HTC One V reviewed: the “V” means “Very good battery”

HTC has kept the button layout from its 2012 phone range, meaning you have a back button, a home button, and a reasonably useless multitasking app manager button, that like in the other models, we wish was a menu button instead.

When it comes to the battery, we were literally blown away by what the One V is capable of showing. We’re guessing the “V” means “very good battery life,” because that’s exactly what you get here in this handset.

Four days of battery life. Not too shabby. In fact, that's pretty impressive.

Our test normally has us using the phone for calls, sending texts, web surfing, doing a fair bit of social networking, as well as checking our work and home emails. With this, we were able to use the battery well into a third day of a single charge, boasting what had to be the most impressive smartphone battery we’ve come across in years.

We actually managed a fourth day out of it, though to be fair, it did run severely close to being out of battery on this day, which made us pull out the charger and plug it in.

Four days of use, though, is bloody impressive, and if you get a lot of use out of your phone, with plenty of 3G downloads, Bluetooth usage, and make a lot of phone calls and texts, we’d say you should be able to get between one and two days of use, which isn’t bad. When you go significantly less, we’re talking about between two and four days, which is amazing.

We charged the HTC One V on September 8, and ran it all the way to September 11 on one charge. If you're a heavier user, you'll probably nab two days on this handset.

Of course, a solid battery life on a smartphones suggests that the device probably won’t have a lot of speed or performance, and that’s something that is entirely obvious when you start using the V.

While we’re used to seeing dual- and quad-core processors powering most Android smartphones from this year, the One V features a low-end single-core chip that brings it down to performance levels seen in two year old handsets, barely scraping above the HTC Desire HD released in 2010.

In fact, it is the same processor used in that handset, only that it appears in a new handset boasting a smaller and better screen, better operating system, and larger battery.

Two years on, the performance should definitely be better, even in a budget handset such as this, especially if the handset is expected to last a good year or two longer from the time it’s purchased.

The benchmark certainly doesn’t make any positive impacts on us, and while software benchmarks generally don’t give a real world indication to speed, the lack of speed can be noticed in most things you use the phone for.

Take switching between apps and browsing the menus, both of which have a very noticable two to four second delay from when you press a button and something happens.

You may find that you’re hitting the home button more times than you’d otherwise like, as the phone struggles to do the first action.

Some very odd bugs popped up here and there.

We even noticed a problem with the touchscreen and USB connectivity that, when the phone is charging, causes the capacitive screen to stop working. This was a problem because when we left the phone to charge overnight and our alarm went off, we weren’t actually able to switch off the alarm thanks to the screen not working properly.

Web performance could even be better, with the One V offering a reasonably budget maximum download speed of roughly 7Mbps, although in our tests, we averaged closer to four. That should be enough for most people, but it could bug people depending on how quickly they want to check out that YouTube video or download apps or music.

Speaking of downloading, there’s virtually no memory on the inside, so you’re going to need a microSD card if you plan on doing some picture taking or listening to music.

Conclusion

Smartphones can be hard to pick, especially when you know that you’re going to be locked into a two-year contract with one, or if you’re plonking down lots of cash for a device you hope will last you until you can afford – or need to buy – another one.

HTC’s One V isn’t perfect and definitely won’t win any performance awards, but if you’re after a handset that goes the distance with battery life, this is the one to consider. Its speed – or lack thereof – certainly leaves a lot to be desired, and we wouldn’t suggest it for everyone, but if battery is your main concern, we’d look at the HTC One V.

Overall
Features
Value for money
Performance
Design
Reader Rating0 Votes
Great build and feel; Amazing battery life;
Lacking performance; When the charge cable is plugged in, the touchscreen becomes useless, making the alarms rather hard to use; Web download speed could be better;
3.2