus I reviewed a while back, the One X has physical buttons instead of having to reserve the bottom area of the screen for them. What’s nice about this setup is that the buttons stay in one spot, rather than moving around and sometimes disappearing. I much prefer this setup although I wish Ice Cream Sandwich also had a dedicated menu button rather than the idiotic setup they have now where the menu button moves around.

Camera:

The X has a dedicated camera processor and it shows in its performance. Everything from focusing to shutter lag to shot-to-shot times are incredibly fast. Yes, they’re even faster than the iPhone 4s without having to resort to taking extremely out of focus pictures.

There’s a best shot feature which takes a bunch of pictures quickly and then lets you choose the best one out. To use it you just press and hold the camera shutter button - no need to muck around the menus to activate it. It’s a very clever work flow!

While this feature reduces the resolution to 5 megapixels I was blown away that it fires at around 4 to 5fps for up to 4 seconds (I tested it by taking pictures of a stop watch). That’s 20 shots in only 4 seconds - yes there are many point and shoot cameras which can shoot faster than this but it’s simply stunning for a mobile phone.

Focusing happens like on the iPhone, as you move the camera around it automatically focuses - you can override the focus by tapping anywhere on the scene. It focuses very quickly - usually by the time I’ve steadied my hand, it’s already grabbed focus.

Now I’m a doting father, so I’m constantly taking pictures of my 2 year old. She’s constantly moving around so slower phones like the Samsung Galaxy S II (otherwise an excellent camera) and Galaxy Note (ditto) can’t keep up with her. Generally speaking, I also prefer candid style shots. Anyways, I need something that can focus quickly and take many pictures in a short amount of time. I also need it to be able to use fast enough shutter speeds so that the subject is not blurred. The One X is the best camera phone I have ever used when it comes to these criteria. It’s even better than the iPhone 4s.

One thing that puzzled me is that the HTC One X is advertised as having a 8 megapixel sensor. When checking out the photos I noticed that the 8MP setting captures them at 3264x1840. I whipped out my calculator and realized that that’s only 6MP. Turns out there are seperate resolution and image ratio settings. The camera defaults to 16:9 resolution, so the pictures fill the entire screen. In order to capture a full 8mp of detail, you have to switch to a 4:3 ratio. When you do that, the One X will display black bars on the sides when you’re framing your shot.

Shot-to-shot times are excellent. In this regard, it’s very similar to the iPhone 4s. You can shoot around 1.5 frames a second at full resolution by tapping away at the shutter button. It’s fast even when you use the flash. There’s also a best shot feature which quickly snaps a bunch of pictures and lets you pick the best one. When you use this feature it shoots at the 4 or 5fps I mentioned earlier. If you want, you can decide to keep the entire set.

So far, I’m blown away with the One X’s performance. I’ve never used a camera with this level of speed and performance. Turns out there is a fly in the ointment - the One X doesn’t take very sharp photos. While it’s not always obvious, the One X’s pictures lack critical focus. When you look carefully, pictures are kind of soft - and sometimes you don’t have to look very carefully. It’s really unfortunate because I love the One X’s camera. I suspect the One X’s camera may be back focusing (or maybe forward focusing) where it’s focusing on something closer or further than where you want it to focus. Hopefully, they can fix this with a software update.

When I’m using my iPhone 4s/Galaxy Note, the delay from when you switch between camera and video modes drives me nuts. With the One X, I love how HTC have the camera and video buttons on the same screen. Furthermore, there’s very little delay when you press either of them.

Another ace up the One X’s sleeve is that it can capture video and still photos simultaneously, even when you’re shooting at 1080p. There is one catch - still photos are captured at 5 megapixels instead of 6 or 8mp.

I love how the One X doesn’t crop the display when it shoots video in 1080p mode provided you’re taking pictures in 16:9 mode.

Video quality is excellent. The only big problem is that I found it hard to hold the One X steady when I shot video - most phones these days have this problem because they’re all too skinny. Still, a thick case usually fixes this so run out and grab one for your One X.

