Hasta La Gadget!

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.”

Expect more HTC action as we hit up the HTC event tomorrow in New York City as well – seeya there bright and early right here on SlashGear!

AT&T HTC One X+ and VX pre-orders begin tomorrow is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

With an update that makes one change and one change only, T-Mobile and HTC have brought the HTC One S back in its true form: red under the hood with Micro Arc Oxidation through the body. This device now matches the original HTC One S’s hardware basically top to bottom, with a body that’s not just a standard metal, but a metal that’s gone through a process which makes it essentially impervious to everyday damage. This device is also being offered by T-Mobile for an undeniable price at the moment: absolutely free.

Having reviewed the original HTC One S earlier this year as well as the HTC One S T-Mobile edition later on, we can say that this machine is just about as awesome as it gets for Android. T-Mobile’s price point is absolutely crazy considering the quality of the hardware, and as our original judgement of the HTC One S stands, this version only brings our recommendation to check it out right back up to the top. The only difference between earlier this year and now is the collection of devices that’ve been released since, and it is that which you’ll need to consider in possibly picking this unit up from your local carrier.

The insides of this device appear to be exactly the same as the original. So similar, in fact, that every benchmark we’ve tested has come in line precisely with the original device. This means, of course, that the only changes that have been made have been in the software – and the original edition’s software updates bring that device up to par with this one just the same. Instead it’s all about that main bulk of metal on the back of this device – cured with Micro Arc Oxidation. Have a peek at this video of our mini-tour of the process as it was displayed at CTIA earlier this year:

Next feel free to see the fire in HTC’s own showing on how the process takes place. This process creates a unique surface on the device, making it more durable than your average device. Don’t expect to be able to cut it with a knife and come away unscathed, but still – it’s pretty hardcore.

Have a peek at the timeline below to see our other hands-on experiences with the HTC One series over the past few months and don’t forget to consider it amongst the rest of the top-tier choices at T-Mobile this Autumn. It’s got the same Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 dual-core processor in it as the Samsung Galaxy S III and Android 4.0.4 right out of the box – that’s Ice Cream Sandwich.

T-Mobile HTC One S MAO edition hands-on is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

The original HTC One S has finally made its way to T-Mobile from overseas, replacing the paint-covered Blue edition that’s been in stores since the launch. The international coverings for this machine are the same as we’d seen in the international edition of the machine here in Matte Black with Micro Arc Oxidation. This process, for those of you that weren’t around when the HTC One series was introduced earlier this year, makes the device just about as rough-and-tumble as they come, ready to take on the world without any protection from a 3rd party case – no worries!

The HTC One S also works with a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 dual-core processor and has a lovely 8-megapixel camera working with HTC’s own ImageSense processor under the hood. This combined with the Snapdragon S4′s dedicated architecture for image processing makes the HTC One S one of the most fabulous camera phones in the world. Once we get the device in for some hands-on time, we’ll do some comparisons to the rest of the modern-day contenders as well.

We have an HTC One S T-Mobile review up from earlier this year and you can expect similar results for this edition coming this week. Some differences here in the present are going to exist in the software department – any One S in the wild today with T-Mobile will have the upgrades present, but here with the MAO edition we’ll have them right out of the box – hot stuff.

You can also take a peek at our original HTC One S review from April of this year to see what this device is like with MAO. As Chris Davies said of the finish back then: “HTC is offering two finishes for the casing, either a graduated metallic green or, as is the case with our review unit, a so-called micro arc oxidized shell that has been heat-treated so as to be scratch resistant. Scrape up the rear panel with your fingernail and the marks just rub straight off, though our previous experience with a One S prototype suggests keys can still leave some noticeable marks if used in earnest against the phone.”

We’ll see if all of that is still true here in this new edition. We’re expecting essentially the same shell as that device back closer to the start of this year – stay tuned!

T-Mobile HTC One S re-issued for free (and in its true form) is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

HTC previously showed off a special edition One X geared toward fashionistas in New York City, and now it’s time for a slightly lesser-specced member of the numero uno family to get a somewhat similar treatment — we’re talking about the One S. And while the most noticeable characteristic of this “special edition” slab is obviously its new white livery, HTC has also made internal improvements by loading the 4.3-inch device with 64GB of internal storage — which should pair nicely alongside that 1.5GHz, dual-core S4 CPU and 1GB RAM. The only bad news is this unicorn type is expected to only be available in Taiwan, and mum’s the word on when, or if, it’ll ever make a trip outside the company’s home turf.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, HTC

HTC One S ‘special edition’ comes draped in white, boasts 64GB of storage originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 16 Oct 2012 17:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Back in January of 2012 a message was released by HTC’s UK chief Phil Robertson that made it clear how the manufacturer would be limiting the amount of devices they’d release in 2012 – what happened to that promise? The words relayed back then made it seem as though HTC would be going Apple’s way with a strategy that focused on a single phone – or perhaps a small collection of phones – that would be supported in ways that simply are not allowed by a strategy that includes phone after phone released in tight succession. This was an amazing opportunity for HTC – what happened?

Today HTC announced three more new phones, two of them part of the HTC One series – the HTC One X+, VX, and Windows Phone 8X – revealed earlier internationally, here coming to AT&T for the first time. The HTC One X+ is essentially a boosted version of the HTC One X, the One VX is essentially the equivalent of the One V, and the Windows Phone is a whole new device. Each of these devices look and feel nice, but they’re heartbreakers, each one of them – not in their quality, but in that they represent additional frays from the single device strategy.

“We had a fantastic year, with 65% growth year on year in the UK. But in Q4 we delivered a lot more products than in the past. Now we want to create more of a ‘hero’ approach. We make great phones, but it is hard to do that when the portfolio is spread too much. … So 2012 is about giving our customers something special. We need to make sure we do not go so far down the line that we segment our products by launching lots of different SKUs.” – Robertson

The closest we’ve gotten to a hero strategy as it was described earlier this year was the HTC One series as it stood in its first set of three, the HTC One X, V, and S. Then came the HTC EVO 4G LTE and the DROID Incredible 4G LTE and the whole show went down the drain. It should be clear why this happened – Sprint has the “EVO” brand that HTC relies on for sales on that carrier, the same being true of Verizon with both the “DROID” and “Incredible” brand names.

HTC has a hero strategy in place that’s different for each carrier. If they’d release one device – or even three devices like they did at the start of the One series, they’d have the power that not just Apple has with their iPhone, Samsung and their Galaxy S III and their Galaxy Note series as well. Make one phone and the money will flow.

What happened to the HTC Hero Device strategy? is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.