According to a report by Android Revolution, HTC One users can expect an update from the current Android 4.1 to 4.2.2 soon, with the international model already receiving the update.
“There were quite a lot of rumours about upcoming HTC Sense and Android 4.2.2 update for HTC One and HTC Butterfly. All were expecting HTC Sense 5.1 to show up, but instead, the version of HTC UI in latest Android 4.2.2 update is still 5.0,” wrote AndroidRevolution which got the screenshots of HTC One Android 4.2.2 update.
The new software release lands on handsets with some appealing new features packed inside, such as a percentage battery level indicator and extended quick settings, along with enhancements to Blinkfeed.
Android daydream and the ability to remove the docked icons are also coming to smartphone with the update. The ability to long press the home button for menu settings is another clever touch which is set to arrive on the One with Android 4.2.2.
This update adds the ability to work with Android-native sound profiles – aka EQS or equalizer controls. These controls can be found by tapping one’s EQS icon in the upper right corner of the notifications menu.
The HTC One was unveiled earlier this year as the company’s new flagship smartphone hosting a bundle of features including a 4.7-inch screen with a full HD resolution, 4MP camera, and two front-facing speakers for stereo sound.
Google’s Sundar Pichai while at D11 has made it clear that there indeed will be an HTC One running stock android 4.2.2 which will be launched and made available on June 26th via the Google Play store. For the US market this phone will come unlocked to GSM networks and will cost US $ 599 (approximately Rs. 34,000) vs the Samsung Galaxy S4 which is priced at US $ 649.
For global connectivity the Stock Android HTC One will offer quadband LTE (700/850/AWS/1900), triband HSPA+ (850/1900/2100) and the usual quadband GSM / EDGE. The Hardware will still be integrated with Beats audio and will retain the “two button on either side of the HTC logo” layout. The app list black bar will also be there along with the button press schemes. For the main buttons short press of Home for Home, long press for Google Now and double tap for Recent Apps.
Earlier reports of a larger HTC One have just been strengthened, thanks to a leaked spec sheet under distribution at HTC. The larger phone will not only have a larger display but a newer more impressive Quad Core 2.3 GHz Snapdragon 800 chipset (MSM8974).
Along with the new things will be features borrowed from the HTC One, including BoomSound, Blinkfeed, 16 GB Storage, 2 GB RAM and the oh-so-popular UltraPixel camera with OIS. Moreover the HTC T6 is rumored to have a dedicated pen / stylus input as well as a biometric fingerprint scanner around the back. MicroSD card expandability is also on the table but goes against all HTC norms.
The list also shows that the hardware will come with Android Key Lime Pie, however with the next revision being 4.3 (Jelly Bean ), either that information is inaccurate, or this HTC T6 is a far far away from being launched.
HTC One has started disappearing from shelves almost as soon as it hits them. The HTC One is one of the most anticipated Android Flagship devices in our country and it is truly getting the royal treatment.
The HTC One was launched back in April with stocks appearing on shelves only last week. Priced at Rs. 42,899 the handset has received great marks on reviews worldwide and from iGyaan. Several independent resellers and online e-commerce companies have confirmed that stocks are literally flying out from their physical and digital shelves as there is unprecedented demand for the HTC One.
Today the stocks are readily available as the company will officially open sale in their New Delhi Flagship store starting tomorrow. The HTC One can be had for about Rs. 42,000 or even slightly cheaper at local retailers who demand less margins and are willing to negotiate a little bit on the price.
The HTC One comes with a unibody Aluminum design which is built into a seamless unit which is 4mm at the slimmest and 9mm at the thickest. The New Blinkfeed UI lays out social feeds, news updates, calendar info, friends data and more right on the home screen of the phone in this new super smooth flowing interface.
HTC recently assured their spot on the Android maps with the HTC One, but the Taiwanese company’s passion for large displays will die hard, as proves the company’s new attempt to make the HTC One +. With major failures like the the HD 7 the Sensation XL, the company has seemingly revamped its strategy and will now launch a HTC One +. This big brother will be identical to the HTC One but will come with a larger display supposedly between the 5-6 inch mark, according to Pocket-lint.
An Independent iGyaan Source within HTC has confirmed that;
HTC does not have any major new devices for launch this year. The HTC One will remain the flagship just as the HTC One X did last year.