The audio in captured videos is a little disappointing. While it’s not terrible like last year’s HTC Raider and Amaze 4G, it still sounds a little muffled.

While camera performance is typically measured in how sharp a photo and how accurate the colour and noise free the pictures are the One X’s strengths lie in other areas. It isn’t perfect but almost perfect for me. I rarely take pictures where I can stand there, tap to focus and then hold the camera still for a few seconds. A sharp photo with awesome colour and a blurry subject is no use to me nor is one where the subject has moved out of the frame. Posing for shots is cool if you’re at a wedding but usually they’re kind of cheesy - I’m more of a run and gun type photographer and in this regard the One X is the best camera phone at doing this.





There are both picture and video editors.

Beats Audio:

The One X has Beats audio. It’s a fancy way of saying that HTC paid extra attention to the One X’s audio capabilities - probably the speakers and the headphone amp. Interestingly, the Rogers One X doesn’t come with any headphones - I guess they used the money meant for the headphones for the cool Beats logo.



There’s a single speaker on the back underneath the Beats logo. I was expecting it to be really loud while having acceptable sound quality. In fact, it’s much quieter than average - Phones like the iPhone 4s and even the Samsung Galaxy S II LTE are much, much louder. If you think the Beats logo means that you’ll be able to have your friends huddle around you while you show them music videos in public think again.

To test the One X’s headphone amp, I used my Shure SR840 and my Grado SR325is. Both are over-the-ear type headphones and are powerful when they need to be, plus the sound is very detailed and revealing. I also wanted to use my Klipsch S4’s but I couldn’t find them - if you find a pair of S4’s around Toronto please let me know, they’re mine. For most of my comparison I pitted the One X with my Galaxy Nexus though I used my iPhone 4s a little too.

I listened to a variety of music but mostly used Daft Punk’s Derezzed, Phantom Pt. II (Boyz Noize Remix) from Justice and the Young Person’s Guide To The Orchestra (the beginning and the last few minutes where all the parts of of the orchestra take turns playing).

The first thing I noticed is at maximum volume, the Galaxy Nexus is slightly louder while the iPhone is much louder. It’s not that the One X is quiet, it’s just really loud. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing - it will be harder to damage your hearing with the One X.

Turns out the Beats logo means that the One X has a special setting for beats headphones - the Beats urBeats and Beats Solo. I don’t own either of these headphones so I can’t comment on what difference this setting has. Besides the Beats setting, there are many other presets.

Other then that, the Nexus and One X sound almost exactly the same. I did a lot of A-B testing and couldn’t find much difference. Both are a in-your-face and have booming bass. They’re both a lot of fun - the sort of sound that’s best for when you’re listening in public.

Sense:

Like all HTC phones, the One X has Sense on top of Android. For me, the One X is my first Sense phone with Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0 aka ICS). Everything is customized so that the only way you can really tell the One X is an Ice Cream Sandwich phone is by the lack of a physical menu button.

The keyboard works great, I prefer it over the default Ice Cream Sandwich keyboard. My only complaint about it is that the number shift key is on the right side of the keyboard - I’m not used to that. The keys are nice and big - typing and the autocorrect are intuitive, like on the iPhone or a Windows Phone. There are direction keys at the bottom of the keyboard and while they’re nice to have, I don’t think they’re that necessary because Sense makes it easy to place your pointer.

Sense comes with lots of widgets including many clocks, social media widgets and widgets to turn features like WiFi, Bluetooth, screen orientation on/off. On the homescreens, there is a dock at the bottom where the main menu button is located. It’s flanked by 2 user customizable shortcuts on each side which can launch programs or open folders and persist across all home screens.

Pretty much all aspects of the One X are customized. Earlier versions of Sense were pretty weak but it’s been getting better and better. Now it permeates all aspects of the phone yet at the same time I never feel like it’s overdone or cheesy. Kudos HTC!

