HTC One V review
Positive:
Premium design Android ICS out of the box Great build quality Battery lifeNegative:
Low-end specs Camera and Specs could be slightly improved to compete with future leases if users will take it out on a 24 Months agreement.The HTC One V is the third of the HTC One series. You could call it the budget HTC Phone with expensive features; it has some resemblance to the HTC One S and HTC One X when you switch it on. The HTC One V has a distinct uni-body design with an angled bottom area which is different from its big brothers and comes with standard 3.7-inch display.
[flagallery gid=20 name="HTC One V"]
The HTC One V is the third of the HTC One series. You could call it the budget HTC Phone with expensive features; it has some resemblance to the HTC One S and HTC One X when you switch it on. The HTC One V has a distinct uni-body design with an angled bottom area which is different from its big brothers and comes with standard 3.7-inch display.
Hardware and design
The aluminium body feels decidedly premium which is a good upgrade and just like it’s look alike HTC Legend, it has a curved bottom area which I was first sceptical about until I held it and it was very comfortable to hold. The front is a 3.7-inch Gorilla glass screen with the screen bezel about half a millimetre from the body of the handset with the top of the screen cut out to show the earpiece. Beneath the earpiece is a silver HTC logo, and the One V has three touch sensitive buttons for navigating back, menu and view applications running in the background or recently used apps. When the buttons are touched, the back-light activates for use in the dark and it doesn’t activate in bright lighting thereby saving your battery.
Other buttons includes the power and wake button to the right of the top edge and on the left is a 3.5mm headphone jack. You also have a notification LED which alerts you to missed calls, messages, the phone’s charging state, and more. On the bottom-left there’s a Micro USB port for charging and connecting the handset to your computer for file transfer and updates.
Turning the handset on its back you will find a 5-megapixel camera and LED flash and the HTC logo in the centre. Moving down to the bottom there’s a plastic cover bearing the Beats logo that conceals the microphone and loudspeaker which also slides off to give you access to the full-size SIM and microSD cards.
Display
Featuring a 3.7 inches display , it’s bright, sharp, and vibrant, and when looked at very closely you can see the pixels in texts and images. The screen is also very well designed with viewing angles in mind as you can still visibly see the texts and images whilst in different angles. Looking at the technical specs, HTC has used a 480 x 800 LCD with a pixel density of around 252ppi which showed some signs of pixellation when watching HD YouTube videos, however for the price point you can’t complain at all because HTC has provided two other handset in the higher price range with better display and graphics quality.
Software
HTC has stripped the Android 4.0 OS and customised it with HTC Sense skin with some animations. HTC Sense 4 runs very smoothly on the One V with adequate processor to keep it smooth. HTC kept their branding of HTC Sense with the unlock ring which gives you direct access to the applications pinned to the launcher. HTC has left out few applications when compared to its big brothers but you probably won’t even notice what they were. The only third-party apps preloaded with HTC Sense 4 are Facebook, Twitter, Dropbox, Polaris Office, music downloading service 7Digital, and internet stream player TuneIn Radio.
The HTC One V includes the Beats Audio “sound enhancer,” and when used with the pre loaded Music app, you will notice slight increase in volume and clarity but not a great difference when using Spotify or other types of head phones making this feature nothing but an extra that’s not really needed.
Camera
The One V has a single 5-megapixel camera on the back, with an LED flash . Like the One S and One X, the One V has ImageSense that allows continuous shooting, still photos while shooting video, and zero shutter lag although whilst using it I experienced some shutter lag.
Some of the camera features includes:
- Burst-fire best shot meaning you can take series of shots of thesame subject then pick the best shot or if you wish keep/delete the whole shot.
- Video pic gives the ability to grab still frames as you take videos.
- Image filters
The finished images are vibrant without being oversaturated, and the autofocus is consistently reliable. Shooting in low light does not produce the best images with lots of blacks and you can shoot videos at 720p; however showing the result on a HD TV doesn’t look so much like it was shot in 720p.
Performance
The One V doesn’t come with all singing and dancing specifications but I don’t think the point of this handset is to that which is why HTC released the three handsets to tackle every angle of user types. If you only want basic features then the One V will do that perfectly otherwise if you are after something a little more upscale then you have the option of the One S or a little higher the One X. the One V will play games without lag although graphics heavy games will sometimes lag but if that’s what you want to do, then you need up upgrade to the One X perhaps. In every other area, the One V performed beyond my expectations of what a budget or entry level Android handset will do. Browsing the web was a joy and as you would expect of Android smart phones, it supported flash.
Battery Life and everything else
The One V has 1,500 mAh battery which I got a full day’s use whilst testing. My usage included sending/receiving emails, watching/uploading YouTube videos, played drawsomething, checked the news and made lots of phone calls. The One V comfortably surpassed my expectations in the battery performance area. One thing I would like to point out however is that was also with the default settings left on, which means I didn’t tamper with the auto brightness.
Call quality was nothing of concern as it delivered excellent sounds at both ends, no calls were dropped and even when I had low signal (less than 2 bars) I was still in my calls comfortably like it was on full bar. Using the loud speaker was ok although it was crackling sometimes when in full volume and the other user was speaking quite loud from the other end.
Conclusion
Playing with this handset for over 2 weeks, I have thoroughly enjoyed using the camera, browsing the web on it and using it for productivity. the One V is an excellent handset for first time Android users to get a good feel for what it is capable of. The design is fantastic and feels premium for an inexpensive smart phone with low specifications. There is no doubt you can get faster android handsets for about £100 but you may not get Ice Cream Sandwich out of the box.
Pros
- Premium design
- Android ICS out of the box
- Great build quality
- Battery life
Cons
- Low-end specs
- Camera and Specs could be slightly improved to compete with future leases if users will take it out on a 24 Months agreement.
