HTC 8X wins red dot award in product design

Amid all the bad news HTC has been receiving lately (the brilliant HTC One has been delayed due to manufacturing set backs), here's some good news for them. The HTC Windows Phone 8X and 8S has won the prestigious red dot award in product design for 2013.

Having been using the 8X as my main daily driver for close to two months now, I believe that the 8X thoroughly deserves the award (I never reviewed the 8S, but it does look neat). The HTC Windows Phone 8X features a fresh take on smartphone design - it not only looks great, but also feels great. In fact, the soft 'rubbery' texture used on the 8X feels a lot better than the fingerprint-magnet gloss and slippery matte finish preferred by other manufacturers. Well done to the engineers and design team behind the product!

It isn't perfect (nothing is), and if there is one problem with the 8X from a design's perspective, it is the awkwardly located power button. But let's not take away from the fact that the 8X is still a beautifully crafted product, which design complements the Metro design language well. Now, that's not to say that the Nokia Lumia 920 isn't beautiful, but for a design that debuted in 2010, it has somewhat lost some of its freshness. On the bright side, this will hopefully spur designers from both companies to further compete together and with the wider industry, as well as taking the leadership in product designs.

Incidentally, Windows Phone 8 has also been nominated for another design award, this time by London-based Design Museum. Good PR like these aren't dished out all the time, so if only HTC would leverage these and gave their Windows Phone products a bit more push, that would be swell. The 8X deserves a bit more than the indifference given by its own creators and their PR team.

via WPCentral

HTC One review

Last year's HTC One X was one of the best efforts put into by HTC. Announced alongside two other HTC One phones at MWC, HTC promised to reined in their portfolio, putting more emphasis into quality rather than quantity. Sadly that was proven not to be the case, as the One series was overshadowed by the release of a dozen of so phones throughout the year, diluting their portfolio and as a result, focus.

For 2013, HTC appeared to have learned their lessons regarding the desire to over saturate the market with identikit phones. Announced just last week before MWC, the HTC One is a flagship deserving of its own spotlight and launch. Sporting a new design, the former HTC M7 looks the part of how a flagship should - it is luxurious, beautiful and premium, and it doesn't skim on the specifications. Not to say that the One X wasn't beautiful (it was), but it is nice to see HTC discarding their typical old habits of recycling old ideas.

Special thanks to Three UK for loaning the device. You can pre-order the One from them now.

Before we head into the review, let's get the specs out of the way, shall we?

• Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 with quad core 1.7 Ghz Krait 300 and Adreno 320 GPU
• 2 GB RAM and 32/64 GB built-in flash storage (no expansion slot)
• 25 GB Dropbox storage for two years
• 4.7" Super LCD3 capacitive touchscreen with 1080 x 1920 resolution (468 pixels per inch density)
• Quad band GSM and 3G, 4G where available
• 42 Mbps DC-HSDPA and 5.76 Mbps HSUPA, LTE where available
• 4 Megapixel UltraPixel camera with LED flash and 1080p30 HDR video recording, OIS
• 2.1 Megapixel front facing camera with 1080p30 HDR video recording
• Bluetooth 4.0 and WiFi 802.11a/ac/b/g/n
• GPS receiver with A-GPS, GLONASS
• NFC and micro USB with MHL (HDMI out)
• 2300mAh battery (none user replaceable)
• Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean with HTC Sense 5.0
• 137.4 x 68.2 x 9.3 mm, 143 g
• Available in silver or black colour

The biggest upgrade over the HTC One X and One X+ is the screen. The 1080p Super LCD3 display has a resolution of 1080 x 1920, offering a retina-busting pixel density of 468 pixels per inch (ppi), or mind boggling 1404 sub-pixels per inch. To be fair, the jump from 720p to 1080p isn't nearly as apparent as say from 480p to 720p, but there is a very slight difference.

468 pixels per inch: eat your heart out Retina

Still, from a technology point of view, this is incredible. It took many years before PDAs with 240x320 and 320x480 displays were displaced by 480p screens, but it took only a year for 720p to flourish before going fashionably out of date. Suffice to say, you will need very good eyes to notice the difference, and 720p is still more than enough for the majority of people. Even then, from a technology's perspective, 1080p over a panel measuring a mere 4.7" diagonally is amazing.

