If you are rocking to the HTC One X from AT&T and have looked enviously at the direction of the Motorola Droid RAZR and Droid RAZR MAXX because both devices have already started to receive the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean update, fret not – it is also your turn to be on the receiving end of the delicious Jelly Bean update, where you will now be able to enjoy the benefits of Google Now on your once-a-flagship smartphone, in addition to the new and rich notifications of Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, not to mention a slight tweak made to the front-facing camera.
What can we say about this update other than the fact that it has been a long time in coming? After all, the international models of the HTC One X have already picked up the Jelly Bean update months ago in 2012, and the revamped model, the HTC One X+ did ship with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean right out of the box. Ah well, it is time to be grateful, and better late than never, after all.
The changes that are coming to your Facebook News Feed are numerous – but they’re not going to interrupt the way you do business on a daily basis. Instead you’re going to find the features added this week by the Facebook crew to be just that – Features: helpful and (hopefully) rather intuitive to use. For those of you working with the mobile app version of Facebook on either iOS or Android, this change-over will be extra simple: it is, at its core, a bridge between the mobile and desktop experience.
Facebook speaks up on the changes
What you’ll want to see first is Facebook’s designers speaking up about the changes they’ve made themselves. They’re always good at making the case for a positive forward movement, and today’s video is no exception. They’ll speak up here about each of the three main points this change is pushing before we go through them one by one.
Rich Stories
Design choices throughout this new iteration of the News Feed on Facebook show the company to be coming to terms with the idea that images are king. If you post a photo, you’ll find that you’ve got the largest preview showing in your News Feed that Facebook has ever shown before – along with Like, Comment, and Share buttons right below in newly smoothed-out sections. If two people become friends, you’ll see one of them in a tiny icon and the other represented by not just their icon, but their header image as well.
When you see a link being shared, you’ll also see a short list of icons associated with the people who have shared it on Facebook as well. Hovering over one of these icons expands the rest – this element is in place to have people finding new friends with similar interest, of course. Along those same lines you’ll find Upcoming Events appearing next to single dates – Fridays, for example, will be of particular interest.
Finally you’ll see newly revamped posts from pages – this will be great for pages such as SlashGear (http://www.facebook.com/SlashGear) for appearing in your News Feed in a newly sleek setup. As with the rest of the feature updates, this redesign is much more simplistic than it’s been in the past.
Choice of Feeds
With a new pull-down menu that reads “News Feed” until you switch it, you’ll be able to select from any of the following to syphon your feed down to just the items you want: Most Recent, All Friends, Photos, Music, Following, Games, or Groups. This filter will be working in both the desktop (web browser) and mobile user interfaces soon – simple and smooth.
This filter will not be the first time you’ll be seeing a page that only shows photos and videos, but it is the first time we’re seeing Facebook push the “Following” aspect in a completely separate way. You can follow people on Facebook without friending them – this is good for “famous” users and the like – with this filter you’ll be able to see things that they share with the public and nothing else. This is much closer to what we see on Twitter on the daily – not so much the personal friendliness of Facebook.
Mobile Consistency
Both the desktop and the mobile editions of this change-over are going to be pushed almost at the same time. The desktop version will be coming first – with a limited roll-out starting today, the day of the update’s announcement. The mobile version – for iOS and Android at once, mind you – will be out in coming weeks.
The “Mobile Consistency” title refers also to the idea that the design for both user interfaces are now much more close to one another than they’ve ever been before. The biggest addition to the desktop end of things is the left-hand sidebar – get anywhere you need to from any Facebook nook or cranny, no more need to go all the way back to the News Feed every time!
HTC announced its new One device last week along with Sense 5, which is a completely-redesigned user interface that will only be available on the HTC One. Or will it? Confirmed by HTC’s Facebook marketing department, Sense 5 will be making its way to older HTC devices, including “global variants” of the One X, One X+, One S, and the Butterfly.
HTC says that they’ll be “offering upgrades to some of its existing devices in the next few months,” so it looks like we may see older HTC devices running the new software before summer hits, although HTC mentions “global variants” of its devices, which could be a little confusing since HTC has international versions of its phones, and then there are US versions. It could end up that US gets the shaft with Sense 5 upgrades.
Then again, we’ll just have to wait and see what HTC ends up doing. Overall, this is certainly good news for HTC device owners, including those with the newer One series devices. However, Sense 5 may not come to every One series handset, so don’t get your hopes up if you’re rocking a mid-ranger like the One VX — HTC may not be focusing on lower-tier devices. The company also notes that some software features of the HTC One definitely won’t be making their way to older HTC devices.