The HTC One + then seems likely, since the company is planning a strategy similar to last year, where the HTC One X + simply replaced the HTC One X and added few elements. The HTC One + will add a bigger screen and an 8 UltraPixel camera. The big HTC One + has been codenamed the M10 and is expected to be announced in the July-August time period.
HTC has also been in the news recently because of their management shuffle, and also for another device Codename M4 (which HTC denied outright), which supposedly will have a 4.3 inch display and a lesser spec’d hardware lineup.
Despite denying its existence, rumours persist of an HTC One “Google Edition”. During the Google I/O keynote address earlier this month, Google announced it was partnering with Samsung to bring a Galaxy S4 to Google Play that runs vanilla Android. While that particular device will only be available in the United States, it stoked the rumours that other manufacturers such as HTC would be getting in on the “almost-Nexus” game.
During the keynote, one of HTC’s PR mavens intimated that there would be a similar model of the One released with stock Android, presumably a newer version than is currently running on the device. But official channels quashed the rumour, leading to a short cessation of any talk.
In recent days, though, several sites including Geek.com and Android Central have independently confirmed that such a device does exist, and will be announced in the coming weeks.
The news comes from Geek.com’s Russell Holly, who claims that “multiple sources” are saying that HTC has plans to launch a stripped-down version of its flagship handset.
This comes after a string of negative press, including several executives leaving the company, news of relatively underwhelming sales of the One, and indications that its Facebook phone, the First, has been unceremoniously discontinued.
It’s likely that HTC is going ahead with the project after seeing the positive reaction to the stock Galaxy S4, aware that there is a global market for devices running unblemished Android and, perhaps more importantly, ones that receive updates directly from Google.
One thing to keep in mind about an HTC One “Google Edition” is that it will unlikely be sold in India. The same thing is true of the HTC One Developer Edition and the upcoming Play Store Galaxy S4, so you’re going to need a source in the United States to obtain one.
While the HTC One has been well received critically and by the public, sales have still lagged significantly behind those of rivals Samsung and Apple.
The company was also forced to admit it would be postponing the launch of the HTC First in the UK. It blamed poor customer feedback in the US for the move.
If HTC does release a One running stock Android, would you buy one?
HTC has been having some success with their newest flagship smartphone – the HTC One. Amidst falling revenues and several key executives departing, an unknown HTC executive spoke to the Wall Street Journal and calmed the naysayers, declaring that the sales of the all-aluminum Android hit “around 5 million” since launching a month ago.
The HTC rep noted that sales would have been higher if there wasn’t supply issues, namely the camera components. “Orders are pretty good so far and are still more than what we can supply. This is partly due to the shortage of components. When the issue is resolved next month, we will have a better idea if it’s doing really well or not.”
The HTC One is going head-to-head with other popular smarptphones, such as the Samsung Galaxy S4 (just passed 10 million in sales in one month), Nokia Lumia 920, Apple iPhone 5, Sony Xperia Z, LG Optimus G and the Nexus 4.
HTC has seen several executives depart in the past week. HTC confirmed to Engadget that;
HTC can confirm that Lennard Hoornik has left HTC to pursue other interests. We appreciate his contributions to our South Asia efforts over the past year and wish him all the best. HTC’s CFO, Chialin Chang will provide interim leadership in this strategic region while we work to find a permanent solution.”
Also according to reports Head of Global Digital Service Elizabeth Griffin will also be leaving HTC later this week to join Nintendo. Looks like HTC’s “executive worries” are just beginning.
It seems HTC is following in Samsung’s footsteps of dual sim Quad-core devices, as the Taiwanese company just announced the Desire 600. The Desire 600 gets most of the features from Sense 5 and the HTC One, including the popular Blinkfeed, along with some nifty camera and video features minus the ZOE camera feature. Spec wise there is a 1.2GHz Snapdragon 200 quad-core processor, an 8-megapixel primary camera capable of up to 720p video capture and a front-facing 1.6-megapixel shooter.
The front comes with a 4.5-inch Super LCD2 display (at 960 x 540 resolution),The Desire 600 picks up the same dual front-facing speaker setup of the One called BOOMSOUND,expecting a global launch of the phone, it’s currently headed to Russia, Ukraine and the Middle-East for now.
