10 Things That Make the HTC One X ‘The One’

The HTC One X is among the first Android smartphones to run the new NVidia Tegra 3 quad-core processor, and after playing with a review unit for about two weeks now, I can say that this is one is a gorgeous handset with an impressive hardware to boot.

Here are 10 things we really liked about the HTC One X:

1) Beautiful unibody design. This is by far one of the best-looking HTC handset we’ve ever used and reviewed. It’s thin and sexy at 8.9mm, has a slightly curved shape, smooth lines, fits well on the hands and over-all, a really nice design and construction.

2) Large HD display. With a 4.7-inch Super LCD 2 display, the One X is among the biggest of the superphones. HTC made sure to give it a 720p HD screen resolution (that’s 1280×720 pixels) making it really nice for watching videos and web browsing.

3) Fast quad-core processor. One of the first handsets to sport an NVidia Tegra 3 chip, the One X boasts of 4 main cores running at 1.5GHz each (plus a 5th core for power-saving at 500MHz) and 12 cores for the GPU. This makes it blazing fast and great for graphics-rich mobile gaming.

4) Great 8MP shooter. HTC is not known for having nice built-in cameras with their handsets but the 8-megapixel sensor on the HTC One X performs really well. Photos are a bit over-saturated at times but turn out crisp and clear.

5) NFC-capable. Complemented with the right accessories, NFC works like a charm. It will also soon paved the way for cash-less mobile payments so it’s good to have it as an integrated feature.

6) Beats Audio. HTC continues to bank on Beats Audio to make their handsets more appealing to younger crowds. It also doesn’t hurt that the earphones that are paired with it are very popular. Beats Audio technology enables the sound on the HTC One X more full, giving it better clarity and oomph.

7) Large internal storage. HTC usually integrates between 1GB to 4GB of internal storage on mosts of their handsets. The HTC One X has 32GB (around 26GB of which is usable for storage).

8) Hard, solid body. We dropped the HTC One X several times (some, we actually intended) and it did not suffer from any scratches or bruises. Of course, we don’t recommend you doing this to your own device.

9) Ice Cream Sandwich. The HTC One X came with the latest Android 4.0 mobile operating system, which allows for a more flexible and feature-packed user-experience, better battery management, and improved performance.

10) HTC Sense 4.0 UI. Admittedly the best UI and skin on an Android phone, the HTC Sense offers enhanced user-experience, eye-candy and customizability of the handset.

The HTC One X is far from perfect and has its fair share of shortcomings.

While the internal storage is acceptably sizable, there’s no option to expand the memory capacity so you’ll have to make do with the 26GB usable space. Also, since the One X has a unibody design, the internal battery is not user-replaceable. It’s still possible to have it replaced in the future but you’ll have to bring it to a service center. Aside from those, we can’t think of anything else to complain about.

Nevertheless, the elegant design and top-of-the-line hardware configuration impressed us a lot. And we dare say this is among the top smartphones that ever came out in 2012 so far.