The only feature I wish Sense had, is an orientation lock button when you pull the notification area down like on Samsung Touchwiz or like how when you double tap the iPhone’s home button and swipe left. I use this feature a couple of times a day on my iPhone and Galaxy Note and am always very annoyed when I have to use a device that lacks a fast orientation lock. While there is an orientation lock widget, I don’t like to use it because then I have to keep track of what home screen it’s on or put it on every home screen.

I like how the One X has a Mass Storage Mode option when you connect it to your computer. With a fast camera and only 10GB of storage the One X’s storage fills up incredibly quickly. The mass Storage Mode is a nice extra that my Galaxy Nexus doesn’t have.

The browser has a nice feature where it automatically centers and reflows text when you double tap on it. It has some extra menu animations that the stock Android browser doesn’t have. While they’re nice, they lower the One X’s benchmark scores. To me, that’s not important at all but remember this when you’re checking out the One X’s scores.

The Gallery app allows you to view pictures and video you’ve taken but it also has integration so you can view and upload pictures with Facebook, Flickr, DLNA, Dropbox and Picasa.


Unfortunately, Rogers preloads a lot of extra crap on the One X. 1 contacts, 1 Number, Games, Messenger, My Account, Ringbacks, Ringtones, Rogers Live, Shop, urMusic. Check it out, out-of-the-box the quad core’s main menu has 3 pages of icons while the Rogers one has 4! I wouldn’t mind them so much but you can’t remove them easily as there’s no uninstall option for them.

Sunspider:

The X (NA) scores a stunning 1550.ms in Sunspider which easily the fastest score for a mobile device that I have ever recorded in Sunspider. It’s faster than the quad-core Tegra 3 powered One X (Int) and Asus Transformer Prime and iPad 3.

HTC One X (NA) 1550.9
Asus Transformer Prime (Honeycomb) 1682.9
Apple iPad 3 1693.7
HTC One X (Int) 1712.9
Apple iPad 2 os 5 1780.1
Samsung Galaxy Nexus 1925.7
Sony Xperia S 2495.3
LG Optimus LTE 2361.2

Part of the reason why the dual core version of the X roasts the quad core is because the dually is more efficient. Another reason is because each additional core has diminishing returns.

SunSpider scores are great for comparing devices but how realistic are they in the real world? To test this, I put the One X, Galaxy Nexus and Galaxy Note side-by-side and loaded webpages simultaneously to see which one loaded pages the fastest consistently. On mobile optimized pages, like the one on HowardForums, they are all quite similar with the One X and Galaxy Nexus running neck-and-neck, followed by the Galaxy Note, which is just a hair behind. The One X’s speed advantage is partially offset by its menus which are slightly more animated than the Galaxy Nexus’.

On bigger pages, like the ‘full site’ frontpage of the Toronto Star, The One X was usually slightly faster than the Galaxy Nexus while the Galaxy Note was generally a few seconds behind. Here, you won’t notice the difference between the Galaxy Nexus and One X but you might feel that the Note is half-a-step behind.

GL Benchmark (Egypt Off-screen):

iPhone 4s 8250
HTC One X (Int) 7081
HTC One X (NA) 6318
Samsung Galaxy S II 5594
Samsung Galaxy Note 3791
Motorola RAZR 3232

GL Benchmark scores are quite good for Android. It’s ahead of Samsung’s Exynos and just slightly behind Tegra 3.

Basemark:

Basemark is an Android only Benchmark. Here the NA X clobbers the International version. The fact that the NA version scores about 2x higher makes me wonder whether Basemark needs to be better optimized for Tegra 3.

HTC One X (dual core) 31.95
Sony Xperia S 18.34
HTC One X (quad core) 18.31
Samsung Galaxy Note 16.56
Asus Transformer Prime 14.64
Samsung Galaxy Nexus 8.81

Battery life:

To test battery life I set the brightness to maximum and disable all wireless features (including GPS). Next I played a video until the phone turned off.