There is no word whether or not this handset will come to India, and we have reached out to HTC for an official word, as we believe it would fit right in under the Rs. 20,000 Price mark. But, considering HTC’s executive shuffle, we doubt that there will be some concrete news.
[toggle title=”Press Release”]HTC Desire 600 dual sim boosts the acclaimed Desire series
Quad-core processor, true dual SIM convenience and HTC BlinkFeed™ bring premium performance and versatility to the mid-range market
HTC, a global leader in mobile innovation and design, has today unveiled the new HTC Desire 600 dual sim, the first mid-range handset to offer HTC’s latest Sense 5 experience; HTC BlinkFeed and HTC BoomSound, most recently launched as part of the award-winning HTC One. Taking full advantage of Android Jelly Bean, the new model also offers super-fast quad-core performance, while the advanced Video Highlights feature enables maximum creativity at a more affordable price tag.
“People rely on their smartphones every day to be their news channel, email inbox, social network and music player,” said Peter Chou, CEO of HTC Corporation. “The HTC Desire 600 dual sim combines speed and easy multitasking with the truly innovative HTC BlinkFeed home screen. The result is an affordable mid-range phone that sets the standard for its class, keeping the busiest user up-to-date at a glance and offering them the power and range of features to switch between work and play.”
A smartphone designed to keep pace with life Sporting a 1.2 GHz quad-core processor, the HTC Desire 600 dual sim is able to support even the busiest of lifestyles. Capable of high-speed multitasking, super-fast web browsing and graphic-intense gaming, it offers exceptional performance whatever the task.
Dual SIM card holders give you the freedom of having two phones in one, making it easy to switch between multiple mobile accounts and keep you up to speed with all the elements of your world. Running the “dual active” system, the HTC Desire 600 dual sim allows you to have two SIM cards active all the times, enabling you to receive a call on one line, even if you are already using the other.
HTC BlinkFeed: Your favourite content live on your home screen The HTC Desire 600 dual sim brings HTC’s acclaimed BlinkFeed to the Desire range. Transforming the home screen into a customisable stream of live information, HTC BlinkFeed is displayed on a stunning 4.5″, super LCD2 display and aggregates social streams and news, providing the freshest content at a glance.
Drawing on local and global content from more than 1,400 media sources, BlinkFeed draws on more than 10,000 articles per day from some of the world’s leading media companies including AOL, ESPN, MTV, The Financial Times and Reuters.
Video Highlights: Bringing your moments to life HTC Video Highlights allows you to turn a day out into an entire experience that you can keep forever. Taking images captured on either the 8MP rear-facing or 1.6 MP front-facing camera, the HTC Desire 600 dual sim automatically creates professional-looking 30-second show reels without the need for advanced editing software. Simply select a music theme, alter the sequences and share your life movie with friends, family and social networks with a single tap of the screen.
HTC BoomSound: Sound you’ll want to share The dual front-facing speakers of the HTC Desire 600 dual sim allow you to experience mobile entertainment as it is meant to be enjoyed. Complete with exclusive built-in amplifiers, whether you’re listening to music, watching movies or playing games, the speakers, which minimise distortion, offer a sharper, richer, wholly immersive smartphone sound. Beats Audio™ integration also takes the audio quality to the next level guaranteeing an experience as intense and high-powered as the device itself.
EMEA Availability The new HTC Desire 600 dual sim will be available with mobile operators and major retailers in Russia, Ukraine and MEA from early June 2013. For more information visit www.htc.com.[/toggle]
HTC is headed towards turbulent times it appears as more Key Execs depart HTC to pursue other interests. Asia CEO Lennard Hoornik, has also left the company, the news was later confirmed by HTC. This news comes after yesterdays report of VP of Global Communications and Chief Product Officer quitting. According to CNET, the CEO of HTC Asia Lennard Hoornik has also relieved his post, with regional CFO Chia-Lin Chang taking the reins until a formal replacement is named. Hoornik, who joined HTC from Sony Ericsson, also took care of India operations and was one of the key introducers at major launches around the Asia region.
The news also claims, that Lennard Hoornik was absent for over two months before the confirmation of his departure, considering that news, he was either let go, or chose to go on his own.
