Like Galaxy S4 is the best phone of Samsung or Xperia Z for Sony, One X+ is the second best device from HTC after “HTC One” that launched recently. One X+ is one of the most advanced Android smartphones available today. Its lightning quick and great processor provides exceptional performance andmakes it a great competitor with high-end devices like iPhone 5 or Samsung Galaxy S3. The One X+ is a renewed edition of earlier launched HTC One X device. Apart from a slight change in appearance it is powered with NVIDIA Tegra 3 Quad core 1.7 GHz processor compared to One X’sTegra 3 @1.5 GHz processor. HTC has also increased the graphics processor to 416-520 megahertz in the new device.Another change done compared to One X+ is its improved battery, i.e;1800-2100 mAh.
Over all One X+ stands far too high from the original device with great performance, new features, etc. The handset running on Android 4.1.1 Jelly Bean operating system seems far too better with the addition of HTC Sense 4+. Before we go ahead to test the device in details, let’s put a glance on its highlights:
- OS: Android 4.1.1 Jelly Bean with HTC Sense 4+
- Processor: NVIDIA Tegra 3 Quad core @1.7 GHz
- RAM: 1GB
- Storage: 64GB, no expandable slot
- Rear Camera: 8 megapixel camera with auto focus, LED flash, and BSI sensor (for better low-light captures)
- Front Camera: 1.6 megapixel front camera (720p for video recording)
- Battery: Rechargeable Li-ion Polymer2100 mAh battery
Design and Build:
HTC One X+ looks stylish and attractive in design. Weighing just 135 grams including battery the phone size is 134.36 x 69.9 x 8.9mm which makes it comfortable to hold in one hand with better grip. The variant we reviewed is in White color with reddish colored capacitive buttons. Packaging of the device is Unibody similar to many other recently launched devices like HTC 8X or Lumia 920where the devices don’t have any removable cover; neither the battery can be removed. The phone supports microSIM slot which is placed on the rear side. Like many other phones, all navigations are done through capacitive keys, there are just volume and power/screen lock keys provided on the body. Let’s check them in details.
On the front side, we get 4.7 inch touch screen display with 3 capacitive buttons below the screen.
Above the display we find HTC logo, Call speaker and1.6 megapixel front camera. HTC has placed LED indicator inside these speakers which blinks when you have any notification or while charging the phone.
On the top of the phone we get Power/screen lock key with MIC and 3.5mm headphone jack, as you can see in the image above. At bottom of the phone there is nothing expect the second MIC. Volume Up/Down button is smartly placed on the right side which can be accessed comfortably with your thumb.
While on the left part of the body there is only a Micro USB connector which is used for transferring data as well as for charging the device.
On the rear side, as I said, it is packed with unibody, there is no removable panel. But we get 8 megapixel camera with auto focus led flash, HTC logo in middle and loud speaker on the bottom with Beats Audio logo.
Remember the handset supports MicroSim. Its sim slot is placed just next to the rear camera on the back side. If you have a normal sim card and don’t have time to buy the micro one then check our Video Tutorial showing how you can convert it into MicroSIM yourself, by following this link – How to cut into MicroSm Card
All these red capacitive buttons, a ring-shaped which is surrounding the rear camera and the Beats Logo at the bottom with silversteel power button are exactly like we had in the earlier One X. Anyways, HTC One X+ is available in two colors; one is dark gray and the other we are testing today in our review, which is White. The material used in the packaging is polycarbonate which is also used for making Samsung Galaxy S3. Though it is a bit slippery with wet hands but the grip is still comfortable because of its sleek design. Also the navigation keys are very comfortable to access, no matter in which hand you hold the device.
Over all HTC managed to offer us improved and stylish design smartphone. With 134.36 x 69.9 x 8.9 mm size and 135 grams of weight, Once X+ looks rich in our hand or on your desk.
