HTC One S Pro Reviews

In line with the intent to simplify its phone portfolio, HTC has made the One series trio pretty distinct from each other, and the final verdict in our One X vs One S comparison is very easy. If you are a sucker for large and brilliant HD screens, you won't be bothered by the HTC One X's dimensions or the about 100 bucks (or euros) price premium, and grab it without second thoughts. It's light and comes with 32GB of memory to soothe your non-expandable storage pains, not to mention the better picture-taking. If you are any other type of smartphone shopper, though, and that's the vast majority of people, we'd recommend you stick with the HTC One S – it is stunningly compact for a 4.3-incher, making one-handed operation easier, and also has a premium feel in the hand thanks to its thin ceramic metal or anodized aluminum chassis. You'll have to make do with 16GB of internal memory, but if you are eying any of those two, you are likely not bothered by their lack of memory card slots and non-removable batteries anyway.

Like the HTC One X, the One S exhibits sensational design. It's a great handset both in terms of how it looks and how it performs. It might technically not be the company's flagship device, but aside from the screen, you'd never know that. As such, if you're pondering whether to buy the One X or the One S, then the choice seems clear: get the one you feel most comfortable holding. The One S will be better suited to smaller hands, but the trade-off is that you don't get the stunning screen of the One X. Put up against rival devices, the HTC One S will acquit itself well. With HTC Sense offering a huge amount right out of the box, the tweaks that HTC has made to its software UI both improve the experience from previous devices, while maintaining most of that Android feel, if not the native looks. Purists, of course, will argue that HTC Sense doesn't bring much that the right apps won't give you, but it's the small additions that make the difference. Naturally, the keyboard can be bettered and we found that the network streaming didn't work as it should, but neither are insurmountable: SwiftKey and Skifta solve these problems. In short, about the only thing that stands in the way of the One S is the choice of display. You can get a better, higher-definition, display at this size, but accepting that limitation, the HTC One S is an excellent handset.

HTC’s One S is the thinnest, fastest high-end phone we’ve seen to date and the new aluminum-turned-ceramic material feels great. One can argue that the phone looks a bit bland, it sticks with HTC’s traditional design and it will not turn heads, but this is a matter of taste. The camera is the best we’ve seen in this screen size and the phone performed admirable in all tasks and benchmarks, sometimes even outpacing the quad core Tegra 3. Some people will find HTC’s One X a bit too large and this is exactly the target group for the HTC One S. It’s a great phone, and although it does not have the best screen out there, it makes up with a very good processor, excellent camera and unparalleled build quality. It feels great in your hand, it’s comfortable to use, and generally it is a great phone, one of the best we’ve seen. Downsides include limited storage, but HTC aims to make up for it with 25GB of Dropbox storage. It would be nice if HTC worked out a way to use volume buttons as a camera shutter button.

The HTC One S might be the middle child in the new One lineup, but it can’t realistically be called mid-range just because the screen is qHD instead of HD. Upper mid-range would be a good fit, if you are a categorization nazi. We loved the compact and sturdy design with a very light and premium feel. In fact, the One S feels higher-end in the hand with its sexy slim metal body, toned by the anodized coating, than the flagship One X, made of fancy plastic. We also liked the very good call quality and the camera speeds (although the images themselves left a lot to be desired). All in all, we love the new trend in higher-end phones to pay attention to shooting speeds, as the phone often becomes your main camera when out and about, and, while nobody expects stellar results from a phone image sensor, we can at least get some speed now, and sometimes that's all you need for an impromptu shot. The new HTC Sense 4.0 is slimmed down, and runs peppy under the boost from the latest Snapdragon S4, which has a surprisingly good for Qualcomm new graphics processor. The OLED screen is a bit tacky to look at in the interface with its oversaturated colors, but when watching video these vivid colors, the pitch blacks and the deep contrast will make you want to throw your average cheap laptop with their terrible washed out displays out of the window.

It’s tough not to like the HTC One S’ physical feel. The design is subtle and discrete; it’s more how the smartphone feels in your hand that proves alluring. HTC’s metal-bodied phones have always felt sturdy, but the combination of sub-8mm thinness in a flex-free chassis add up to a device that feels more of a premium product than the true One X flagship manages. That’s not to say there aren’t compromises to be made. The AMOLED screen is clear and highly usable, but HTC had the chance to push the One S well ahead of the pack by opting for 720p resolution, and in comparison the qHD that was settled upon feels just average. It’s a perfectly fine display, but nothing more than that. No NFC seems short-sighted, too, and what we find subtle about the design, others might consider simply dull.