When HTC launched the HTC One X at the Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona, U.S. consumers were very disappointed to hear that the version of the device heading to AT&T in the U.S. would have to give up its quad-core NVIDIA Tegra 3 processor in order to gain LTE support.
It turns out, though, that NVIDIA's LTE woes worked out in the U.S. market's favor - and in a big way. The dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor that is in the AT&T One X is flat out better. It's faster in most all benchmarks, runs cooler, and offers better battery life.
Wipe away those tears, geek-boy. This One X is even better than the European version I reviewed a short while ago, which pretty much makes it the best high-end smartphone available on the market today.
Check out the video below comparing the AT&T HTC One X (also known as the One XL in global markets) with the original HTC One X for Europe for more proof.
Hardware
The HTC One X for AT&T is an exquisitely designed device. The white body of our review handset is made from a single-piece of polycarbonate that features a matte finish, save for the high-gloss edge of the phone. It is supremely attractive and comfortable, and it blends perfectly into the tapered edges of the Gorilla Glass front of the phone that protects its 720 x 1280 pixel Super LCD2 display.
Offering a dot pitch of 312dpi, the One X's 4.7-inch HD touchscreen is more than sharp enough to make even the smallest of fonts look entirely readable - assuming your eyes are up to the task. The X's display also shows significantly deeper black levels than previous HTC HD displays, such as the one seen on the HTC Vivid for AT&T. It still can't quite compete with Super AMOLED for black levels and color saturation, but it is getting quite close.
Since it is an Android 4.0 device, and was designed from the ground up as such, the HTC One X features only three touch sensitive controls under the display. Users will find a back button, a home button, and the task switcher button. Missing is the search button found on most older Android smartphones, and I am glad to bid it farewell since a three button arrangement is much easier to use without looking, as LG showed on its Nitro HD for AT&T.
Above the display on the front face of the phone is the secondary 1.3 megapixel camera for video chatting, which supports the primary 8 megapixel camera, with LED flash, that resides on the back of the phone. A power button sits on the top edge of the One X, where it is somewhat difficult to reach - even with large hands. A 3.5mm headphone jack resides there as well, as does the hidden tray for the phone's mandatory micro-SIM card, which requires a paper clip or something similar (like the included tool) for removal. A micro-USB port for charging and data is located on the left edge of the phone, with the volume control sitting exactly opposite it on the right hand edge.
With a weight of only 135g (4.7oz) and a svelte profile of 9.2mm (.36in), the One X fits easily into a pocket. Its 134.5mm x 70.8mm (5.3in x 2.8in) length and width can make it a bit unwieldy to use single-handedly for those with smaller hands, but it is no worse than Motorola's popular DROID RAZR and DROID RAZR MAXX smartphones in that regard, even though it offers users a much larger, higher resolution display.
As mentioned in the summary, one of the few differences between AT&T's One X (which is really just a One XL), is that it runs Qualcomm's Snapdragon S4 processor, which features dual cores running at speeds up to 1.5GHz. Unlike the quad-core Tegra 3 processor it replaces, the S4 makes use of current generation ARM Cortex-A15 cores. The end result is that it is faster than the Tegra 3, runs cooler, and uses less power. On top of that, you also gain access to LTE data networks. That's a win-win-win-win. One of the few losses the AT&T user faces in this comparison is in the built-in storage department. AT&T's One X carries only 16GB of built-in storage, and there is no microSD(INFO) slot for expansion.
Apart from the position of the power button and the micro-USB port, I find the industrial design and build quality of the HTC One X to be just about as good as it gets. It is a device worthy of both love and lust.
Usability
There was a time when HTC's Sense user interface was the belle of the smartphone ball, adored by all. In recent years, though, that has changed as Sense has gotten heavier and more intrusive, and once-hated systems like Samsung's TouchWiz have gained favor through iterative refinements. With Sense 4, HTC has started moving back in the direction of favored and refined, as some of the bulk in previous Sense versions has been removed, with the company even improving upon some of the base shortcomings in Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich's stock user experience.
For starters, Sense still offers some of its key features, such as the shortcut icons on the lock screen and the ability to save multiple home screen configurations as "scenes" that can be quickly switched between. But gone is the waste of space at the bottom of the home screen for that oversized "phone" button we're used to seeing, having been replaced by 4 user configurable shortcuts. The multi-paned, tabbed view of settings and shortcuts in the notification area has also been dropped in favor of a simple list. HTC's vertically scrolling main menu, which scrolled in one page increments, has been replaced with a horizontally scrolling paged menu that is similar to what Google offers as stock, but it comes with tabs for other views such as "downloaded" that makes it handier to use. On the other hand, HTC's new task switcher, with its paged view of apps, needs to be dropped. It is cooler looking than Google's stock switcher, but ultimately far less usable.
The new Sense on-screen keyboard is larger than before, due to the addition of dedicated arrow keys. It still supports a trace mode that emulates most of Swype's features, but is merely a pretender to the throne in that regard. I continue to dislike the keyboard's number mode key being located on the right hand side, as it has long been, and don't like the hide keyboard button on the left, but otherwise find the keyboard to perform quickly and accurately.
Some things that Google totally missed the mark on, such as widget management, have also been entirely replaced by far more usable HTC solutions. And while we still see cool Sense features like Twitter and Facebook integration in the contacts app, and a suite of beautiful clock and weather widgets, the UI as a whole now feels more like a benefit rather than a hindrance. There is still work to be done, but at least Sense is moving in the right direction once again.
