HTC One X and One S reviews

[Red Storm]

I always felt kind of puzzled when people say things like HTC's recent devices have been pretty bad. Honestly I think the Rezound is waaaaaay better than the Galaxy S2. It's so underrated. I don't understand why it didn't get 100 times the hype it received. First 720P display phone, to date it has the highest pixels per inch of any phone, non pentile, it has a better camera than the iPhone 4S, supports 4G LTE, supports simultaneous voice and data over 3G and 4G on Verizon, removable battery, microSD support, dual core 1.5Ghz Snapdragon S3(it's no Exynos but it's still very fast), comes with a very decent pair of ear buds, etc..

It comes with Sense. That alone is enough for me to say "No thanks."

 

[dguy6789]

Edited :3

 

[lothar]

I always felt kind of puzzled when people say things like HTC's recent devices have been pretty bad. Honestly I think the Rezound is waaaaaay better than the Galaxy S2. It's so underrated. I don't understand why it didn't get 100 times the hype it received. First 720P display phone, to date it has the highest pixels per inch of any phone, non pentile, it has a better camera than the iPhone 4S, supports 4G LTE, supports simultaneous voice and data over 3G on Verizon, removable battery, microSD support, dual core 1.5Ghz Snapdragon S3(it's no Exynos but it's still very fast), comes with a very decent pair of ear buds, etc..

Before the Rezound, most HTC phones were rehashes of the same design. Thunderbolt, Desire, etc...
Rezound didn't get as much hype because it was released a month before the Galaxy Nexus.

If the Rezound was released on Sprint, AT&T, or T-Mobile, it may have gotten more hype and attention.

 

[Puddle Jumper]

I always felt kind of puzzled when people say things like HTC's recent devices have been pretty bad. Honestly I think the Rezound is waaaaaay better than the Galaxy S2. It's so underrated. I don't understand why it didn't get 100 times the hype it received. First 720P display phone, to date it has the highest pixels per inch of any phone at 342, non pentile, it has a better camera than the iPhone 4S, supports 4G LTE, supports simultaneous voice and data over 3G and 4G on Verizon, removable battery, microSD support, dual core 1.5Ghz Snapdragon S3(it's no Exynos but it's still very fast), comes with a very decent pair of ear buds, HTC has an unlock the boot loader tool that also lets you remove Sense, etc..

For starters it's significantly thicker than the Galaxy S2 and has a slower SoC and worse battery life. Most Android enthusiasts aren't into the pixel density hype and care more about display quality whcih the S2 wins by a mile. The S2 also has a very good camera and most people consider it to be nearly as good as the one in the 4s, I have never heard anyone claim that the Rezound's camera beats the 4s before now.

The boot loader should have never been locked in the first place so having an unlock tool isn't a feature.

There is also the fact that the S2 launched long before the Rezound did.

 

[WelshBloke]

It comes with Sense. That alone is enough for me to say "No thanks."

Sense is OK as manufacturers stock UIs go.

I think HTC just lost their way a bit after being one of the dominant smartphone makers. They were big back when they made winmo phones for everyone else, and kept that up until very recently. It's only really the recent rise of Samsung that's wrong footed them.

I'm glad to see them back on form, I'll be keeping an eye on their battery life though.

 

[dguy6789]

For starters it's significantly thicker than the Galaxy S2 and has a slower SoC and worse battery life. Most Android enthusiasts aren't into the pixel density hype and care more about display quality whcih the S2 wins by a mile. The S2 also has a very good camera and most people consider it to be nearly as good as the one in the 4s, I have never heard anyone claim that the Rezound's camera beats the 4s before now.

The boot loader should have never been locked in the first place so having an unlock tool isn't a feature.

There is also the fact that the S2 launched long before the Rezound did.

The Rezound has the same camera as the Amaze 4G which is considered to be better than the 4S camera by most reviewers. I don't really know what you mean by display quality. Super LCD looks really nice and nearly as good as OLED in a lot of ways. 800x480 on a 4.3 or 4.5 inch screen is ancient and looks pretty bad after looking at HD or even qHD screens, I don't consider the S2 display to be anything more than decent.

 

[Puddle Jumper]

The Rezound has the same camera as the Amaze 4G which is considered to be better than the 4S camera by most reviewers. I don't really know what you mean by display quality. Super LCD looks really nice and nearly as good as OLED in a lot of ways. 800x480 on a 4.3 or 4.5 inch screen is ancient and looks pretty bad after looking at HD or even qHD screens, I don't consider the S2 display to be anything more than decent.