HTC’s newest handset, the One, comes with a 4.7-inch full HD 1080p display with a 4MP “UltraPixel” camera. The device also packs an impressive 1.7GHz quad-core Snapdragon 600 processor with 2GB of RAM and either 32GB or 64GB of storage space. The phone will be making its way to the market sometime next month, so save up your pennies if you’re eligible for an upgrade.
Today the HTC One was introduced to the public, complete with a total overhaul of what it means to bring an HTC device to the market – but is it all that different from the HTC One X released last year? And what about the HTC One X+? Here in the first quarter of 2013 we’ve got an HTC battle on out hands – and it’s really, really pretty!
With the HTC One you’ve got the newest in new: a 1.7GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 quad-core processor with 2GB of memory powering a fabulous 4.7-inch Super LCD 3 display at 1920 x 1080 pixels. The HTC One X+ has a quad-core 1.7GHz NVIDIA Tegra 3 processor while the original HTC One X worked with either that same NVIDIA SoC at 1.5GHz (internationally) or the 1.5Ghz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4. As far as displays go, both of the X models had a 4.7-inch Super LCD 2 panel at 1280 x 720 pixels strong.
So while the X had 312ppi (pixel density), the HTC One works with a massive 468ppi – that’s quite the jump, and edging in on where the human eye can no longer discern pixels – wild! The new HTC One works with Gorilla Glass 2 as the HTC One X+ did while the One X worked with the original Gorilla Glass.
Inside you’ll find two iterations available for the original HTC One X, with 32GB of storage available in the international edition and 16GB inside the LTE version – the HTC One X+ came only in 64GB internal storage. The HTC One is coming in both 32GB and 64GB internal storage iterations. Each of these devices works with Android, while the original came with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and Sense 4 and the new HTC One comes with Android 4.2 Jelly Bean and Sense 5.
As far as the camera goes, it’s very much a whole different ball-game for the HTC One. With the HTC One X and X+, it was all about an 8-megapixel BSI f/2.0 AF back-facing camera with 1.3 or 1.6 megapixels up front – and an integrated HTC ImageSense chip to take care of the photography. Now it’s all about the Ultrapixel camera being presented by HTC as the next great innovation in the mobile camera universe. With that in mind, the HTC One works with 4-megapixel BSI f/2.0 AF on the back and a front-facing 2.1 megapixel shooter.
The original HTC One X worked with a 1800 mAh battery, the X+ had a 2100 mAh battery, and the new HTC One works with a beastly 2300 mAh battery. While the original HTC One X came in White or Gray, the X+ came in black, and the two iterations of the HTC One revealed thus far have been silver and black – with a very possible additional set of colors on the way!
HTC One S owners are seeing the light at the end of the Jelly Bean tunnel, as Android 4.1.1 is now being pushed out to the global models. The company originally promised it way back in July, with rumblings about an October arrival as well, but up until now there’s been no joy. HTC One X global owners started to see that Jelly Bean release last month, and we can confirm that it’s now come to our very own HTC One S handset too, as the image above proves. XDA Developers also caught wind of a direct HTC link, which will finally bring the extra fluidity of Google’s butter to the mid-range handset. There’s no word yet about US carrier-flavored versions, but it wouldn’t hurt to check your own handset, or XDA’s CID list at the MC link below.
We just love HTC’s One X here at Engadget — it’s quite possibly our favorite smartphone of 2012. Three devices have crossed our desks over the past year — the original with HSPA+, AT&T’s model with LTE and, more recently, the global One X+ with HSPA+. Now the saga continues with AT&T selling its own version of the One X+ with LTE on board. What’s different between these handsets? How does AT&T’s $200 variant stack up against its global counterpart? Is it worth spending an additional $100 (or more) for AT&T’s One X+ versus the original One X? Does the bump in storage (64GB vs. 16GB) make up for the lack of color options? Find out after the break.
HTC’s One X, which launched earlier in the year, turned out to be quite a capable Android handset, and it was leaps and bounds above the company’s 2011 lineup. However, HTC decided to launch an updated version just a few months after the release of its predecessor. It’s available now exclusively on AT&T’s network, and it’s priced at $199 after a two-year contract. While the One X+ may not look any different than the One X, it does come with some decent and welcomed updates on the inside. It comes out of the box with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, a NVIDIA Tegra 3 chip, 64GB of storage, and a slightly larger 2100mAh battery. These changes certainly are key updates that are crucial if HTC wants to keep up with other flagships going into the holiday season, but are the upgrades worth the higher price? And more importantly, can it compete with the other top-tier handsets on the market?
