Adjudged to be the best designed phone android phone earlier this year, HTC has taken their flagship One phone to the maximum and thus gives rise to the HTC ONE MAX. Same internals as the One with more of what consumers want i.e more screen real estate and great sound. The HTC One Max is as the name connotes a giant of a phone coming in at 5.9 inches.
DESIGN
The design of the One max deviates from the One and borrows heavily from the One mini. The aluminium is still around but it has plastic wraparound encasing the display much as the one mini but with a surprise additon, a removable back cover. Don’t get your hopes high beacuse the removable back cover only gives access only to insert a Microsim or two(for China) or a microSD card but not to the battery sa it is inbuilt. There wouldn’t be any need to be hot swapping batteries because it has a generous 3,300mAH battery and can reportedly last a full day and a half before reaching for your charger again.
More After The Jump…
Still on the of the back, the One max sports the same camera found on the One. With the reappearance of the 4-megapixel Ultrapixel on the One max comes a missing key component as compared to the original One: Optical Image Stabilization (OIS) which affects the phhoto when shooting from an unstable place though even with the addition of this feature on the One, it’s camera is not exactly outstanding.
Just beneath the lense of the camera is also a new feature: a Fingerprint scanner. First of all the placement of the scanner makes it quite easy to smudge the lense of the camera whenever you want to enter the phone as you have to swipe to open. And with the swipe too comes additional discomfort that is a vertical swipe which requires several attempts for it to recognise your fingerprint as your hands are at an angle to it. But there is a ray of hope in that you can enrol up to 3 different fingerprints. The implementation of the fingerprint scanner is according to the Verge review ” clumsy, awkward and comfortably in line with the long history of failed attempts at making this technology work”. My question is why not put the scanner somewhere on the quite proportionate front side of the phone?
On the right side resides a new tweak that consumers have been long awaiting to come and a first for HTC. The power button has shifted to the side of the One max with the volume rocker resting just above it and the IR emitter still staying on top and that’s all for physiacal controls.
On the front can be found the stereo Boomsound. It’s identical to the one on the One but in this case it gives you more volume by being larger in volumewhich makes it easily the greatest sounding phone. And it comes noticeably without the Beats logo which signifies a lack of Beats software and as the Verge puts it ” for anyone that cares about sound fidelity, that’s addition by subtraction”.
The Super LCD display remains unchanged from the One and One mini. The 1080p 5.9 inch display is a pleasure to behold and keeps in line with HTC’s reputation of using the best panels available. It’s up there with the rest though and not that special.
SOFTWARE
The One max comes with Sense 5.5, built atop Android 4.3 but now HTC gives you the the option to take away Blinkfeed from the homescreen which will be a big relief for some who can’t find a use for it. The spec sheet is largely identical to that of the One. The Snapdragon 600 processor that powers the One is still featured, running four cores and a 1.7GHz max speed but Sony and Samsung have been able to fit the much faster Snapdragon 800 processor within the Z Ultra devices and the Note 3 respectively. But the One max beats them comfortably with it’s battery which can last a day and half or two if it’s pushed to the max.
VERDICT
The HTC One max doesn’t have a lot going for it though there are a few nice additions here and there, with some obviously not being well thought of. You would be better off with the more compact beast in the shape of the original One and as the Verge review sums it up ” if you want a large screen device you can go for Samsung’s Galaxy Note 3 which does a better job at almost everything while also being smaller amd lighter” to boot.
Tags: HTC, HTC ONE, HTC ONE MAX, HTC ONE MINI, SAMSUNG GALAXY NOTE 3, SONY XPERIA Z ULTRA
