HTC One S

The Good: HTC One S is the second model in the HTC One series after the HTC One X. This smartphone is slim and lightweight which makes it portable. What all of us look in a smartphone is durability as we don’t change phones every month. One S fulfills that very need. It is a durable phone and it also proves that durable needn’t be boring as the phone has a premium look and feel to it. The sound quality in the phone is excellent as it is clocked with Beats Solo headset.

The Bad: With the specs available on this phone the pricing is slightly on the expensive side. The price of the phone and the features offered do not match each other. The phone speakers are slightly on the softer side though HTC has tried to compensate this by including Beats Solo headset in the box. The phone doesn’t have a slot for the microSD card. And the battery life is also on the lower side, while the processor used in the smartphone is the previous generation processor.

The Bottom Line: This smartphone is good android phone, but it let’s down on various factors like the high price it charges for a poor battery life and a previous generation less powerful processor.

Design: The second handset from the One series. HTC One S has a single piece aluminum case a Gorilla Glass covering most of the front side. The phone is the thinnest smartphone from HTC at 7.8 mm and it is also a lighter than One X by 10grams. At the top of the phone you will find the audio jack along with the power button. The volume controls are located on the right and you will find the microUSB port on the left.

Processor and Operating System:
The HTC One S is powered by a 1.5GHz dual-core processor and is backed with a 1GB RAM. This processor has enough power to run 3D games on it without a hiccup. If you want more power and speed from your processor then it is the HTC One X that you are looking for.

The phone runs on Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich operating system. Along with the latest version of Android the phone also runs on the latest version 4.0 of HTC’s Busy Sense user interface. The phone has an interesting help information pop ups for all the first time users of HTC phones. The app provides pop-ups with hints and tips as to what you can do with the various programmes.

Features and Performance:
Screen: The slim smartphone from HTC has a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED capacitive touch screen. It has a resolution of 960 X 540 pixels though when compared to One X the resolution is slightly lower. In spite of a lower resolution the screen provides you with excellent colours. The Gorilla Glass 2 screen which covers most of the front side comes with an optical lamination which will provide the user with good readability even outdoors, under the direct sunlight.

Camera: The phone comes equipped with a camera with a whopping 8 mega pixels and the photographs clicked have a resolution of 3264x2448 pixels which is very similar to HTC One X. The camera starts up very quickly, thus making sure you don’t miss out on moments you really want to capture. The camera does make the phone an attractive buy. The camera also has auto focus, an LED flash and face and smile detection.

The camera is equipped to record video at full HD 1080 pixels resolution which will turn out well as long as there is decent lighting. The phone has a secondary VGA mega pixel camera which will allow you to make video calls as well.

Storage and Connectivity: One S has an internal memory of 16 GB. But that is all! Like the One X, the S also does not have any slot for a microSD card thus providing the user with no option of expanding the memory capacity, which is a big disappointment. All most all the competitors to the HTC phones have a slot for expandable memory. The absence of the slot may prove to be harmful for the sales figures of the phones.

The battery is also a letdown. The phone is powered with a Standard Li-Po 1650 mAh battery. With such a battery do not expect the phone battery to at last you more than a day.

Price and Availability: The pricing of the smartphone from HTC is a disappointment. The phone is priced at RS.33,000 which makes it a high end smartphone. For all if you really want to buy the phone but think Rs.33,000 is a bit too much then there are many online portal like saholic.com, buytheprice.com and infibeam.com which are offering the phone at Rs.30,000.

Wrap-Up: If not a HTC One X then the next and very good option is the One S. The phone has a clear screen and with its light weight and size it is an extremely portable phone. It is indeed an amazing smartphone despite all its flaws like poor battery or weal processor.

By kittamani