Excellent in so many ways: HTC’s One reviewed

HTC has also improved its “Watch” video selection service, and now instead of merely having ten titles to choose from, there is a growing supply of titles you can rent and buy, in case the video section on Google Play doesn’t satisfy your needs.

A dedicated “car” mode shows big icons and a custom display which makes everything bigger and easier to read, including how to pick destinations in a GPS, music, and pretty much any app you normally use, helping anyone driving thanks to some good software design.

The on-screen keyboard is one of the better version we’ve come across, and with an improved version of HTC’s Swype-like “Path” trace-typing solution, writing quickly works a treat. It’s still not as good as what we’ve experienced in SwiftKey Flow, and it doesn’t always throw spaces in when it should, but we like it all the same.

And there’s even a TV remote control inside the phone, with the power button acting as both the hardware on-off switch for the HTC One and an infrared transmitter, which explains the colour of the button.

Provided you use a TV, home theatre system, or cable box at home, you can use the One as a remote, even going so far as to download an electronic program guide (EPG) with posters to each show.

Need to remember to watch something? Select the poster, check out the episodes that are coming up, and quickly throw a reminder into your calendar. It’s that simple.

Needs work

If it sounds like we’re throwing praise all over this handset, it’s not far off, but there are aspects to the HTC One that could still do with some work.

HTC may have an edge when it comes to design, but there’s an area we disagree with, and that’s the soft buttons at the bottom on the front. While we applaud HTC for finally getting rid of that useless multitasking button, now the HTC logo sits in the centre, with the back button on the left and the home button on the right.

We’re probably not the only ones to think this, but this whole button placement feels silly. You want to press the centre to go home. Every single phone on the market has a home button near the centre, and forcing you to press just to the right of this is odd, and doesn’t feel right at all.

It probably doesn’t help that the soft buttons edge a little too close to the bottom of the touchscreen, and you may find that when clicking the back or the home button, you’re actually pressing something on-screen, especially if you have broader fingertips.

Another design flaw is the power button up top, which is a little difficult to get used to. While the iPhone has had this location for a while, on a big screen device like the HTC One, the top left is hard to get to, especially if you have smaller hands. We’re a little more into placing this on the side of the device like on the LG Optimus G, Samsung Galaxy S3, and Sony Xperia Z.

There’s also the problem of fixed memory. Like the HTC One X and XL from last year, you cannot upgrade the storage amount inside this handset. Sure, 32GB is no amount to sneeze at, but you only have about 25GB of that to work with.

We’re used to the iPhone offering us fixed sizes, and we’re pretty sure Apple won’t be budging on that policy any time soon, but we’re still not huge fans of fixed limits in storage on Android devices, especially when there are competing devices out there with microSD slots alongside storage sizes ranging from 16 and 32GB.

Conclusion

Without a doubt, this is HTC’s best smartphone yet, packing in so many features that will actually make you feel like you’re paying for a phone that has been crafted with a lot of thought.

From its excellent design to abundance of features, as well as it being a 4G device with battery life that makes it for more than a day, it’s hard not to be impressed with HTC’s achievement here.

It’s not perfect – nothing ever is – but it’s an easy recommendation, provided you’re willing to forgive a camera that probably should have a little more output resolution.