HTC One max Review - It's Huge
by Brian Klug on October 28, 2013 10:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- HTC
- Mobile
- One
- Snapdragon 600
- Android 4.3
- One max
The software side of the One max also changes slightly from the original HTC One. The One max launches running Android 4.3, which as of this writing is the newest version of Android available, although 4.4 KitKat is right on the horizon. In addition the version of HTC’s skin and software suite, Sense, is bumped up to 5.5. The biggest changes in Sense 5.5 are to Blinkfeed, HTC’s newsfeed and home screen replacement, and the computationally generated highlights reel videos. First off, blinkfeed gets improvements that now allow custom topics, RSS, and more control over what items appear. In addition there’s now support for both Instagram and Google+ accounts to surface stories in Blinkfeed.
There’s also a read later feature in the highlights feed. Finally there’s also a way to disable Blinkfeed entirely, previously you could change the primary home screen to a widget panel, in Sense 5.5 this menu has been changed around to allow Blinkfeed to be disabled entirely.
A bunch of features that people originally wanted for the automatically generated highlights reel videos are now incorporated into Sense 5.5 as well. The gallery application it lives inside has been reorganized and is more intuitive now, albums and events views are now a pivot rather than drop down option, likewise the individual views beneath the are pivots. Video highlights now lives in its own pivot as well, and now has a simple picker for choosing what videos, Zoes, or photos the algorithm can select from. There are also more themes, which are entirely new, as well as the ability to select your own music. I’m told the highlights reel engine has been completely rewritten with better textures, film treatments, overlays, and dynamic editing. Subjectively I find the results of the new engine to be much better, where the previous highlights videos would always follow basically the same schedule, the new ones seem much more dynamic and won’t get tiresome nearly as fast.
Animated GIFs are all the rage right now, and HTC has chosen to capitalize on some of that with a GIF creator inside Sense 5.5. From the gallery’s edit menu animated GIFs can be created from continual shooting shots or Zoes.
The notification shade also gets a tweak, and the quick settings inside can now be customized. These settings tiles can now either be rearranged or disabled and swapped out for other ones. There is a simple picker for choosing the 12 you want to appear on the shade.
A new addition among these is a do not disturb function mode which can be toggled either here or from the sound menu. This does what you’d expect and silences incoming calls or notifications and prevents them from making sounds, vibrations, or activating the LED. Selected contacts can still cause a ring, and there’s also a timeout duration option.
A smaller but noteworthy change is that HTC no longer preinstalls Dropbox and gives free storage along with it. Instead of Dropbox, HTC has partnered with Google and gives 50 GB of bonus space with the One max.
There are a few other changes in the Sense 5.5 UI but I’ll get to those in the respective sections. The reality is that UI skins aren’t going away, but after spending a lot of time with Sense 5 I honestly never felt like it was distracting. I was able to live comfortably on the HTC One and One mini with Sense 5 just fine, 5.5 is a good refinement that continues to arguably look very good in a world of increasingly flat UI.
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PC Perv - Tuesday, October 29, 2013 - link
Hah. At least you are being honest here. Of course you won't review anything unless you get it for free. (and then some)Black Obsidian - Tuesday, October 29, 2013 - link
This isn't the glory days of the dot-com boom. Few (if any) sites have the kind of budget that allows them to go out and buy whatever random devices their readership expects them to review.I'm sure that Brian would consider reviewing your favored device if you wanted to send him one, though.
JMFL - Monday, October 28, 2013 - link
Mostly decent review, except in my opinion Brian's equivocation regarding the finger print sensor in comparison to Apple's. To be fair Brian stated that the One Max sensor is "further from perfection than Apple's", however from reading the rest of the text, one could come to the conclusion that in the grand scheme of things the HTC's and Apple's sensors are more similar than not.I would hazard to guess that in 6 months time, most Iphone 5S users will be using the fingerprint scanner. I don't think the same will be said for the HTC Once Max sensor.
ddriver - Monday, October 28, 2013 - link
It doesn't really matter what apple does, everything apple does is amazing because it is done by apple by default. IIRC the review at engadget: "note 3 - cheap plastic - product sucks" and then "iphone 5c - amazing plastic - product rocks".Things have come to a point you cannot really expect honesty from review sites, no matter how "trusted" they themselves claim to be.
Fingerprint readers are a government sponsored scam to build fingerprint databases for god knows what ill purposes, glad I got the note 3 as it looks like the note 4 will have a fingerprint sensor as well. Fingerprints are considered lower security level than even passwords, a password is in the brain, a fingerprint can be extracted from everything you touch.
blacks329 - Monday, October 28, 2013 - link
People perceive (whether correctly or incorrectly) that rigidity in their phone means it is a more durable device and that the rigidity give a better in hand feel.The iPhone 5C feels really solid, like the Lumia's, there's no flex. So I can understand the merits of claiming "cheap" plastic.
steven75 - Thursday, October 31, 2013 - link
It doesn't matter how many times you tell this to ddriver. He has made up his mind that material usage is a binary thing.Spunjji - Monday, October 28, 2013 - link
"For the incredibly small percentage of users that clamors for an SD card every single smartphone launch, it’s at least one point which won’t be belabored so tiresomely this time."Gee, thanks for making me feel like a dick for not wanting to pony up £80 for £10 worth of low performing NAND.
We get it, you don't think these things are worthwhile. That's your opinion and you're entitled to it. That doesn't justify a paragraph of text dedicated to mocking and marginalising a chunk of your readership. It devalues your opinion.
themossie - Monday, October 28, 2013 - link
Agreed. Brian, you write superb reviews but that has no place here.kmmatney - Monday, October 28, 2013 - link
I agree. I've been an iPhone user for 4 years, but switched to the Optimus G Pro (also a huge 5.5" phone) and one of the draws was expanding the storage. It's a big enough phone to be able to read work instructions quite easily, so I have a lot of PDFs and documents on it, as well as 20GB of music. More storage never hurts. I didn't have too much trouble filling up my 32GB iPhone. I can live without it, but if choosing between 2 phones, and one has it and noe doesn't, you might as well buy the phone with more options.Brian Klug - Monday, October 28, 2013 - link
See my above comment, the reality is that it is a very tiny part of the market, and an exceptionally loud one.-Brian