Hardware
To answer that last question, the answer is simply, yes, it can. It doesn’t necessarily stand alone, but it should make the shortlist for anyone narrowing down what top-of-the-line smartphone to get themselves or their loved one this holiday season. The unibody design that we saw on the One X is the same as what we’re seeing on the One X+. Thanks to the polycarbonate housing, the handset is pretty light and also really thin, and the soft-touch finish allows for a firm grip on the device, but our black version was quite a finger smudge magnet. However, despite the large 4.7-inch Super LCD 2 720p display, the entire device doesn’t feel overwhelming to hold at all, unlike other 4.7-inch handsets that I’ve played around with.
Since it’s a unibody device, there’s not a lot of things that you can take apart easily. There’s no battery cover, which means you can’t replace the battery with a bigger one or use a spare, but that also means it’s a lot sleeker than non-unibody handsets. On the top, there’s a headphone jack along with the ambient noise sensor, with the power button on the right. On the left side, there’s the microUSB port, with the volume rocker sitting on the right side. On the bottom, there’s just the microphone. And finally, on the front, you have the three capacitive soft buttons — Back, Home, and Recent Apps — as well as the typical elongated earpiece that HTC is known for, with a notification light hidden within.
There’s a bit more happening on the back of the One X+, though. The 8MP camera protrudes just a tad from the surface, and there’s a single LED flash to accompany the camera. Also on the back is the microSIM card slot. It’s not necessarily situated on the back of the phone, but it’s also not really situated at the top — it’s mostly located in between on the curve, which is almost an odd place for it, but it actually works. The speaker is also located on the back towards the bottom, as well as the five small gold contacts for docking purposes.
On the inside is where all the real changes occur, though. The HTC One X+ trades in the dual-core Qualcomm S4 Snapdragon processor of the One X for a NVIDIA Tegra 3 chipset that pairs a quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor clocked at 1.7GHz with GeForce ULP graphics. The device also comes with 1GB of RAM and a whopping 64GB of internal storage. While there’s no microSD card slot, we think the 64GB of storage is plenty of space for any user.
The 4.7-inch display has a resolution of 1280×720, giving it a pixel density of 312ppi, which pegs it right up against the Samsung Galaxy S III and the LG Optimus G. It’s the same display in the One X, which arguably has one of the best displays on the smartphone market (before the DROID DNA came along). It’s super crisp and clear, and it provides an excellent viewing experience with text and images showing up extremely sharp and bright.
Software
The HTC One X+ runs Android 4.1.1 Jelly Bean right out of the box, with HTC’s Sense 4+ UI running on top. If you’re already familiar with HTC’s user interface, you won’t see many surprises in Sense 4+ other than the new Jelly Bean features like Google Now and Project Butter. Of course, if you’re looking for a device that offers a pure Android experience, you may not like HTC’s excessive skinning, but it adds a lot of nice features that many users will take advantage of. While HTC is sometimes accused of over-skinning, they actually left a couple of Jelly Bean features alone. For instance, they didn’t implement their own speech recognition tool over Google’s own solution. Instead, you’ll be greeted with pure Google Now and Voice Search on the One X+.
A lot of the differences between Sense 4.1 (on the One X) and 4+ are mostly behind the scenes and very subtle. The update claims smoother navigation, improved performance, and better battery life. HTC also seemed to remove shadows and embossments from text and replaced them with sharper effects in order to make text easier to read, although that may just be my mind playing tricks on me, but I did notice that text seemed a little crisper compared to other HTC devices I’ve played around with. Infinite scrolling has made a return as well, after being removed on the One X. This allows you to jump from the furthest left home screen to the furthest right, and vice versa.
As far as a possible update to Android 4.2, we wouldn’t be surprised if the One X+ eventually received it. It’s a new-enough device and a powerhouse of a smartphone for HTC and AT&T to definitely consider giving one of its best handsets an update to the latest Android version. Plus, an update to Android 4.2 would make the handset just that much more appealing to buyers who are wanting a future-proof device.
