HTC One with Nexus Experience Announced
by Brian Klug on May 30, 2013 12:30 PM EST
At Google I/O 2013, the search giant announced the Samsung Galaxy S4 with Nexus Experience, and almost immediately rumors began circulating about a potential HTC One with the same Nexus Experience moniker.
Today, Google has announced the HTC One with Nexus Experience. The hardware is the same as the HTC One (AT&T variant) we've seen before with the same set of banding, which is unsurprising given the HTC One Developer Unlocked Edition is the AT&T variant. I had hoped for this being the T-Mobile variant which includes AWS WCDMA and none of the arbitrary AT&T RAT locks, but it's still good for T-Mobile and AT&T LTE in the USA. This is the same great HTC One hardware but this time with a pure AOSP (Android Open Source Project) build, skin, and thus pure Nexus experience. There still are some customizations like Beats, for example, but they're not at the expense of the rest of the software platform.
HTC has pegged the One with Nexus Experience for release on June 26th on Google Play for $599 with 32 GB of onboard storage. Updates are of course provided by Google directly.
Update: There's a bit more information now about what features the HTC One with Nexus Experience will support compared to the Sense 5 version. First, Beats Audio is included and is always on, with no UI or notification to disable it. Camera again only comes with UI and UX provided by the stock camera application and implements those features. When it comes to the IR Tx/Rx system there's no common Android API for it, but I've been told this should work with third party applications. None of this should come as too big of a surprise, that's what the tradeoff is for a completely stock Android device.
Source: HTC Blog
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gobaers - Thursday, May 30, 2013 - link
1. A really, really good camera.2. 24GB more storage (from your $300 price point), that is also faster.
3. A great, hard-body form factor.
4. Better 1080p display.
5. Great speakers.
Not a complete list, but there certainly are benefits. Whether it's worth the extra money is up to you.
owan - Thursday, May 30, 2013 - link
Don't forget LTEgobaers - Thursday, May 30, 2013 - link
Of course! Should be #1.Affectionate-Bed-980 - Thursday, May 30, 2013 - link
Because $300 isn't a normal price point for phones? Yes I get it, Google tried to throw a wrench in the pricing structure. But it did so with huge limitations. When was the last 8gb/16gb iPhone launch? (hint: iPhone 3G in 2008... it's been 16/32gb since). Who the hell uses 8gb/16gb? Especially when you're now introducing high resolution cameras, 1080p video, and Android phones are supposed to be powerhouses where you can drag and drop files. Lack of LTE? MicroSD? Battery? If Google would beef up its Nexus battery life, then I'd be less concerned.JNo - Friday, May 31, 2013 - link
I use an 8gb Nexus 4 and it's just fine. Who the hell needs more? I don't want to watch movies or tv shows on a 4.7" screen and I don't want tons of music on there when I can just have it on my much easier to use, tactile, dedicated sansa clip with much more (added) storage. I don't want to play super high end games on it when I've got consoles and pc for that. And it's hardly useful for office productivity. Even browsing the web is painful on phones. So what do I want more than 8gb for?I'm being facetious of course but my point is - just because you can't see a use/value in something, doesn't mean someone else can't. Really, I am happy with 8gb for all the above reasons - I do make use of smartphone capabilities but mainly for stuff like Pocket, smaller, simpler games, sat nav etc. and, y'know, phone calls and stuff.
lmcd - Friday, May 31, 2013 - link
It doesn't have the thermal problems.peter123 - Thursday, May 30, 2013 - link
Will this HTC ONE Google Edition be as smooth and the traditional HTC ONE?? I'm asking this because, since it's not a device built from scratch by Google and HTC, it may no have the software optimizations that characterizes Nexus devices.gobaers - Thursday, May 30, 2013 - link
At this point, most high end smartphones use the same platform, so I wouldn't worry about this too much.vectorm12 - Thursday, May 30, 2013 - link
Crap, I got my Nexus 4 a couple of months back.Really hope there's going to be more Nexus Experience versions in the future with preferably side by side launches.
After all I'd kill for the camera on the one but I hate not being able to count on updates for the next two-three years.
gte619n - Thursday, May 30, 2013 - link
The buttons are still wrong. Stock Android has three buttons that change... this has a stupid HTC logo in the middle!