HTC One UltraPixel camera review

The new HTC One, has a lot going for it - a fantastic design, an ultra crisp 1080p display and crazy fast specs. But when HTC announced their new flagship in London two weeks ago, they also surprised the tech world by announcing that the One would feature a 4 megapixel camera sensor. Now, 4 megapixel might not sound a lot, but I have always been an advocate of scaling back megapixel for raw quality for smartphones and digital compacts where it is just physically impossible to cram a large sensor. (Many thanks to the good people at Three UK for loaning the HTC One)

In an age where the megapixel myth is more popular than ever, it took a lot of guts for HTC's designers and management to have actually decided on this, and I admire them for it. From a marketing perspective, this new strategy could easily backfire. But in a post PC smartphone world, where the majority of images are shared and viewed on smartphones via social sharing networks like Instagram, Flickr and Facebook, this renewed emphasis on less resolution in exchange of higher quality images makes total sense.

Disclaimer: This review is based on a HTC One running on a pre-release firmware (version 1.26.401.6). I have been told that the firmware that is due to be released with the retail HTC One will feature a few camera tweaks. I will update this review accordingly when the new firmware is released.

The sensor, which HTC calls the UltraPixel, is a backside illuminated (BSI) sensor measuring 1/3" in size - the same size as most typical sensors found in slim smartphones. But that is where its similarities ends. Because the sensor only packs 4 megapixels of data, HTC was able to increase the pixel size to 4 µm2, roughly less than half found on a SLR's sensor but almost double the normal pixel size found on other smartphones and some leading digital compacts like the Canon S110 and Fujifilm X10. This is a fair upgrade, as HTC's own previous One X has a camera sensor with a pixel size of 2 µm2. The same goes for the Lumia 920. HTC's strategy in having a physically larger pixel is in contrast to Nokia's preference to using multiple sensor pixels to create a single final pixel, in their PureView product.

From a physical point of view, it was the only way to get a reasonable quality imaging module into a slim phone, such is HTC's obsession with thinness. Unflattering reports of Sony Xperia Z's low light performance may also have vindicated HTC somewhat. Whether or not the public would buy into this remains to be seen, and it will take massive amount of effort and marketing to educate a public who has already been conditioned to believe in big numbers.

HTC has also fitted a standard five elements 4mm (28mm in 35mm equivalent) f/2.0 lens with optical image stablisation (OIS) to boot. Combined with the new sensor, on paper the HTC One should be capable of delivering some neat low-light photography. A single but powerful LED flash sits on the side.

HTC One preview hands-on and first impressions

You may have read a thing or two about the new HTC One. The new HTC flagship certainly has garnered a lot of attention lately, being HTC's third Android smartphone with a 1080p display - and the first to be announced for a worldwide release.

The One, formerly known as the HTC M7, features a new design that is a significant departure of their previous flagship, the beautiful One X. And it is beautiful. The new hardware design which looks sort of a blend between an iPhone 5 and Blackberry Z10, but do not let that statement fool you - the design has enough of its own identity to stand out from the crowd. Thanks to the good people at Three UK for kindly loaning me a HTC One for review.

Gone is the unibody polycarbonate design that graced the One X. In place are scores of aluminium, once darling of the tech world before giving way to plastic, but appears to be making a comeback. When it comes to design, the attention to detail by HTC engineers is unparalled, and it isn't surprising to find the same with the HTC One. The blend of anodized aluminium and polycarbonate gives the One a premium feel unlike most flagships I have held in the past couple of months - and that includes the Xperia Z. With a weight of 143g, the One isn't terribly light or heavy. It feels very solid.

HTC Windows Phone 8X vs Nokia Lumia 920

The HTC Windows Phone 8X and Nokia Lumia 920 are two of the best Windows Phone 8 smartphones currently on the market, so it makes sense to put these two head to head. Consider this a rematch of my HTC Radar vs Nokia Lumia 710 post.