HTC confirmed to Engadget that;
HTC can confirm that Lennard Hoornik has left HTC to pursue other interests. We appreciate his contributions to our South Asia efforts over the past year and wish him all the best. HTC’s CFO, Chialin Chang will provide interim leadership in this strategic region while we work to find a permanent solution.”
Also according to reports Head of Global Digital Service Elizabeth Griffin will also be leaving HTC later this week to join Nintendo. Looks like HTC’s “executive worries” are just beginning.
HTC is facing the major financial crunch, and the outlook of the ever prosperous handset maker may not be so prosperous after all. Jason Gordon, HTC’s vice president of global communications, revealed on Twitter that he ended almost 7 year long tenure with the handset maker last Friday, but didn’t divulge why he left or what his future plans include.
Now, according to The Verge and multiple online resources Chief Product Officer Kouji Kodera has also resigned which takes behind several other executives, that have decided to leave HTC and take their business elsewhere.
HTC’s CEO Peter Chou had blamed poor marketing for holding the company back in 2012, due to which Chief Marketing Officer Ben Ho’s said to be moving the outfit’s planning and strategy back to its Taipei HQ. This could be a major reason for all the power shift in the company.
HTC has enjoyed a lot of fame due to their Windows Phone series last year and the “One” this year. But, due to lack of deliveries, and slow downs due to production quality HTC has alost a major chunk of their market share to korean manufacturer Samsung.
One of the most desired smart phones, the HTC ONE has officially gone on sale in India. The HTC One is available for a Price of Rs. 42900 with no schemes or discounts offered as of now.
iGyaan reviewed the HTC One a couple of days back, and you can see the Review Here. The HTC One is powered by a 2300 mAh non – replaceable battery, the HTC One carries a Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 Chipset with a wonderfully snappy QuadCore 1.7 GHz CPU. The Graphics are provided by a Adreno 320 GP which remains superior in terms of Mobile Graphics rendering. This intense capability is supported by 2GB of RAM and 32 or 64 GB of storage.
HTC has been flirting with Android phones from the beginning of the Ecosystem, But they only recently picked up pace thanks to the HTC One Series. The new HTC One, also referred to as the M7 is a beginning of a whole new design philosophy for the company. Does the HTC One feature all that is required to be the king of the robotic Jungle? Lets Find out.
Build Quality and Design
[pullquote_left]Ecstatic Expression on your Face![/pullquote_left]From the moment you handle the HTC One for the first time, you get this ecstatic expression on your face, you are wow’d by the design and simply amazed by the display. A shiver passes through your hands as you feel the Unibody design fit inside you hand almost perfectly as if it was designed for it.
The HTC One is cast from a single shell unibody Aluminum block, that curves at the back but is flat in the front. The two network bands that run across the back add network strength and aesthetic value to the complete mixture. Also embedded in the back is a subtle HTC logo.
The build, although very tough and robust, feels very damage friendly. The front has Gorilla Glass 2 , but does not have a lay on the table design, in other words if you lay the phone on the screen, the glass will touch the surface that you lay the phone on. The phone seems so metallic in-fact, that every time you hold it, you worry about it getting dented, if you nick it against a door or a table edge. The fear quickly goes away as you start to use the phone and realize how tough, and scratch resistant the back of the phone is.
The Design strategy infuses the technology they learnt in making the HTC Windows Phone 8 and a mix of their research and experience with metals in the past with their Desire series. The HTC One is a perfect balance, of build quality, design, aesthetic and that wonderful Awe factor it causes in you everytime you pick it up.
[pullquote_left]right fuse of external and internal[/pullquote_left]HTC has packed the HTC One with just the right amount of specs. Even when a product can never be ahead of technology, the HTC One is a right fuse of external and internal technology. Powered by a 2300 mAh non – replaceable battery, the HTC One carries a Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 Chipset with a wonderfully snappy QuadCore 1.7 GHz CPU. The Graphics are provided by a Adreno 320 GP which remains superior in terms of Mobile Graphics rendering. This intense capability is supported by 2GB of RAM and 32 or 64 GB of storage.
The Back features an Ultrapixel Camera which has a larger pixel size, making it sufficient at just 4 MP, and the front features a 2.1 MP snapper, both capture full HD video. The main camera is also assisted by an LED flash.
The Gorgeous front features a 4.7 inch 1920 x 1080p IPS LCD 3 display with an intense 469 ppi making is one of the highest pixel density phones in the market.
