HTC One throws a punch in the smartphone slugfest

Written by

Edward C. Baig

To the casual observer, the smartphone slugfest has come down to two main combatants: Apple, with its iPhone, 

and Samsung, with its Galaxy line.

The reality, though, is that there are other muscular heavyweights vying for contention, including the Taiwanese 

handset manufacturer HTC. HTC hasn’t been able to duplicate the strong commercial success of its rivals, 

despite producing Android phones that generally have been critically well-received.

Now, HTC is punching away again with the thin and stylish 5-ounce HTC One, which reaches U.S. consumers on 

April 19, presumably a week or two ahead of the Samsung Galaxy S4. In many respects, HTC One is, well, one 

knockout of a device, though I also found a few things in my tests that I wasn’t wild about.

It will initially be sold at AT&T, Sprint, HTC and Best Buy and cost $199.99 for a version with 32 gigabytes of 

storage or $299.99 for 64 GB, under two-year contracts. It will also be sold later this spring at T-Mobile, which 

recently announced its intention to ditch traditional wireless contracts. You’ll be able to get the T-Mobile version 

for a down payment of $99.99, followed by 24 monthly payments of $20.

HTC One certainly boasts a long list of positives, starting with a handsome all-metal unibody design that speaks 

to the premium quality of HTC’s latest flagship. And HTC One has a splendid high-def screen (468 ppi resolution), 

robust Qualcomm quad-core processor and powerful speakers (backed by Beats Audio) excellent not only for 

listening to music but also for using the speakerphone.

The HTC One also has a camera capable of producing fine quality photographs, even when you’re shooting in low 

light. And the “living” Gallery for showing off those photos reveals not only stationary pictures but moving images, too.

HTC One even doubles as a universal remote control and can serve up TV show recommendations based on your 

preferences.

In lieu of a traditional home-screen layout with icons and apps, HTC is making much of a new interface called 

BlinkFeed, a live and constantly updated stream of customizable social feeds from your Facebook friends and 

the folks you follow on Twitter, as well as feeds from any number of news sources. The feeds appear as pictures 

in squares and rectangles of different sizes, and brings to mind the Flipboard app. Tap on a square or rectangle 

to read the underlying content, which HTC says can come from more than 1,400 content providers in a dozen 

categories.

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