Both the 8X and Lumia 920 are first generation Windows Phone 8 smartphones and comes powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon S4 SoC with a pair of Krait CPU and Adreno 225 GPU. Both these devices are clocked at a modest 1.5GHz speed and are augmented by 1GB RAM. While the SoC here is regarded as mid-range, the processor is more than capable of everything thrown at it. Windows Phone 8 appears to be efficient.

The Lumia 920's 4.5" display is a tinge larger than the one on the HTC Windows Phone 8X. With a smaller display, the HTC 8X's 4.3" screen features a slightly higher pixel density and hence sharper, on paper. In real life, there is little to distinguish between the two when it comes to sharpness, though the Lumia 920's has an advantage when it comes to outdoor readability and display sensitivity, and its high contrast ratio thanks to Nokia's proprietary ClearBlack Display filter. Regardless, whichever device you go for, you won't be disappointed by the display. Despite the almost similar size in screen and thickness, the 8X is significantly slimmer due its narrower aspect ratio. Keep in mind that some apps, such as Netflix, has not been updated to support the new 16:9 aspect ratio, as used by the 8X.

HTC Windows Phone 8X review

It hasn't been a good 2012 for HTC. The Taiwanese mobile phone manufacturer started the year fine, announcing a new range of One series flagship phones at MWC, including the One X, one of my favourite smartphones of last year. They promised to streamline their products and not dilute the brand name. Such promises did not last long as they went back into their bowl of alphabet soup to dish out devices after devices with no real differentiation. Count them: Desire C, V, VC, VT, X, SV, U, One SU, SC, ST, X+, VX, SV. Phew.

Thankfully, HTC were much more restrained when it came to releasing their first Windows Phone 8 devices. Two smartphones were announced, the high-end 8X and mid-range 8S, both which adhered to Microsoft's strict chassis guidelines. Nonetheless, the two features unique design and more importantly, for me at least, a coherent naming scheme. The HTC Windows Phone 8X is what I will be reviewing here, and it is a wonderful thing.

Specifications!

• Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8960 SoC with dual core 1.5 Ghz Krait and Adreno 225 GPU
• 1GB RAM and 16GB built-in flash storage (no expansion slot)
• 4.3" Super LCD2 capacitive touchscreen with 720 x 1280 resolution (342 ppi)
• Quad band GSM and 3G (LTE on select models)
• 42 Mbps DC-HSDPA and 5.76 Mbps HSUPA
• 8 Megapixel autofocus camera with single LED flash and 1080p30 video recording
• 2.1 Megapixel front camera with 1080p30 video recording
• Bluetooth 3.1 and WiFi 802.11a/b/g/n
• GPS receiver with A-GPS, GLONASS
• NFC and microUSB
• Available in black, red, blue and yellow
• 1800mAh battery (none user replaceable)

The 8X features a brand new polycarbonate unibody design by HTC, something they very rarely do. It is refreshing to see a HTC device with a very none-HTC look. Despite the design not setting my heart fluttering as their One X did, it grew on me. And thanks to the tapered edges, it feels great in my palm. The colour scheme is not exactly my cup of tea, particularly the decision to have the ear piece coloured. Either way, like the Nokia Lumia 920, the 8X is available in a wide range of colours. The choice of rubber'ised matte finish is certainly unique and is one that makes me happy. Finally, a flagship that isn't glossy.

With a resolution of 720x1280, the 4.3" Super LCD2 display offers a pixel density of 342 ppi and is immensely sharp. I am honestly surprised by the size of the display. With the trend moving towards 4.7" and 5" displays, it takes a lot of guts by HTC to release a flagship Windows Phone 8 smartphone with a now relatively small 4.3" screen. While I am no fan of the 16:9 aspect ratio chose here, it does have it advantages - namely, it makes the phone narrower, and thus easier to hold. Unfortunately, while the Super LCD2 display technology used is the same as the One X - the contrast ratio and level of blacks is noticeably less. It is still a great display, but I consider it a downgrade compared to even the iPhone 4/4S and Lumia 920.

HTC Windows Phone 8X camera review

I have been using the HTC Windows Phone 8X extensively over the past two weeks, during which time my blog was unceremoniously, and rather cruelly taken off the web by Google with no explanations. It has since been restored, as you can see, again with no explanations. Rather than spend my time dwelling on how Google has completely dropped the ball, I spent the time not blogging with more time playing around with the 8X.