The Rezunds display has inferior contrast, black levels, viewing angles, color gamut, and response times compared to the Super AMOLED Plus display in the Galaxy S2, the only thing it has going for it is pixel density. The S2 is better for the same reason AV enthusiasts would take a 720p Plasma over a 1080p LCD tv, the extra resolution on the LCD doesn't matter because it will always be inferior to Plasma/AMOLED

As far as I know Super LCD also does not have the display optically bonded to the outer glass which for me is unaceptable for a 2011 device.

The best review I have seen put the Amaze and 4s as a tie and said the S2 offered slightly inferior image quality but made up for it with superior video recording.

 

[ponyo]

The Rezound has the same camera as the Amaze 4G which is considered to be better than the 4S camera by most reviewers. I don't really know what you mean by display quality. Super LCD looks really nice and nearly as good as OLED in a lot of ways. 800x480 on a 4.3 or 4.5 inch screen is ancient and looks pretty bad after looking at HD or even qHD screens, I don't consider the S2 display to be anything more than decent.

agree. But as others said, Rezound came out same time as Galaxy Nexus so it got lost in the GNex hype. I think Rezound is very nice phone and better phone than Galaxy SII. I'm just not a fan of Verizon and CDMA.

 

[ponyo]

The Rezunds display has inferior contrast, black levels, viewing angles, color gamut, and response times compared to the Super AMOLED Plus display in the Galaxy S2, the only thing it has going for it is pixel density. The S2 is better for the same reason AV enthusiasts would take a 720p Plasma over a 1080p LCD tv, the extra resolution on the LCD doesn't matter because it will always be inferior to Plasma/AMOLED

The best review I have seen put the Amaze and 4s as a tie and said the S2 offered slightly inferior image quality but made up for it with superior video recording.

I'll take Rezound 720p Super LCD screen over 480x800 Super AMOLED Plus every single time. I'm a huge fan of Samsung AMOLED tech but resolution difference is too hard to ignore. After using 720x1280, I can't go back to 480x800. Sorry. Not even superior tech of AMOLED can overcome the big resolution difference.

 

[WelshBloke]

I'll take Rezound 720p Super LCD screen over 480x800 Super AMOLED Plus every single time. I'm a huge fan of Samsung AMOLED tech but resolution difference is too hard to ignore. After using 720x1280, I can't go back to 480x800. Sorry. Not even superior tech of AMOLED can overcome the big resolution difference.

I have the advantage of age.

High PPI screens are wasted on me.

 

[Puddle Jumper]

I'll take Rezound 720p Super LCD screen over 480x800 Super AMOLED Plus every single time. I'm a huge fan of Samsung AMOLED tech but resolution difference is too hard to ignore. After using 720x1280, I can't go back to 480x800. Sorry. Not even superior tech of AMOLED can overcome the big resolution difference.

I've also used both and there is no way I could trade my S2 for any LCD device.

 

[dguy6789]

I'm on a Galaxy Nexus right now but if I had to choose between AMOLED and 800x480 or SLCD and 720P it would be no contest in favor of the 720P screen.

 

[Red Storm]

I'm on a Galaxy Nexus right now but if I had to choose between AMOLED and 800x480 or SLCD and 720P it would be no contest in favor of the 720P screen.

The GS2 came out way before the Rezound. It didn't come out on Verizon, but Verizon subscribers were waiting for the Nexus. That's why the Rezound was seemingly ignored.

 

[poofyhairguy]

I'll take Rezound 720p Super LCD screen over 480x800 Super AMOLED Plus every single time.

Not me. My friend and his pile of "I loved them on my Droid X but they don't work well on my GNex" games makes me want to hug my standard WVGA every night.

Of course, thanks to this forum I don't think I could keep a phone more than a year and so that plays into it. If I was getting a phone I planned to keep to 2+ years then 720p would be better because in two years less things will be broken.

 

[Dari]

So you would choose your eyes, which are fallible and can't differentiate brightness from saturation at times,

vs

Anand comparisons using sensors which are fully capable of differentiating the two and show that AMOLED tech has a much much higher range and saturation and at the same time effectively infinite contrast while having a lower brightness because unlike LCD, they can't just shove a flashlight behind the screen.

The lower brightness is probably what you are referring to, but claiming that LCD has better colors and vibrancy than Amoled is lunacy.

It definitely does have better colors. The galaxy note's colors were bland.

 

[Puddle Jumper]

It definitely does have better colors. The galaxy note's colors were bland.

I seriously doubt that you have even seen one of these devices., SuperAMOLED has a larger color gamut than any LCD which causes colors to appear oversaturated not bland.

 

[Dari]

I seriously doubt that you have even seen one of these devices., SuperAMOLED has a larger color gamut than any LCD which causes colors to appear oversaturated not bland.

Best Buy has them on display all over Manhattan. Last place I went was on 23rd & 6th.