Touch and Display:
HTC has done everything that is required to bring One X+ at the top. Apart from the designs and configurations, they have also worked hard on the display. One X+ features a 4.7 inch super LCD 2 touch screen with very smooth touch sensitivity. The screen is unbreakable and scrath free using Gorilla Glass 2 material. Watching Full HD videos or Picture is a great fun on this display as it offers 1280 x 720 pixels resolution with 312 dpi density. If we compare it with other high end devices such as Samsung Galaxy S3 then One X+ stands higher with S3’s 306 dpi and bit lower than iPhone 5’s 326 ppp.The screen is not only good for Multimedia and Entertainment purpose but also for web browsing or eBooks. Each alphabet looks crystal clear and the entire web page fits fine on the screen, both in landscape or horizontal mode.
With the integration of Super LCD 2 screen, no matter indoors or outdoors, we get excellent viewing angle. Furthermore, Gorilla Glass 2 makes it much better.
Android 4.1.1 Jelly Bean and HTC Sense:
HTC One X+ comes preloaded with Android 4.1.1 Jelly Bean OS. Though the latest v4.2 is released and HTC has already announced that X+ will receive the same, but there is yet no release date given for this smartphone. Apart from Jelly Bean’s own features like expandable notification bar which displays alerts for your new email, messages, updates and other stuffs, HTC has customized the OS to provide more features. With the use of new HTC Sense 4+ the notification bar is customized bit more to provide more accessibility and to look attractive.
With optimized operating system and HTC Sense 4+ the phone’s performance is very smooth and lightning fast. No matter how many apps run in the background, we didn’tnotice any problem in the performance or in the accessibility. With the new Sense 4+, HTC has also integrated several cloud services such as Dropbox, Picasa, Flickr, Facebook, Skydrive, etc; on this phone. It also brings the default Sense browser which seems effective to zoom, scroll or drag web pages smartly to make your browsing experience much better. When you zoom any page Sense 4+ rebuilds the text to be easily readable and also the line breaks adjusting the width of the screen cleverly. However the voice commands are not as good as we have in iPhone’s Siri or Samsung’s S-Voice.
As far as personalization is concerned, HTC Sense 4+ stands top compared to other smartphones from my point of view. By default it provides 5 displays which can be increased or decreased. It also provides you more than 80 attractive and useful widgets to place on the screen. We also get upto 5 different readymade Home Scene (themes) dedicated for Social, Work, Play, Travel and the default one.
Apart from this, you can also customize your lock screen with upto 10 readymade different styled lock screens. Furthermore you can also personalize what widgets and notifications to show on the lock screen. HTC also allows you to launch upto 4 applications directly from the lock screen by dragging the RING on their icons.
Overall the optimized Android 4.1.1 Jelly Bean and HTC Sense 4+ makes the display look attractive. Well done HTC.
Processor, RAM and Benchmarking:
Compared to all other smartphones from the manufacturerHTC One X+ stands on top with the highest computing power using NvidiaTegra 3 Quad Core processor running on 1.7GHz with 4 cores. It is quite higher than Samsung’s Galaxy S3 or Note 2. It is an optimized NVIDIA Tegra 3 chip SoC with fifth ninja-core that makes your applications load faster and provides best performance no matter how many tasks you are running in the background. Another reason to provide such smooth multitasking performance is 1GB RAM. However it is bit disappointing that HTC has kept the same amount of RAM as in One X phone. Also most of the high end devices releasednow a day’s come with atleast 2GB of RAM such as Galaxy S3 or Note II.
Apart from such powerful processor, Once X+ also integrates 16-core GeForce GPU which offers you lag free high end video gaming, excellent graphics performance and Full HD video playback. Overall if we calculate, One X+ is upto 65% faster than the earlier launched One X model. We also ran some benchmarking tests and the results were surprising. The scores were surprisingly higher than Samsung Galaxy S3 or HTC One X.
Storage and Connectivity:
The One X+ comes with built in 32GB and 64GB of storage capacitybut the variant we are testing is 64GB out of which only 56GB is available for users, rest goes to the system. Though there is no external expansion slot provided, 64GB is enough for storing thousands of songs, videos and installed applications/games. If you need more storage, you get free storage subscription for 25GB on Dropboxfor2 years. So I don’t think we really need external slot for MicroSd card.