Samsung Galaxy Note 329 mins
HTC Raider 303
HTC Amaze 4G 288
HTC One X (dual core) 260
Samsung Galaxy S II 250
Motorola RAZR 242
Sony Xperia S 240
Galaxy Nexus 217

Phone performance:

RF performance is about average. It’s similar to last year’s Amaze and Raider. It’s similar to the Galaxy S II and behind the Apple iPhone 4s (which is above average) and the Motorola RAZR and Nokia N9 (which are well above average).

Both incoming and outgoing sound quality are excellent.

I’m still new to GPS testing so I might change this test. To test the GPS I activated airplane mode, turned off WiFi and Google’s location service. Next I ran the app ‘GPS Test’ in my basement to see how many satellites the One X could find. I was surprised that it actually managed to get a pretty accurate lock (30ft) while the Galaxy Nexus could not get one.

Conclusion:

When I pick up the One X, I can’t help but wonder if it’s the final device in what has been a 3 journey of huge leaps and jumps in Android hardware. Just think about it: 3 years ago, we had the HTC Magic and Dream. Back then, if you had a Magic or Dream, it would be hard to imagine that it would only take a couple of years to for a phone like the One X to come out.

I like to compare the phone industry to the PC industry. In the past couple of years PC’s have been steadily improving but at the same time there hasn’t been much incentive to upgrade unless you had a really outdated system. I wonder if the same thing will happen with phones now. We’ll still see incremental upgrades but the need/desire to upgrade won’t be there unless you’re a really enthusiast. Will Android hardware plateau from now on?

Anyways, until the successor for the Galaxy S II comes out the One X’s chief competitor is the Galaxy Nexus and iPhone 4s.

For people on AT&T, Bell, Rogers, TELUS, compared to the Galaxy Nexus, you lose penta-band HSPA support and a slightly sharper camera. You gain LTE, a camera with more features, a slightly sharper screen, a slightly faster processor and a couple of software changes which most people will like. I also prefer the styling of the One X though they both look quite similar.

Remember, the One X sold in North America (the LTE variant) only has 16GB of non expandable storage of which only 10GB is available. It’s a bit of a cruel joke since the storage fills up really quickly.

As for the iPhone 4s, it’s a little unfair to compare the One X with a phone that came out 6 or 7 months ago but you get a superior screen and LTE. The iPhone 4s has superior RF performance (on HSPA anyways), a louder speaker and more storage options. As for iOS vs Android that’s beyond the scope of the article. I prefer iOS personally, but enjoy Android too.

When it comes to whether you should get the North American or International variants of the HTC One X, it comes down to whether you want LTE or the extra 16GB of storage more. Before you say you’d prefer the 32GB of storage, remember carrier’s HSPA networks are generally more congested than their LTE ones. So even though HSPA can go up to 42mbps, you might want to think of it more as an overloaded network vs one that isn’t overloaded (yet). As far as the quad core vs dual core debate, there are some areas where the quad is faster and some where the dual is faster. If you’re not using them side-by-side, I’d say you probably won’t notice much of a difference so it shouldn’t weigh too heavily on your decision.



If you’re waiting for a new Android phone you can’t go wrong the HTC One X provided you can live with only 10GB of storage and don’t need improved battery life over last year’s offerings. Otherwise it’s just such a huge jump forward and I’m blown away.

Highs:

• fast
• camera speed
• screen
• clean design
• LTE

Lows:

• camera doesn’t focus properly
• no micro SDHC slot
• only 10GB of storage available

Interestingly:

• The HTC One X and HTC One X: 2 phones that share the same name but are completely different inside

[HC - NO "i"]

Fellow HC,

Thanks for the insight.

1. Regarding the battery life, have you managed to get the figure for the non-LTE Nvidia Quad-core variant?

2. In some markets, the non-LTE Quad-core variant has a "Premium Pack" that comes with a pair of Beats Audio SOLO headphones...