Benchmarks & Performance
With the HTC One X being an excellent smartphone, we knew going into it that the One X+ would only be an improvement, and that benchmarks would be a little better. However, the benchmarks showed that the One X+ provides quite the performance boost over the One X. In AnTuTu, the One X+ scored just over 16,200, which is right on par with Samsung’s Galaxy S III, but not quite up to snuff with the LG Optimus G or the Nexus 4. Of course, though, the difference is most likely negligible. Compared to the One X, which scores as high as 11,000, the One X+ is certainly quite a bit faster.
In Quadrant, the One X+ scored a 7,400, which is over double of what our scores were with the One X (3,400). It also does better than the Galaxy S III, which scored 6,000 during our testing, and performed just slightly better than the Optimus G. Of course, benchmarks aren’t everything, and what truly matters is if users will be happy with the performance of the phone and its user interface. Thanks to Project Butter that was introduced in Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, the One X+ is both snappy and smooth. Navigating through different screens and switching between apps was really quick. Surprisingly, playing a little bit of Asphalt 7 was a less-than-stellar experience, though — it was really laggy and framerates were disgustingly low. However, Mass Effect: Infiltrator played much smoother and provided better performance all around, which makes us think that Asphalt 7 may be an isolated issue.
Camera
The One X+ has an 8MP rear camera with a 1.6MP front-facing shooter. It’s essentially the same camera found in the One X, but with a slightly improved sensor that’s capable of recording 1080p video at 30fps instead of 24fps in the One X. The front-facing camera has also been upgraded to 1.6MP from the 1.3MP on the One X.
Overall, I really like the camera app’s user interface. It’s really easy to access all of the settings, and there’s even two shutter buttons, one for taking photos and the other for taking videos. This is extremely handy, since there’s no need to have to wait a few seconds in order to switch between the two.
Photo quality varies depending on the situation. With enough lighting, images can appear really crisp and sharp, but low-light conditions offer a different experience. Taking pictures in low light adds a ton of noise, almost to the point where images appear blotchy. Of course, you can manually adjust the ISO in the settings, but lowering it when you want to take a picture of a night scene opens the door for blurry photos, which is arguably worse than just having a lot of noise. Contrast and saturation is a bit too high as well, and sometimes exposure isn’t perfect at times, but with HDR mode turned on, photos get exposed a lot better. However, a lot of users won’t even bother with HDR mode anyway, since it’s a lot slower than just the automatic setting.
As far as different features, there’s Panorama mode and the aforementioned HDR mode, as well as a built-in Slow Motion mode. These aren’t anything new, as we’re already used to seeing these in the HTC One series. There are also a handful of color effects that you can choose from and apply them to photos and videos in real time — sort of like Instagram, but not quite as comprehensive.
As far as video quality goes, it was slightly above average, but it wasn’t without its faults. The increase to 30fps is certainly something that we don’t mind, but the difference from 24fps is negligible. Most videophiles will be able to tell the difference, of course, but casual videographers won’t care too much. Exposure changes going from dimly-lit areas to well-lit areas and vice versa is quick, and continuous autofocus works fairly well too, although there were times when it took a bit of time to refocus.
Battery
The HTC One X+ now comes with a larger 2100mAh battery compared to the One X’s 1800mAh battery. This is always a good thing, of course, but with the internal hardware enhancements, the 300 extra mAhs may have been required rather than just an amenity for picky users. Plus, the unibody design means that you won’t be able crack open the device in order to change out the battery for a spare or larger alternative.
However, we couldn’t find anything to complain about as far as battery life is concerned. HTC has certainly improved on the battery life of devices of yesteryear, and it seems the company is even advocating longer battery life in the software as well, with a permanent and easy-to-get-to “power saver” toggle in the notification tray. I ended up going all day long and well into the evening before I had to plug the One X+ into the wall. This was after I started the day on a full charge and with moderate to heavy usage, such as running benchmarks, playing games, and streaming Netflix at various times throughout the day.
With typical usage, I ended up getting well over a day and a half out of the battery, doing things like checking email, surfing social media, browsing the web, and keeping up with sports scores throughout the day. However, any hardcore gaming for an extended amount of time, as well as GPS navigation will certainly drain the battery faster than a water pipe can drain water, but that’s obviously to be expected, and we would hope that anyone who ended up playing mobile games on the One X+, or even have navigation up for an hour or two at a time would most likely have an outlet or car charger nearby.
Wrap-Up
The design and looks of the One X+ haven’t changed a whole lot since the One X, so if you were hoping for a cosmetic change of some sort with this updated model, you’ll be sorely disappointed. However, the real upgrades are on the inside, and while they may not be extremely significant (think Apple upgrading from 3G to 3GS, or 4 to 4S), they’re compelling enough that we’d easily recommend the One X+ if you don’t already have a HTC One device.