Last year's HTC One X was one of my favourite smartphones of 2012. The design was brilliant and the camera was stunning. While the 8X's design is an acquired taste, I have grown the appreciate it. The 4.3" size is also a welcome downsize from the ridiculous 4.7" form factor that every manufacturer seems to believe everyone wants now. HTC has set the bar high when it comes to image quality, so I was excited when the 8X landed on my lap. Here was a Windows Phone 8 device that can finally deliver on its imaging promise.

Well, not quite. Based on the specifications, the 8X and One X's 8 Megapixel camera are essentially the same, but short of gutting the two phones, I can't be sure. What I can for sure is thanks to HTC's own proprietary ImageSense chip, the camera is fast. On my previous WP8 phone, the Lumia 920, where it would take a second or two to focus, and then another to defocus, the 8X tends to require about a second, from focusing to capturing. Even my dedicated digital compact, the Canon S90, can't do that. The settings does not appear to be quite as extensive as on the Lumia 920, but you will have access to the white balance and ISO dials.

Lag Lag Lag

This is one blog post I am dreading to write, but I had to even if it invites a horde of fanboys over to stampede on the comment section. Last week I received a call from my brother who is now the proud owner of a Samsung Galaxy S3. I asked for his impressions and the first thing he mentioned was there is some lag. Lag? How is that possible? This monster has four fricking Cortex A9 cores. That's two more cores than I have on my laptop!

Then I remember what pretty much every Android smartphones review I ever wrote - each one has noticeable lags even the One X (which I loved - thanks HTC Sense!). Most are fine, and I am sure the Galaxy S3's lag isn't detrimental to its usability. But for a flagship phone with four cores, it shouldn't even lag, at all. Today I played with a friend's Galaxy Note 2, and boy, does the thing lag like it's entering a competition to see whether it can a trophy in lag. Even excusing the amazingly awful lag from the S-Pen stylus (something which never happened with old style resistive touchscreens), the Note 2 was practically unusable.

This isn't an Android witch hunt. In fact, I have been using a RAZR MAXX for more than a month now and since updating the ICS, the handset has been relatively lag free (shocker!). Only on rare occasions would the device stutter, and that's only because I have ten apps running in the background. I know Motorola gets a lot of stick for their lack of support, but I am pretty happy with the MOTOBLUR-free ICS update. Add to the fact that the RAZR MAXX has a massive battery, you would need to pry it off my dead fingers. And this is a device that has two partly Cortex A9 cores.

But, but, but, I hear some geeks protesting, you can install custom ROMs. I am sorry, but that's just no excuse and certainly isn't something one should use to excuse bad support. When one purchase a £450 smartphone, one should always expect that it runs the best as it could. Even as a self proclaimed geek, rooting and installing a custom ROM isn't something I would like to do. I have done my fair share of ROM 'hacking' back in the PalmOS days, and I can think of a thousand things I would rather do (like writing this) than downloading and installing nighties these days. No reviewers should excuse slowdowns because you can root.

Perhaps manufacturers just can't be bothered, hoping against hope that their poor coding could be fixed through sheer brute force. But there is a fundamental problem that, if even through multiple cores, a device would still not run as smoothly as it should. Google is attempting to fix this through Jelly Bean, but Jelly Bean isn't available for every smartphones out there is it? And what's to say that any improvement by Jelly Bean or subsequent version wouldn't be reversed by future iterations of TouchWiz, Sense etc.?

HTC announces new 8S and 8X Windows Phone 8 smartphones

HTC today announced their range of upcoming Windows Phone 8 powered smartphones, the HTC 8S and 8X. Of the two, the 8X is the more exciting one. Both phones will be available in a range of colours.

The HTC 8X appears to have all the right boxes ticked. It has a 4.3" Super LCD 2 display with 720x1280 resolution. If the display is based on the same technology used on the One X, then it will surely be one of the best out there. Powering the phone is a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 chipset with a pair of 1.5 GHz Krait CPU and Adreno 225 GPU, plus 1GB RAM, which is a fair upgrade over their last Windows Phone flagship, the HTC Titan 2.