A friend of mine has got it (at about C$100 more than the just the One X). While he told me the audio quality is typical Beast Audio character, the build quality has a cheap plastic feel - may not be as good as the regular retail models.

3. Here are the photos captured by the Samsung Galaxy S II GT-I9100 next to you...

No Flash


With Flash


... vs the HTC One X

[sabesh]

It's safe to say that battery life is stellar on my One X.

God review, I've had mostly similar thoughts about my One X. However, I dislike the camera. It doesn't merely miss focus ... But details are lacking even when in focus! One NR kicks in at high ISO, the images are quite bad.

Other than the absolutely crappy camera, the One X has become my favourite phone.

[HC - NO "i"]

Sabesh,

However, you can see the photos of the food we had that night. I sat next to fellow HC, so the lighting condition should be identical. Yet, I have got even worse low ISO without flash?!

[sabesh]

One more observation: Battery life on the One X is the best I've seen on an Android phone thus far. Clearly lasts longer than a Galaxy Nexus too, on WiFi and HSPA.

[WorldIRC]

Other than the absolutely crappy camera, the One X has become my favourite phone.

Just quoting this in case you change your mind

[DerekToronto]

Amazing review Howard!


HC no i. Your 1x photo looked nice...yet crappy.

btw...I love my 1xdual too!

[howard]

I'm still testing the quad core varient. Like the dual core version the quad core one keeps refusing to run my battery test. I did get it to run once - 210 mins. Which is pretty dismal considering it doesn't even have a SAMOLED display. I'm not confident of this number until I can run the test through a few more times. The unit is brand new and I'm hoping the next couple of tests will get a better result.

I also noticed a bug - This morning I left the One X charging all night and when I picked it up this morning it beeped and said the battery was dead and then shut off. When I plugged it in to charge it said it was full. Note that I didn't verify that it actually charging last night - I didn't check that the status LED lit up - I just assumed that plugging it in is good enough. When I was checking out WorldIRC's quad core he mentioned that his battery status dropped a couple of percentage points suddenly. So there may be a problem with the battery on the quad core.

Fellow HC,

Thanks for the insight.

1. Regarding the battery life, have you managed to get the figure for the non-LTE Nvidia Quad-core variant?

2. In some markets, the non-LTE Quad-core variant has a "Premium Pack" that comes with a pair of Beats Audio SOLO headphones...





A friend of mine has got it (at about C$100 more than the just the One X). While he told me the audio quality is typical Beast Audio character, the build quality has a cheap plastic feel - may not be as good as the regular retail models.

3. Here are the photos captured by the Samsung Galaxy S II GT-I9100 next to you...

No Flash


With Flash


... vs the HTC One X

[WorldIRC]

From 15% to 3%, it dropped in 3-4% increments...didn't seem too calibrated.

[HC - NO "i"]

DerekToronto,

No, my photos are shot with the Galaxy S II. But I am surprised the One X can do relatively good at the same venue.

[HC - NO "i"]

Fellow HC,

WorldIRC has mentioned about a bug regarding the Nvidia power management library files were mistakenly put into the wrong system folder... Also there should be an update to fix several bugs e.g. flickering screen, for the Quad-core variant.

[sabesh]

One X's back scruffs easily.



Sent from my HTC One X using Tapatalk 2

[HC - NO "i"]

[howard]

I finally manged to run my battery test on both One X's at the same time (the 2 on the right in the picture).

Dual Core One X: 267mins
Quad Core One X: 263mins

It's interesting to see how close the battery life is between the 2 of them given that they have completely different processors/graphics.

And yes, they both scratch really easily. They may as well be made from bars of soap. I transported the grey One X is a fabric case - the back got all scuffed up. HTC must have put some sort of scuff-philic finish on the back because it does not wear well at all.

[HC - NO "i"]

Fellow HC,

Thanks for the update. However, when the LTE data sessions kick in heavily, not sure how it does hold up against the quad-core HSPA+ variant. Perhaps put both into HSPA+ mode and see how "hungry" they are