UltraPixel Camera on the HTC ONE
Ultrapixel is a word that does not exist in the dictionary, or at least that was the case before the HTC One. The camera comprises of a larger sensor and a larger size of the pixels that combine together to form the sensor. The camera combined with the software on the inside of the HTC One the is able to capture extremely high detail in an image. The large sensor and pixel size also opens up the sensor to low light subjects, allowing for better image quality in dim lighting conditions.
The images come out extremely sharp to about a 8×12 inch size, post which you will see degradation of the images.
We found that the Video Captured by the HTC One is wonderfully vivid and captured without any stutter, rolling shutter was at a minimum and almost no aliasing was seen in the video. The Autofocus keeps jumping in and out during video especially if you are close to your subject, this can be painfully bothersome while recording or even while playing back. This is however fixed by turning off Continuos AF during video capture at the cost of loss of focus.
The HTC Zoe feature within the camera is a wonderful add on, not only does it create beautiful timelines and videos demonstrating your photo groups it also allows you to modify pictures, remove photo bombers, and a lot more. This truly enables a social sharer to stay on top of his game adding just a right amount of usefulness.
We did a comparison of the cameras of the top smartphones, and HTC One performed excellently well in low light and landscape capture.
Here is where we begin to applaud HTC again, whether the BlinkFeed UI is useful or not, HTC with their new ONE has attempted to totally change the norm. While most companies just upgrade the UI, HTC revamps it time and again. They changed it with Sense 4.0 and now they changed it again with the new BlinkFeed on Sense 5.0.
[pullquote_right]practicality and ingenuity[/pullquote_right]A lot of previous owners will complain at the removal of features of the past HTC Sense UI. But, the new experience is a great mix of practicality and ingenuity. Blinkfeed on the HTC One is nothing more than an aggregator, it collects your favorite news streams, your Social Networks and even your connections to display them in a beautiful, seamless, Flipboard-esque interface which will also remind you of the Windows Phone UI.
App Drawer
Weather Widget
Phone Dialer
BlinkFeed
Keyboard
LockScreen
The information is clean and laid out quickly and beautifully, almost making you go back to it again and again. The other features of HTC Sense are also found in the UI, the Music App, Car Mode, Flashlight App, big chunky widgets and the oh so famous Weather / Flip clock widget are all there.
The HTC TV app is not currently available in India, and currently cannot be manually configured. The Power button does have an IR blaster inbuilt so it does function as a remote, but the functionality will be added at a later time. You should possibly be able download 3rd party apps to enable this feature soon.
The HTC One has a gorgeous 1920 x 1080p display, and honestly it looks absolutely stunning, even outdoors. The LCD3 technology with an IPS panel and extremely high pixel density set it apart for the mix. The Screen floats right on top with the touch panel, thanks to the fused display technology borrowed from LG, touching the HTC One feels like touching the elements of the display.
[pullquote_right]eliminates muffling[/pullquote_right]Watching Videos, playing games and other forms of media is fantastic thanks to HTC BoomSound, a wonderful thought of putting the Stereo Speakers in a forward facing manner, makes the audio extremely accurate and clear. It also eliminates muffling due to accidental finger touches and is easily heard especially while playing games.
The HTC One also contains a FM radio which does require a headset to be connected for reception. Audio from the included earphones is absolutely great and in the history of in box earphones, these have to be one of the better ones if not the best. Beats audio is available throughout the array of hardware that you can connect to the Smartphone.
Performance and Battery
The HTC One came out on top in terms of performance tests. The hardware is quite capable of handling all the tasks that you can throw at it with wonderful accuracy and flair. The chipset can handle, multitasking, heavy gaming and performance tasks with ease and still have power to calculate under formulas.
Benchmarks for the early developer build beat all scores of the market at the time. For reference the latest build of the HTC One scores a fantastic 12030 on Quadrant, without tweaks of any kind.
The phone does heat up a lot with extended use, which is normal for any smartphone, but the extended use of metals is what makes it uncomfortable to hold or even pocket.
Battery on the HTC One is wonderfully managed by the interface, when not in use (aka; standby) the phone barely drains at all unlike other Android devices, the Blinkfeed can be configured to refresh manually to even improve battery life a tad bit more. Often times we found battery life to be good enough to go on into day two.