HTC has equipped the 8X with what appears to be the same camera module as the One X - a 8MP backside illuminated sensor along with a 28mm wide angle lens with f/2.0 aperture (35mm equivalent) and a proprietary HTC ImageChip for quicker shooting. Again, if this is anything like the One X, the camera here will be a joy to use. The front facing camera is said to contain a 2.1MP camera with a wide angle lens, and will make use of the ImageChip. Both cameras can record videos in 1080p resolution.

HTC One V review

HTC One V is a device that aches me. On one hand, the gorgeous design has me grabbing it each time I can. On the other, the specs just doesn't do it justice. Sure, specs doesn't mean much and I have argued in the past, but when you have a phone that is bogged down by HTC Sense, you kinda need all the power you can get. You see, Sense can have that sort of effect on me. But first let's get the specs out of the way.

Specifications:

• Qualcomm MSM82552 SoC with 1 GHz Snapdragon CPU and Adreno 205 GPU
• 512 MB RAM and 4GB built-in flash storage
• 3.7" LCD capacitive touchscreen with 480 x 800 resolution
• Quad band GSM and tri band 3G
• 5 Megapixel autofocus with BSI sensor camera with LED flash and 720p video recording
• Bluetooth 4.0 and WiFi 802.11b/g/n
• GPS with A-GPS

The One V is a tiny device. With the same 3.7" screen size and 480x800 resolution, the One V is smaller than my Lumia 800 and lasts longer too. And despite the size, the One V is all about quality. The metallic unibody design is tasteful. You couldn't have asked for a better looking mid-range device. If the engineers behind the HTC One V's design brief was to create a phone that bettered their high-end devices (in my opinion), then they succeeded.

Holidaying with the HTC One V: Camera Review

I just returned from a bank holiday break in Dorset. Accompanying me was a HTC One V (thanks Three UK for the loan!) and my Lumia 800. Throughout the short break, I used the One V's camera extensively and was impressed by the camera's performance relative to its price point as an entry level device. While the image quality is a downgrade compared to the Lumia 800 and One X, the One V performed well for a phone with a tiny 5MP sensor. Even then the One V offers more accurate colour and white balance compared to the Lumia 800 on auto setting.

The 5MP sensor here is a BSI variety, meaning that the sensor is back-illuminated. As a result, together with the 28mm f/2 lens, the One V handles low light photography better than previous HTC devices. The One V comes with an assorted number of options including panorama, filter effects like distortion, vignetting and 'depth of field' (which aims to simulate miniature faking on tilt shift lens), ISO, white balance, face detection, geo tagging, macro mode and low light photography.

The camera app also allows for image capture while video capturing. Images captured this way are outputted in 1280x720 resolution, which is the same resolution of the video captured. Incidentally, videos are captured in 720p30 resolution with continuous autofocus.

Like most modern smartphones, the One V also comes equipped with built-in HDR mode. HDR works by allowing the camera to capture three simultaneous images, an overexposed, underexposed and 'normal' image and then using the information on all three images to produce a single image with high dynamic range contrast. The tiny image sensor on the HTC One V suffers from poor dynamic range, and HDR will help with improving this, at least on paper.

In truth, there is a trade off when using HDR mode. Due to the need to capture three successive images, any small movements will often result in a blurry HDR image. This is a reason why DSLR users uses tripod when capturing images needed for making a HDR image. Unfortunately due to the slower processing and capturing speed on the One V, the blurry movement effect is more pronounced on the One V than on previous smartphones I have tested like the One X and Galaxy S2 with third party app.

While the dynamic range does improve with when using HDR mode, I found the result to be very artificial and over processed, often looking like something that can be done via boosting the dynamic range of a single original image using software.

Do check out the extensive number of untouched image samples after the break.

HTC One V first impressions

When HTC announced the One V at MWC this year, I moaned on twitter about how they should have used the design for their flagship phone rather than what the One X currently sports. Do not get me wrong, the One X is one sweet looking device, but the One V features an evolved design inherited from the HTC Legend/Hero - and I loved the design of those phones. But like the HTC Legend, specs takes a back seat on the One V. It's all about design. But who cares about quad core when you have a phone that looks this good?

