New HTC Flagship Has Something For Every One

HTC’s One line first debuted last February at Mobile World Congress. While there were some spec bumps in the form of the One V+ and VX in 2012 and variants in the form of the EVO 4G LTE and the Droid DNA, HTC has managed to wait the year out before introducing the follow up to the HTC One. What’s the follow up called? The HTC One.

While the name may be the same, that’s about it. Reviewers were impressed by the previous generation One’s screen, and you can expect them to be blown away by the 1080p 4.7″ display on the new One. We’re talking 468 ppi. Other specs are in the same impressive range, with a quad-core processor running at 1.7 GHz, 32 GB of storage, 2 GB RAM, and an impressive 2300 mAh battery. The latter is  important to me, as the only issue I had with the EVO 4G LTE was battery life. Sprinkle in the usual Bluetooth, WiFi, NFC, and GPS for good measure, plus the interesting bonus of an infrared blaster that will potentially let the One serve as a TV remote for several popular sets and set-top boxes, and the new HTC One shows a jump in quality from its previous version.

There’s also been an update to HTC’s Android skin, Sense. Sense 5 will feature “Blinkfeed”, which is:

[A] bold new experience that transforms the home screen into a single live stream of personally relevant information such as social updates, entertainment and lifestyle updates, news and photos with immersive images so that people no longer need to go to separate applications to find out what’s happening.

Everyone who thinks this sounds like a cross between Flipboard and Windows Phone 8’s Live tiles, raise your hand. As the two aforementioned services are less than perfect, it will be interesting to see HTC’s contribution. HTC has a pedigree here, because Sense has had social widgets since back when it was called HTC Home and ran on Windows Mobile.

Really does look like Flipboard and WP8 had a love child, though.

Sense 5 will run on the latest version of Android, codenamed Jelly Bean. It’s unclear if this will be 4.1, the first version, or the newer 4.2. Either way, it makes one wonder if we’ll see Sense/Android updates on the first generation One handsets or if this will be exclusive to the 2013 HTC Ones.

HTC has also continued to tweak the camera and sound functions of the One, with the goal of making this a true multimedia powerhouse. One feature, curiously called HTC Zoe, gives the ability to turn photos into three-second clips of some kind. This sounds a lot like an animated GIF maker, not exactly everyone’s requested killer app. More interesting is the updated camera hardware on the One, which sounds like it’s an improvement over the already great camera experience in the 4G LTE.

Stylish, even without a kickstand.

The One will be coming “soon” to most major wireless carriers in March, which is just around the corner. Verizon is curiously absent from any PR that has come out, but Sprint is so excited that they issued a separate press release. Historically, both Verizon and Sprint have had variants of HTC’s phones, and Sprint in particular has been using them as flagship devices. It will be interesting to see if Verizon will come late to the party or not at all. AT&T and T-Mobile will also carry the One, along with several regional carriers.

HTC made a wise choice to continue with last year’s One branding and has loaded it with specs that make it feel like next year’s phone. Will you make the HTC One your phone?