The presence of LTE alone can make this phone a true competitor against the Nexus 4, even if it is just a slightly faster handset than the One X+. Other devices, like the Galaxy S III and the Optimus G are powerhouses, but if you’re not a big fan of their user interfaces, you wouldn’t be sacrificing much of anything performance-wise if you ended up going with the One X+, except maybe the removable battery if that’s a concern for you. Other than the company’s flagship DROID DNA, the One X+ is certainly one of HTC’s best devices on the market right now.
HTC stated in a press release on October 2 that both One X and One S users would receive an update during that month to Android 4.1. Although One S users weren’t so lucky, select One X users did see the upgrade, with consumers in both Singapore and Taiwan successfully upgrading. Now other One X users can rejoice, because it appears the update is being rolled out globally.
Now, according to tweets appearing across the Twittersphere, users all over the world are successfully updating their HTC One X handset to Android Jelly Bean. According to HTC Source, the update is reaching both CID_038 and CID_044 handsets for users in Russia, the UK, India, Argentina, Brazil, Peru, and more. The update will likely hit other areas soon.
The update is OTA, but you can try to nab it manually by going to “Software Updates” -> “Check Now” under Settings. The update originates with a 1.6MB file, followed by a larger 364.54MB Android update, which is a bit smaller than the first round of updates that appeared. Once updated, One X users will have access to a variety of new features.
The Jelly Bean update brings with it a faster user interface that boasts snappier orientation changes and more responsiveness when toggling betwixt apps. Rendering is more consistent, and there’s reactive touch for improved battery life. Face Unlock is more accurate than in previous iterations, certain SSIDs can be designated as mobile hotspots, and users can swipe from the camera viewfinder to easily review photos.
We just got our hands on the HTC Droid DNA this morning, and our first impressions were very promising. The screen is really, really gorgeous. But, how gorgeous is it when you put it next to the other best smartphones? More »
The AT&T pre-order period for the ultra-powerful re-birth of the captain of the HTC football team, the HTC One X+, begins on the 13th of November, that being tomorrow, with a release date of November 16th for in-store availability. These devices expand the HTC One series into the future with one extra-affordable entry into the family and another that’s an upgraded version of its former self. Along with the updated version of the T-Mobile HTC One S, this should very well count as a resurgence of the HTC One lineup – a rebirth as a butterfly, if you will.
The HTC One X+ will be running you $199.99 with a two-year agreement right out the gate while the VX will be popping up for just $49.99 with a two-year agreement. This provides you with the biggest and the smallest, the slightly more costly and the extremely affordable, both of them bringing AT&T 4G LTE and HTC’s own Sense user interface. See our AT&T HTC One X AT&T full review right this minute – and our original HTC One X international edition review as well!
The HTC One VX comes with a 9.19 mm thin body and a 4.5-inch qHD display covered with Corning Gorilla Glass. The back of this device has a 5 megapixel camera able to capture 1080p video backed up with HTC’s own ImageSense processor – a separate processor entirely from the Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 dual-core processor under the hood. THis device also has Adreno 305 graphics, a 0.3 megapixel camera on the front, and a microSD card slot for memory expansion. Built-in storage for this device is 8 GB and you get 1GB of RAM to run the beast.
The HTC One X+ is an upgraded version of the original HTC One X for AT&T, this time coming with the processor that it had in its original international form: the NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core SoC with 4-PLUS-1 technology. This device bears the bragging rights for being the first to market with the combination of the Tegra 3 and Android 4.1 Jelly Bean – the Tegra 3 here being clocked at a massive 1.7GHz per core.
This device has a 4.7-inch 720p HD display and works with an 8 megapixel camera with the same HTC ImageSense chip that the whole of the HTC One series has brought to the market. This device comes in one iteration, bringing with it a massive 64GB of internal memory that, as AT&T puts it, “is non-partitioned to store more high quality photos, video, music, movies and apps however the user wants.”
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If you are rocking to the HTC One X from AT&T and have looked enviously at the direction of the Motorola Droid RAZR and Droid RAZR MAXX because both devices have already started to receive the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean update, fret not – it is also your turn to be on the receiving end of the delicious Jelly Bean update, where you will now be able to enjoy the benefits of Google Now on your once-a-flagship smartphone, in addition to the new and rich notifications of Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, not to mention a slight tweak made to the front-facing camera.