Labelling the HTC One V as a wee phone is an understatement. This handset is tiny for a smartphone that features a 3.7" display. Compared to my Lumia 800, which also has a 3.7" display, the Lumia 800 is noticeably larger and heavier. And despite its petite size and lightweight construction, HTC has spared no expense with materials. Like the Radar, the One V is housed in a metallic unibody contruction, making the device feels more luxurious and expensive than it is.

HTC One X review

HTC has been under tremendous pressure. The past year has seen their status as top Android manufacturer slowly whittled away by Samsung. Even Google, who launched the Nexus developer series with HTC, has looked towards the Korean behemoth. Things were looking bleaked for the beleaguered Taiwanese OEM manufacturer, who struggled to come up with new exciting design for the smartphones. That was until they announced their flagship monster, the One X.

The One X is HTC's comeback phone. The initial press rendering doesn't do the phone any favours as the distinctive HTC design language remained the same as it was for a couple of years now. Still and I admit, the One X is one gorgeous looking smartphone and simply the best looking Android smartphone I have ever had the opportunity to use. It features a single unibody aluminium body that beautifully wraps around the display.

HTC Radar vs Nokia Lumia 710

With devices at all price points, there hasn't been a better time to dip your toes and try out Windows Phone. Today I will comparing the HTC Radar and the Nokia Lumia 710, both the lowest priced Windows Phone 7.5 Mango smartphones both either manufacturers. Both are priced at around £200 sim-free, but can be had for much less when bought on pay as you go. You can read my in-depth review of the Lumia 710 here and of the Radar here.

Both of these devices are second generation WP7 smartphones, meaning they are shipped with Windows Phone 7.5 Mango and comes with Qualcomm MSM8255 Snapdragon S2 System-on-Chip (SoC) with Adreno 205 GPU. The Lumia 710's Scorpion ARMv7 CPU is clocked at a higher 1.4GHz speed, whilst the Radar is clocked at a more modest 1GHz. While it may seem like the Lumia 710 has a speed advantage here, Windows Phone 7 is so well optimised the speed difference isn't that apparent apart from certain areas like web browsing. Still the Lumia 710 is likely to be in a better position to take advantage of Windows Phone 8 Apollo, assuming of course that the OS is made available to either devices.

Phone manufacturers, you are doing it wrong

In a survey conducted by HTC last year, the Taiwanese manufacturer asked customers whether they prefer their phones with great battery life or are willing to sacrifice that for thinness. Apparently the majority of customers prefer a thin phone with awful battery life. Armed with this result, HTC decided to cancel the production of phones with 3000mAh batteries to make the HTC One series, like the HTC One X, which I am currently reviewing.

The very thought that HTC shelved plans for a smartphone with 3000mAh battery greatly depress me. I am sure I am not the only one who isn't fond on the direction the mobile industry is heading towards. As much as I love the One X, its mediocre battery life isn't one of them. Thin 'superphones' like the One X needs large batteries. With a 4.7" display and quad core processor, you would think that a bigger battery would make sense. These days I always carry a wall charger with me whenever I am out, in case I have to make a pit stop at Starbucks to top up, as well as my Motorola emergency charger. I would rather not, but I have little choice in this.

Motorola, the only manufacturer that gets it

Now if you think I am singling out HTC for this, you are wrong. It just happened they admitted to using a survey to justify this awful decision that lead me to write this post. My current main phone, the Nokia Lumia 800, has a battery that wouldn't last a full day on power use (it isn't even thin!), as was my previous Samsung Galaxy S II. In fact the only device I ever owned that was capable of lasting a full day, and then a couple more, was my old Nokia E51. What a wunderphone that was.

So dear HTC, Nokia, Samsung and Sony, you are doing it wrong. We do not care if a phone shaves an extra 1mm in thickness, and we certainly do not care if it holds the title for world's thinnest whatever phone. We want phones with large batteries, and we want them now. Hell, if Motorola can even give us a slim phone with awesome battery life, why can't you?

