What a masterpiece of a review. Damn well written, perhaps the best i have seen on the net ever.
Brian is in love, and it makes him write a personal review with energy, nerve and personality, as well as beeing a little blind imho
Here is what is interprete differently:
1. The camera situations does not imho reflect real world usage.
A. All that night shots, who does that? It reminds me of people trying to show the advantage of huge sensor. People sleep at night. I bring my phone to the bar, but i use the credit card.
B. The cameras problem with high-light clipping in normal outside sunshine, means you have to rely on the HDR mode anyway. The camera clips very fast.
You will have to rely on HDR inside as well as outside, as the dynamics is still very poor. For practical reasons for normal usage this phone does not pose the advantage the specs let us to beliewe.
C. The images are very unsharp outside of the middle. They are not a little soft. They are outrigt unsharp, and everyone will notice it. There is something wrong with the lens. There is plenty of Mpix in this camera, the problems is elsewhere.
D. The sensor gives some obvious advantages and Brian tries to show where it is good. I like that. But frankly if Sony had made this sensor the pictures would have been better. Just tell it.
I have high expectations, and i dont think it delivers. For many this is probably the best camera, with ois and low light capability, but taking pictures outside is simply worse, and you dont need to see them 1:1 to notice that, thats what my eyes tell me, but i am perhaps a little hysterical here. It all depends on your usage pattern ofcourse.
2. Low level cpu benchmarks does not translate into better user experience.
The low level benchmarks was surprising, i didnt expect that ipc improvement from krait 200. Sunspider and the webbrowsing bm, dont tell the story about the processor, but they do tell the most important part for speed on the phone: web browsing experience for the user.
Apple have excelled at that, and Samsung own browser simply makes a huge difference for perciewed speed. It needs to be told. All the cores, and high ipc, does not count if it does not translate into better user experience.
3. The looks is phonomenal, but it does have drawback that needs to be told.
It simply a problem the phone is a big as an S4, and still more heavy and more fat. Thats just so obvious a problem, and it needs to be told at the same time. A 4.7 screen is not 5 inch. It is not, and its easy to tell. The same goes for the weight.
Metals is hard on your hand. Your hand is hard on the metal. They dont like each other, so when the first sexual attraction is over, the first hangovers might come. And this phone is so georgeous putting a case on it should be forbidden.
CNC one piece aluminium is hard on the environment. I think Sony and HTC themselves have shown beatifull phones can be made of plactic. The problem of aluminium also leads to the next problem.
The economics of making it in alu is problematic. HTC will have problem following the cost of S4 as they lower the price. Where will they get the profit - or where will they save the money?
What often have been the case they will get it from lack of updates, and they will have difficulty lowering price of this phone.
4. Screen.
We simply needs some benchmarks that shows the benefit of Amoled. Larger pix on the phone gives much wanted dynamics, and Amoled have the same advantage. Go to Dxomark.com for a look, also for the phones. Take pictures with a good camera, and dynamics, and color dynamics is what makes the good picture. Its more important than low light ability.
Sum up
All in all I interprete some of the results differently. I like HTC deviate from the standard. I would love to have the phone in my hands and especially have a look on the screen, but its comming later to the market where i live
But thanx for a great read Brian
The review gets a platinium award