 

[WelshBloke]

Well I took a quick pic to illustrate the difference. Both these screens are on full brightness, SAMOLED+ on the left and HTC SLCD on the right. ( the HTC is a bit old so they may have got better).

Pic came out a bit crappy and I cant be arsed to spend time getting a decent one but you can see the general difference in brightness/contrast.

 

[Mopetar]

WelshBloke,

See if you can find an iPad 3 to test against. The screen that they put in that has much better saturation so I'd be curious to see how the new top of the line LCDs can compare with SAMOLED+ screens.

Otherwise these are two sexy phones and much needed by HTC. Hopefully they keep iterating like this, and keep their lineup fresh. I'm not sure if these will be as big of a deal as the Evo was, but I think it definitely puts HTC back in a strong position.

 

[WelshBloke]

WelshBloke,

See if you can find an iPad 3 to test against. The screen that they put in that has much better saturation so I'd be curious to see how the new top of the line LCDs can compare with SAMOLED+ screens.

Otherwise these are two sexy phones and much needed by HTC. Hopefully they keep iterating like this, and keep their lineup fresh. I'm not sure if these will be as big of a deal as the Evo was, but I think it definitely puts HTC back in a strong position.

I dont have an iPad3 and I'm not going back to the Apple store after the last time I went in there and they wanted a "touchy feely introduce yourself to everyone and we'll have a little meeting about our new magical product" pow wow type thing. I'd be worried they'd cart me off to a re-education camp if I pulled out a Samsung and HTC smartphone in there. :biggrin:


Id be surprised if the iPad3 screen was more vivid than a SAMOLED+ screen, one of the biggest criticisisms about them is that they can be too over saturated. To me its not an issue on a phone but in a table I can see the need for better colour accuracy.

 

[Puddle Jumper]

Best Buy has them on display all over Manhattan. Last place I went was on 23rd & 6th.

In that case it must be a vision issue on your part because you are claiming the exact opposite of every single site that has reviewed a Super Amoled device. The first thing everyone commented on when i first got my Galaxy S and Galaxy S2 was how incredible the colors are.

As far as the iPad 3 is concerned the gamut is 94% of sRGB according to Anand's review while Super AMOLED's color gamut is actually larger than sRGB.

 

[Dari]

In that case it must be a vision issue on your part because you are claiming the exact opposite of every single site that has reviewed a Super Amoled device. The first thing everyone commented on when i first got my Galaxy S and Galaxy S2 was how incredible the colors are.

As far as the iPad 3 is concerned the gamut is 94% of sRGB according to Anand's review while Super AMOLED's color gamut is actually larger than sRGB.

Nope, not a vision thing. In fact several people in this thread have also claimed that LCDs are brighter. As for the vibrancy, I was seriously unimpressed by the Galaxy Note. I'll check it out again when I stop by TekServe but the screen is seriously underwhelming. Also, I don't know why people are praising the GSII when the low resolution is unbearable.

 

[WelshBloke]

Nope, not a vision thing. In fact several people in this thread have also claimed that LCDs are brighter. As for the vibrancy, I was seriously unimpressed by the Galaxy Note. I'll check it out again when I stop by TekServe but the screen is seriously underwhelming. Also, I don't know why people are praising the GSII when the low resolution is unbearable.

OK obvious troll is too obvious now.

 

[Puddle Jumper]

Nope, not a vision thing. In fact several people in this thread have also claimed that LCDs are brighter. As for the vibrancy, I was seriously unimpressed by the Galaxy Note. I'll check it out again when I stop by TekServe but the screen is seriously underwhelming. Also, I don't know why people are praising the GSII when the low resolution is unbearable.

No one has ever said AMOLED is brighter, even I agreed that LCDs have higher max brightness but there is no denying that Super AMOLED has more vibrant colors. If you do look again go into setting and make sure some idiot didn't put the phone on minimum brightness, that is the only reason I can think of that would explain what you have seen. I've briefly looked at a Galaxy Note and the screen was simply stunning, it makes my Dell Ultrashrp IPS monitors look dull in comparison.

If you actually cared about display quality you would understand why everyone loves the Galaxy S2. Besides Samsung does offer the Galaxy Nexus and Note for people who want high resolution.

 

[WelshBloke]

No one has ever said AMOLED is brighter, even I agreed that LCDs have higher max brightness but there is no denying that Super AMOLED has more vibrant colors. If you do look again go into setting and make sure some idiot didn't put the phone on minimum brightness, that is the only reason I can think of that would explain what you have seen. I've briefly looked at a Galaxy Note and the screen was simply stunning, it makes my Dell Ultrashrp IPS monitors look dull in comparison.

To be fair I did, but with the two phones I have most experience with (HTC desire and SGS2) the SAMOLED+ screen is brighter.