Source: GSMArena

HTC One X OTA update fixes camera bug

HTC today released an over the air (OTA) firmware update for their new flagship Tegra 3-powered One X smartphone. No official changelog has been provided, but it is said to provide a number of fixes including battery optimisation, fixes to on-screen menu, brightness level, as well as various minor fixes. While the Android ICS version remains at 4.0.3, the updates increases the firmware version to 1.28.401.9.

I can confirm that the update also fixes the camera bug issue that is documented in my HTC One X camera review. The bug, which has never been acknowledge by HTC, prevents the device from saving images larger than 3MB. Indeed, the first thing I did after applying the update was capture an image of a brick wall (something I always do to test the lens for barrel distortion), which resulted in an image file north of 4MB. Lovely. Good job HTC.

A brick wall may be boring, but it is a demanding test for your puny cameraphone. You can also hurl your phone at it.

My HTC One X unit has also exhibited serious screen flickering and corruption issue but I can't confirm whether this update fixes it as the issue appears at random and there is no real way of replicating it easily.

While the camera bug should never have escaped initial testing before deployment of the One X, it is nice to see HTC providing an update that fixes it, among others, barely two weeks after the smartphone was released. The update should be available on European HTC One X units. An OTA update for other markets will no doubt follow soon.

HTC One X camera review

Once upon a time HTC made very good smartphones with very bad imaging parts. Cameras so bad that when you bought a HTC smartphone that comes equipped with a camera you would assume it doesn't come with one. These days however, HTC phones comes with adequate camera sensors that does the job well. One would even argue that apart from Nokia and Sony (Ericsson), HTC now makes some of the best smartphones when it comes to imaging.

Now, the image quality on the HTC One X isn't the best. In fact images, even those taken in daylight, suffers from plenty of noise and evidence of over processing and sharpening. Having said that, high image quality isn't a deal breaker for a performance-focused smartphone. When I am carrying a cameraphone, what I expect it to do is be quick. And here is where the One X excels. Boy, the camera here is fast. It takes about three seconds in total to unlock the phone, press the touchscreen camera shutter and capture, autofocus and all. It's the sort of camera you want to be with if you are the type of person who does not like missing the moment then post right away on Twitter and Facebook.

HTC One X first impressions

Is there a more exciting Android smartphone announced at MWC this year than the HTC One X? Not many people seem to think so. The HTC One X has been collecting plenty of accolades since its release last week, and it was about time it was put this under the stress of a review by yours truly.

HTC's press rendering of the One X doesn't do it much justice. The One X is simply gorgeous and is easily the most beautiful Android smartphone I have ever held. With a single unibody aluminium body, the HTC One X retains the now recognisable HTC design language but with subtile changes that makes it fresh. With a slightly curved 4.7" 720p HD display, the One X is begging to be fondled the moment you set your eyes on one.

HTC Radar review

HTC was an earlier supporter of Microsoft Windows Phone 7, and was a launch partner, going so far as to announcing and releasing no less than five WP7 devices when the platform was launched a year and a half ago. These days HTC is all about Android, but that doesn't mean they have completely abandoned the Windows Phone platform. With the relaunched of Windows Phone 7.5 Mango and promising Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 due at the end of this year, it would be silly to do so.

The Radar is HTC's mid-level Windows Phone 7.5 smartphone. Released a few months ago, it was designed to replace two previous HTC devices, the cheap and cheerful 7 Trophy and the stylish and musical 7 Mozart. Currently priced at under £200 for sim-free and available for much less on contract, the Radar sounds on paper like a great device for anyone on a budget wanting to get onto the Windows Phone scene. Oddly enough, the Radar is more expensive on Pay As You Go, but whatever. Read on for my full review of the HTC Radar.

HTC Sensation XL review

Display sizes in smartphones has been growing out of control lately. What were once too large just two years ago are now normal. There comes a point when someone must say enough is enough. Samsung proved with the Galaxy S II, people wanted phones with 4.3" displays, and they were right. But was HTC right to further increase this with the Sensation XL? The 4.7" display here is massive, and that is before considering the Samsung Galaxy Note's rather outrageous 5.3" display.

Still I expect devices like the Sensation XL to find a nice niche among people who requires a display this size. After all having used the Galaxy S II for six months myself, it took some getting used to with the XL. But first let's have a look at what's underneath this beast.