As far as connectivity is concernedOne X+ stands together with other high end smartphones with the support ofWi-Fi IEEE 802.11 a/b/g/n, 3G, Bluetooth 4.0, A-GPS, DLNA for wirelessly streaming media from the phone to a compatible TV or computer, FM radio and NFC.There is also a Micro USB 2.0 (5-pin) port with mobile high-definition video link (MHL) for USB or HDMI connection. In order to use it for HDMI you will need to buy a dedicated HDMI cable. There are few users who complained about One X+ phone’s WiFi reception in screen lock mode. But let me tell you, if the Power Saver option is turned on, your WiFi or Data Connection gets disabled when the screen is off. Hence if you need it, you should turn off the Power Saver Option. It is not a bug but smart feature to save your battery.
Applications:
Apart from Android’s own built-in Application, HTC provides some more useful application from their side. First and foremost is the HTC Sense 4+ which we have already talked above. Apart from that, there is also an application called ‘Car’. This is some kind of similar app which we recently saw in Galaxy S4 named as “S Drive”. This Car app is very useful when you are driving. It provides you turn by turn routes using GPS, a very easy to use dial pad to make calls if required, and many more options in simple UI as you can see in the image below:
Another is HTC Media Link which allows you share your content or watch your mobile videos wirelessly on HDTV by just swiping three fingers on the screen. By doing this you can watch your pictures, video, presentation, play games and many more things on large screen. In order to use HTC Media Link you will need to buy a separate device from HTC for about $122.
.png)
Another useful application I saw in One X+ is “Movie Editor.” This app allows you to create a movie on the go with upto 50 images. You can use 3 different themes, add songs and share it right away.
There are several useful apps that come built-in with the handset such as Polaris Office, Stock, Imuzik, MobileTV, Smart Movies, and many more.
Multimedia and Gaming:
With 1.7GHz Tegra 3 Processor, 1GB RAM and 16-core GeForce GPU, One X+ is capable to play any High End Android games with excellent graphics output. We have tested games like Real Racing 3, Gangster Rio and GTA 3 and experienced unbelievable output. We will show these all gameplays in our Video Review, you can check the same in our Video Section. Check the gaming screenshot below as of now:
As far as Multimedia is concerned One X+ sounds good here as well. Unlike many other smartphones, its default video player supports DivX/Xvidvideosup to 720p and MPEG-4 up to 1080p. We tried playing few Full HD movies and didn’tface a single Lag or Freeze. The output is awesome and personally, I loved watching movies on this device. Apart from these mentioned file formats, One X+ also supports several other file formats such as FLV, 3gp, 3g2, mp4, wmv (Windows Media Video 9), avi (MP4 ASP and MP3), etc; which means you don’t need to download any third party video player to watch your favorite contents,like for example an application like MX Player to play a greater number of video formats.
The music player also doesn’t stand behind with support of file formats including aac, .amr, .ogg, .m4a, .mid, .mp3, .wav and.wma (Windows Media Audio 9).As we know HTC One X+ comes with Beats Audio,it provides superb sound quality. But to get the Beats effect you need to connect the headphone. Even the loud speaker placed on the back comes with integrated amplifier. Due to this even without headphones, you get good sound while watching videos without headphones. Also the player automatically downloads album art, and shows you song’s in complete details – like title, composer, album, etc.
One X+ also has FM radio as well as it comes with application named SoundHoundwhere you can access millions of songs online. Soundhound also allows you to go through hundreds of radio stations online.
Over all the built-in video player, Music player and the Beats Audio technology offers you complete fun while watching movies, listening songs or playing games.
