HTC One S

PCWorld Rating

4.5

4.5 / 5 - PCWorld, Apr 18, 2012

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2 User Reviews Add Your Review »

Pros

• High-end camera with lots of shooting modes
• Thin, premium design
• Excellent for gaming and multimedia

Cons

• No microSD slot
• Mediocre call quality

Bottom Line

The HTC One S is the ultimate multimedia phone, from gaming to music to snapping high quality photos.

LIKE IT......

shajib

HTC One S Review: Ultramodern Design, Awesome Camera

HTC One S Review, by Ginny Mies April 18, 2012

The global version of the HTC One S ($200 with a new two-year contract from T-Mobile; price as of April 18, 2012) impressed me at Mobile World Congress back in February, so I was anxious to see if the T-Mobile version was equally awesome. Spoiler alert: It is. The One S packs a high-end camera, the latest version of Android, and a powerful dual-core processor in a swank, superslim design. Among its few drawbacks is the absence of a microSD slot; in addition, we had some issues with the call quality in San Francisco.

Design and Display

The models in HTC's One line of phones have three common features: a high-quality camera with HTC ImageSense, built-in Beats Audio, and a premium design. We've always praised HTC phones for being both easy on the eyes and well-constructed, but the One S takes phone design a step beyond that, with a classic aluminum unibody design that incorporates contrasting slate and blue-gray panels.

The sealed battery cover of the HTC One S.The aluminum body has been given a "micro-arc oxidization treatment," which is apparently the same treatment that NASA uses on satellites. Besides making the One S supertough, it gives the phone a futuristic look. According to HTC, the One S is so tough that you won't need a protective case, but I'm going to counter that. You always need a protective case for your phone, no matter how tough the manufacturer claims it is. Furthermore, that satellite aluminum is slippery and difficult to get a grip on when you're holding it in landscape mode. Several times while I was using it to snap photos, I felt as though it was about to slip out of my grasp.

The camera lens has a bright blue ring around it, a stylish touch that makes the One S stand out. And when you remove the SIM card cover cover, you'll see more of that blue inside the phone. Little design touches like this are what make HTC phones stand out from the legions of all-black rectangular smartphones.

One downside to the design is that the battery cover is completely sealed. As with the iPhone 4S, you can't remove the HTC One S' battery. Let's hope that your battery stays intact throughout your two-year contract, because replacing it might be a big pain.

The HTC One S is ultra-thin.According to T-Mobile, this is the carrier's thinnest phone yet. The One S measures 5.1 by 2.5 by 0.31 inches. The One S is thus slightly thicker than the Motorola Droid Razr Maxx (0.28 inches) but a bit thinner than the Apple iPhone 4S (0.36 inches). HTC's minimalist design leaves no unused or excess space. The Gorilla Glass, which protects the display, goes almost to the edge of the phone's chassis, with a small space for the phone's speaker. Below the display, you'll find the three standard Ice Cream Sandwich touch-sensitive buttons: Back, Home, and Recent Apps.

Screenshot of the color scale test on the HTC One S.The 4.3-inch qHD display (540 by 960 pixels) has the same resolution as the HTC Sensation 4G, also on T-Mobile. This resolution is lower than 720-by-1280-pixel Super IPS LCD 2 display on the top dog of the One line, the HTC One X. The Super AMOLED technology makes colors look bold and details sharp, for the most part.

In our color bar test, I detected a fair amount of oversaturation. Colors bled into one another, and it was hard to distinguish one color shade from the next (see the example images). Super AMOLED fares better than LCD displays in sunlight, but it was still hard to see the One S's display.