As was the case with the original One X we tested, the AT&T One X runs fast and fluidly, outperforming all comers in both benchmarks and real-world smoothness.
Calling / Data
The HTC One X can be used on GSM and 3G networks around the world, but has been tuned to work on AT&T's 4G LTE(INFO) network in the United States. When tested in strong signal areas around my home, I got inconsistent HSPA+ download speeds ranging from 2.5 to 7Mbps, and uploads in the 1 to 2.3Mbps range. LTE data is not available in my area, but my tests with other HTC devices like the Vivid have resulted in 20Mbps or faster downloads. Call audio quality was nice and crisp, which was appreciated. The phone supports Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g/n data connections as well as Bluetooth for headsets and USB for connecting with a personal computer. A hotspot mode can be used for connection sharing with Wi-Fi capable devices, as well, and NFC(INFO) support on the X can be used with functions like Android Beam.
Messaging
I absolutely love the email client that HTC includes on the One X. It's very attractive and offers functionality like a combined inbox view, gorgeous home screen widgets, and the ability to scroll through an inbox by date by using two fingers. You can use it with any mail server that supports IMAP, POP, or Exchange - which is just about everything. The messaging app is also well done, offering a clean interface as well as the ability to adjust the font size and configure the inbox to work as you like. The only instant messaging app pre-installed is Google's own Talk, but the One X comes with Facebook and Twitter loaded out of the box.
Apps / App Store
As is common with carrier-branded devices, there is quite a lot of "bloatware" on the HTC One X. Fortunately, Android 4.0 gives users the ability to "disable" a pre-installed application so that it no longer can run and no longer appears in the main menu. For its part, HTC also loads a number of its own apps on the One X, like the HTC Watch streaming app, but there are also plenty of Google branded apps (Maps, Gmail, Google+, etc). HTC's slick Notes app is also available. It's a slick front-end to Evernote that takes some of its inspiration from HTC's Flyer tablet. Polaris Office and a PDF reader handle Office document editing and viewing, and both are integrated with Dropbox (25GB for two years included) and Microsoft Skydrive support, which is truly useful. If you still need more functionality, then the Google Play Store (formerly the Android Market) offers hundreds of thousands of apps (and books, songs) that you can browse through.
Browser
HTC has given the One X a fine new browser that is very fast and smooth in operating - with one exception. The browser exhibited some odd behavior during intelligent "double tap" zooming, often zooming in as desired, only to pan over unexpectedly to the wrong part of the screen. Apart from that, though, the Flash- and HTML5-capable browser worked very well. Still, for my money, you'd do even better by checking out the Chrome Beta browser from Google, which is just fantastic in most every way. Chrome doesn't yet support Flash, but it is expected to be the standard browser in future versions of Android.
Camera
Now on to one of my favorite parts of the One X, the 8 megapixel camera. Not only does the camera offer a truly magnificent user interface, with quick access to settings and controls of all sorts (even filters!), but it just takes great photos - both with and without flash. And it does so very quickly. In fact, you can shoot a burst of photos by simply holding down the on-screen shutter button. On top of that, you can record full-resolution 8 megapixel still photos while you are recording a 1080p full HD video just by tapping the shutter button. Both buttons are on the screen at the same time, so you never have to switch modes. It's such a convenient feature to have. I also approve of HTC's fast and wide-angle lens, which makes the camera much more practical for real life situations. It doesn't hurt that a decent video editor, with themed transitions, is pre-loaded on the phone. No other smartphone has been as much fun to use for photography as the HTC One X.
Music
HTC's music player on the One X is very attractive and capable. While it lacks access to the 7digital music store that is found on the European One X, you still get SoundHound's music identification service and Tunein Radio's for streaming live, ground-based radio stations. The music app makes good use of album art and is organized well, but it lacks support for Google's own cloud based music service, which is now part of the company's Google Play properties. There's nothing to stop you from downloading and using Google's music app on the One X, though, so your bases are pretty much covered.
Battery
HTC's One X comes equipped with a reasonably large 1800mAh battery that is permanently embedded inside its one-piece body. There's no option to swap out the battery, just as is the case with the Nokia Lumia 800. HTC does not provide any talk time or standby time ratings for the One X on AT&T, but I've found the phone to be a pretty solid performer in terms of real world battery use - though my estimates show that the phone is only capable of about 4.5 hours of 3G talk time. Getting a full day out of the battery is easily within reach, but you still won't get two full days out of it unless you treat it with kid gloves. Even at its lowest brightness setting, the display draws down a lot of energy.
Reviewer Spin
Nothing is sweeter that pulling a victory out of what seemed doomed to be a defeat. That's what the HTC One X on AT&T is. We expected to miss the quad-core processor of the European version and instead have found that we're glad to have ended up without it. Not that the NVIDIA Tegra 3 is a bad processor - it's not - it's just that Qualcomm's S4 is faster, cooler, and more power efficient in our tests. That, and the fact that it supports LTE data connections, means that AT&T users come out of this exchange looking, and feeling, like winners. And they should, because the HTC One X for AT&T is a real winner. Great camera, blazing speeds in all regards, and a damned sexy design. Samsung's impending Galaxy S III will have some competition this year.
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