Camera:
We get 8 Megapixel rear camera with One X+ powered with f/2.0 lens, auto focus, LED flash, and BSI sensor. This sensors helps to capture better images in low-light surrounding as well. The camera is capable to record full hd videos in 192 x 1080 pixel@ 24 fps. Lenses are mounted in 28 mm wide angle so you can capture full scenes even at close range.HTC integrates a specific chip called imageCHIP to control photo and video capture.One unique feature I found in the camera is while recording any video you can also click pictures meanwhile without stopping your video recordings. No special settings are required. You just need to click the button placed above the recording key. There are several enhancement features such as Color management, Face detection, Auto Smile Capture, Video Stabilization, etc as well.
One X+ camera also has a feature called “Continuous Shooting”. With this feature you can capture unlimited shots by pressing a key and later select/save the best shot you want. It is not like the Blackberry 10’s TimeShift or Lumia 920’s Smartshoot. Here you cannot edit or remove objects from the image but you can select one best shot from the 20 captured stills. Apart from this you can also capture Videos in “Slow Motion”. It is fun to watch our colleagues in Slow Motion and then play them on large screen. Also it provides other capture and recording modes like HDR, Panorama, Group Portrait, etc.
We also get a 1.6 megapixel front camera for making video calls or conferencing in high quality 720p video. To give the best shot from the front camera as well, HTC has designed the 3 second count timer after the click so that if the phone shakes while pressing the button you can stabilize in the rest 3 seconds to get the perfect shot. Images taken from the front camera are also in very good quality. Videos and Images captured outdoors with any of these cameras are awesome without any doubt but we can face some problems while capturing the same in low light or indoors.
To preview all these captured images and videos, we need to go to Gallery, right? Now talking about One X+ gallery, it comes with built-in integration of Facebook images, Flickr, Picasa, Skydrive and Dropbox. You can get all your images saved in cloud storage at one place, and that is your One X+ phone’s gallery.
Battery:
Being the upgraded version of HTC One X which was powered with 1800 mAH, One X+ comes with a bit improved 2100 mAH battery. This is the same as in Galaxy SIII. The only problem is we cannot show you the battery as it is placed under unibody whereas Galaxy S3 has removable rear panel. I cannot say the best but we can surely expect good battery life from One X+. I’m testing this phone for a week now and noticed that it provides more than 24hours of talk time with Wi-Fi on for Facebook, WhatsApp and web browsing. If you will watch videos, listen songs and online radio stations then you will get upto8 to 10 hours of battery life which is not bad neither best.
To increase the battery life to some extent you can also use the “Power Saver” option provided in the Notification area. It reduces screen brightness depending on the situation, disables Vibration which helps to save the battery. Also if this Power Saver is on, it automatically turns off all data connection and WiFi when the screen is off to save the battery. Not a huge amount but you can surely save upto 25% battery by keeping Power Saver on.
Conclusion:
There are manymanufacturer’swho got the ability of creating high end and amazing smartphones such as Samsung’s Galaxy Series, Sony’s Xperia, and Nokia’sLumia 920 and so on. Talking about HTC, One X+ and the recently launched HTC One describes the same. With powerful configuration, Android 4.1 Jelly Bean (upgradable to 4.2 soon), smart HTC Sense 4+, 4.7 inch attractive display and several other features, HTC One X+ is one of the best smartphones I have ever used. We don’t need to worry about storage or battery life as well. It provides lag free multitasking, good gaming and multimedia experience, high performance and everything we can expect from a high end device.
At the price of Rs. 33,000/- for 32GB and Rs. 39,000/- for 64GB variant, One X+ surely sounds bit costly but it is worth it. If we compare its price with other devices, Samsung Galaxy S3 also comes for Rs. 31,000 for 32GB Variant. So there is just a slight difference in the price. Its smooth touch sensitivity, beautiful and functional HTC Sense 4+ widgets and optimized Jelly Bean operating system makes us believe to buy this smartphone.
Pros:
- Good quality 4.7-inch Super LCD 2 with Gorilla Glass 2
- LED notifications
- Powerful Tegra 3 @1.7 GHz processor.
- 16-core GeForce GPU
- Stylish design and better grip
- Car Mode
- 64 GB storage
- HTC Sense 4+ widgets
- Camera
Cons:
- No external microSDsupport
- Not so good images in low light