[tabgroup]
[tab title=”Battery Life with 3G ON” icon=”icon-headphones”]Talk time : 5 Hours Standby : 48 Hours Gaming : 3.5 Hours Online : 6 hours Music 8 hours[/tab]
[tab title=”Battery Life with 3G OFF” icon=”icon-headphones”]Talk time : 6 Hours Standby : 54 Hours Gaming : 3.5 Hours Online : 6 hours (wifi) Music 8.5 hours[/tab]
[/tabgroup]
Phone and Networks
HTC has always been able to handle networks and phone capabilities in their devices, same is the case for the HTC One. The networks remained strong throughout and audio whether incoming or outgoing was crisp as ever. In our days of testing the phone, we had but only a few dropped calls, which can easily be blamed on the lack of network coverage.
HTC has kept it usual features for phone capabilities, loud ringer in the pocket, flip to mute etc are all included making handling of phone calls an easy recipe.
Conclusion
The HTC One is not a perfect smartphone, no smartphone is. But the HTC One, comes as close as it can to delivering a perfect balance between many elements that make up todays smartphone. It is a flagship so it is priced high, but with that price it brings about a sense of achievement, a sense of ownership and pride. A mixed bag of feelings and emotions emerge when you hold and use the HTC One for the first time. Most people cannot stop themselves from passing a smile when they first handle this behemoth of a device. A great phone, a wonderful crisp display enabling a joyful multimedia device and a performance warehouse of the tech junkie. Sure it lacks a lot of software patches and gimmicks, but in entirety of usage it lacks almost nothing.
The HTC One is a beautiful phone – certainly the best that the company has produced. According to a post by the reputable Evleaks, HTC will be bringing the same quality of design to those looking seeking a mid-range device. This is the same strategy they did with the HTC One X and the One S.
This picture above, which has leaked online before, is of an all-aluminum device that currently goes by the code name of the “HTC M4″ (before the HTC One launched it was known as the M7). It’s reminiscent of the flagship One, but the specs have been scaled down. The HTC M4 reportedly sports a 4.3-inch 720p display, dual-core processor, 16GB of internal storage, 2GB of RAM and an UltraPixel camera.
Rumour has it that the upcoming HTC M4 will land on shelves with a 1700 mAh, non-removable battery packed inside, and that it will be released with Google’s Android 4.2 Jelly Bean loaded on top right from the start.
The HTC M4 is expected to be announced sometime “near the end of the second quarter.” If true, you can almost expect availability in India, but no official word.
PhoneArena, the site posting the picture, also says that the HTC M4 will have 4G LTE capabilities, but likens it to the Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini.
For the time being, however, no official info on the smartphone has been provided, and it remains to be seen whether the rumored hardware specs mentioned above will indeed pan out. More details on the upcoming HTC M4 smartphone should emerge soon, so stay tuned to learn the news.
2013 (well 2012-end to be precise) ushered in a new era in the smartphone world. That of 1080p Full-HD displays. The HTC One, HTC Butterfly, Samsung Galaxy S4 etc all come equipped with what many would call the next step to smartphone greatness. But is it so? Or is it all just a big marketing gimmick?
This was a rather natural move, the one to Full-HD diplays, a move we all expected manufacturers to make.
When the Apple iPhone 4 was launched, with a new “high resolution display”, Steve Jobs decided that the best name for it would be the ‘Retina Display’, by dearth of the fact it was meant to be so high-res that it’s actually more than the eye can cope with. It had a PPI of 326, so high that individual pixels were indistinguishable to the human eye at normal viewing distances!
PPI is an actual count of the number of pixels found in one inch of a display, which varies depending on the resolution of the display and the overall size of the display.
The pixellation difference between the iPhone 3GS (left), and the Retina Display of the iPhone 4.
The difference was there for all to see. Consumers were mesmerized by the clarity and sharpness of these displays. More text would show up on the screen at once, and higher-resolution images show in full on a 720p screen.
[pullquote_left] Life seemed perfect. [/pullquote_left]
The focus of manufacturers shifted from WVGA (800*480) to 720p (720*1280) displays. Companies like Samsung, HTC, LG began churning out phone after phone equipped with what they all claimed were the best displays on the market!
People rejoiced, gone were the days of pixelated displays and watering eyes. Everyone started enjoying browsing the web and reading content on their smartphones now. Life seemed perfect.
Difference between zoomed in text on a WVGA display, and a 720p display.
But as is the case with almost everything that us homo sapiens do, we wanted more. HTC duly obliged and up came the HTC Butterfly,
In addition to an impressive spec sheet and super-sized proportions, the HTC Butterfly packed the world’s first smartphone-sized 1080p Full-HD display, a five-inch Super LCD 3 boasting an insane 440 pixels per inch. Boy were we all excited!
Honestly though, once we got over all those amazing marketing lines that HTC threw at us, all that related to a Full-HD display and the massive ppi, we wondered about how useful these new displays truly were.
I had a chance to test the Butterfly soon after and was surprised at how unimpressed I was when I saw the screen. Don’t get me wrong, it’s beautiful. It’s ridiculously sharp, everything looks perfect on it, and the sample videos that come with it truly show off what a 5″ 1080p Full-HD display is capable of, video-wise.
Despite all of that though, my reaction to it was more one of confirming what I was already expecting than it was one that blew me away. I still remember the first time I saw an iPhone 4; I was amazed at how good it looked. I didn’t get that with the Butterfly, because I fully expected it to look that way.
[pullquote_right]Back in February, Richard Yu, head of Huawei’s mobile division, claimed that a 1080p Full-HD display that is smaller than 5 inches didn’t make sense, as the human eye would be incapable of positively identifying the difference between that and a 720p panel.[/pullquote_right]
Post the launch of the latest smartphones like the HTC One and the Galaxy S4, I realised, it’s more of a psychological effect than a physical one. If today someone was to go out and buy a smartphone with a 720p display, it would keep playing at the back of his/her head that there is another phone out there in the world which has an even better display, scientifically at least, than the one he/she is getting by paying a premium price for that smartphone. Even if that means lesser battery life and more GPU usage.
And we can’t really blame ourselves, for the way these Full-HD displays are advertised, we can’t help but feel we’re missing out on something.
All that aside, it’s tough to see why anything substantially over 300ppi, the limit Apple initially cited as the “Retina” threshold, is even necessary. If pixels are indistinguishable at 300ppi, are they going to be more indistinguishable at the latest smartphones’ 440+ ppi?
It’s safe to assume now though that a Full-HD display will be the saturation point as far as screen resolution is concerned, and we hope manufacturers would now shift their focus on improving other aspects of smartphones such as battery life, durability, audio, OS, performance etc.
In conclusion, it’s clear that you can’t really differentiate between a 1080p Full-HD display and a 720p one. Yet we may find ourselves shelling out a bit more money to get a Full-HD “revolutionary” device than what we would on an equally capable 720p one. It’s all good marketing and the need for us humans to have the best of everything (even if that is not the case) in the end. At this point, it feels more like a bragging right than a feature that can make our lives better.
HTC Corp reported a record-low quarterly profit on Monday that missed analysts’ estimates after it delayed the full launch of its 2013 flagship smartphone model, the HTC One which will now debut against Samsung Electronics’ newest Galaxy.
A shortage of cameras meant HTC managed to introduce its latest HTC One phone in just three markets by the end of the first quarter instead of the planned 80. It does not expect to kick off sales across Europe, North America and the Asia-Pacific region before the end of April.
Samsung Electronics Co Ltd has said its Galaxy S4 will be available in 155 countries by the end of April.
HTC said its unaudited net profit was T$85 million ($2.85 million) in its January-March first quarter, compared with T$1 billion in the prior quarter and T$10.9 billion in the same period last year. It was the lowest since HTC began reporting quarterly profits in 2004.
The Taiwanese smartphone maker was expected to post a net profit of T$467.5 million, according to the average forecast of 18 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
First-quarter revenue was T$42.8 billion, lower than the T$50-60 billion range that HTC had forecast in February. Revenue in the fourth quarter was T$60 billion.
“As the company is in the middle of a product launch, lumpy monthly numbers can easily be explained by the phasing of product ramp ups and wind down, “Bernstein analyst Pierre Ferragu said in an investor’s note today, “but such a low number likely reflects a significant further loss of traction in the market.”
HTC will launch it’s flagship smartphone, the HTC One in India for a price of Rs.42,990. The smartphone will start shipping by the end of this month.
