<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"Hands On With the HTC One\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nHTC One\nThe HTC One is the company's latest flagship phone. With an aluminum exterior and large (4.7-inch) full HD display, it's definitely on the high end as smartphones go. It's coming the U.S. in March on AT&amp;T, Sprint and T-Mobile.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nApp Array\nHere's the One's standard Android app array.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nBlinkFeed\nOne of the One's new features is BlinkFeed, which shows you a feed from your social networks and other content providers, similar to Flipboard. However, it's not an app -- it's actually your home screen.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nBlinkFeed Story View\nHere's what you see when you tap on a story in BlinkFeed.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nHome Screen\nYour actual home screen is just a finger swipe away.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nKaraoke View\nThe music player takes lyrics from the cloud in real time, HTC says.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTapered edges\nThe phone is 9.3mm thick, but it gets as thin as 4mm on the edge.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTop View\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSettings Screen\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nThe HTC One might be the most consumer-conscious smartphone ever made. HTC says it built the One to address the way people actually use their phones today, as opposed to building high-tech features for their own sake (hello, Samsung Share Shot). And with a metal design that feels high-end, it's also a phone consumers will actually want to hold in their hands.\nAt 4.7 inches, the screen is the same size as the previous line of HTC One phones, but this one is full HD, with 1,920 x 1,080 resolution, giving it a way-beyond-retina pixel density of 468 pixels per inch (ppi). It's crazy sharp, no question, although that's rapidly becoming the norm for Android superphones (the Droid DNA was the first to go overboard on pixels). The display protected by Corning's Gorilla Glass and generally looks like the kind of bright and colorful screen you'd expect on a top smartphone.\nTurn the phone around, though, and you're treated to a sleek metallic back that feels much more solid than other phones. It's not just a finish, either \u2014 HTC says it has crafted the One out of piece of solid aluminum, essentially a \"unibody\" design. The aluminum backside bestows a feeling of durability while keeping the phone surprisingly light (about 5 ounces).\nBlinking Fast\nThe HTC One's marquee feature is BlinkFeed, which turns the phone's home screen into a stream of content, which looks and feels very much like Flipboard. You can configure BlinkFeed to show content from social networks as well as over 1,400 specific providers, including the Associated Press and ESPN. The idea is to bring \"snack-size\" content to the user at all times without requiring them to search for it.\nIt's important to point out that BlinkFeed isn't an app or a home-screen widget. It is your home screen. If you prefer a traditional screen with app icons and widgets, though, that's just a finger swipe away, and your primary action strip \u2014 with icons for apps, email and browser \u2014 are still visible beneath the feed. BlinkFeed also isn't your notification center; that's still handled by the Android OS. The best way to think about it: BlinkFeed is a superpowered live wallpaper.\n\nIn practice, BlinkFeed works well, although its best feature \u2014 the big, \"immersive\" images \u2014 will lag behind if your connection is bad. New stories roll in with beautiful animation, although it doesn't quite have the polish of, say, the Google+ app, which will \"mute\" that animation for content you've already scrolled by. And much like the Hub in BlackBerry 10, you can snack on just a single social network or content provider.\nTap a story, and it expands to take up the whole screen, and you get a Share icon on the bottom to push it over to your social networks or via email. If you swipe left or right while in story view, you'll go to the next story.\nUltrapixels and Zoe\nHTC has taken a different tack than most phone cameras today, which have tended to race to ever-more megapixels. Most phone cameras are about 8 megapixels these days, but HTC doesn't even give a megapixel rating for the One. Instead, HTC says it captures photos in \"ultrapixels.\"\nUltrapixel is a marketing term that refers to HTC increasing the size of the pixels on the image sensor itself. HTC says the pixels measure 2.0 micrometers wide (by comparison, the pixels on the iPhone 5's sensor are 1.4 micrometers). Technically the camera has a 4.3-megapixel resolution, but HTC says it captures 300% more light than \"traditional\" camera sensors.\nIn practice, that should lead to better performance in low light, and HTC says the One easily beats other \"competitors\" in challenging conditions. I took some shots with the One and found them to be slightly better than similar shots I took on my iPhone 4S, although this isn't magic \u2014 the camera still couldn't capture any decent still images of the fast-moving acrobats in the demo area.\nThe reason those acrobats were there, though, was for the phone's other \"wow\" feature: Zoe. Similar to BlackBerry's Storymaker, Zoe automatically generates a 30-second video from any photos and videos you shoot around an event. And I do mean automatically: Every event (the phone partitions them on its own) gets a Zoe \u2014 you really don't have to do anything.\nIf you want to shoot your event with the idea of doing a Zoe in mind, you can shoot your stills in \"Zoe\" mode, which will shoot three-second videos around the moment in time you snapped the photo. Later, you can treat this media as either a static photo or a short clip.\nIt sounds complicated, but the execution is anything but. It's actually more clever and convenient than Storymaker, although I don't understand why HTC hasn't added the ability to use your own music \u2014 all you get are canned generic tracks. It's no Vine, but it's a step.\nSound and Vision\nTo me, the clearest example of HTC's actual-use design philosophy is the One's stereo speakers. HTC did its best to put respectable speakers in the One, which fits how phones are used in the real world. Yes, there are tons of wireless external speakers to choose from (like the Jambox), but more often than not you end up listening on your phone's speakers (when you're not using headphones, of course).\nIf that's the case, why not have those speakers sound good, HTC asks? The One answers with some of the best sound I've heard from a cellphone. The speakers are on the top and bottom of the phone, so you hear a stereo soundstage while in landscape mode.\nIn a quiet meeting room, the One played Sheryl Crow's \"Everyday Is a Winding Road\" with impressive loudness, although I could tell the speakers were stressing themselves at maximum volume. The channel separation was very clear at typical distances (i.e. arm's length).\nHTC has also added a karaoke feature (shown below), where any song playing will pull down lyrics from the cloud, timed to the music. We couldn't get it to work for us at the demo, though.\n\nSo you probably don't need a speaker dock with the HTC One, but you also won't need a remote control. HTC has built a whole remote app into the device \u2014 just tell it your TV provider (be it cable, satellite or over the air), your location and your equipment, and the One can control your home electronics... without an accessory. That's right: an infrared blaster is built into the power button.\nThe remote control app, which shows you content visually, is a beautiful interface, but it's nothing we haven't seen already from Samsung or Sony (although those brands typically focus the functionality on tablets). What it really needs is the ability to store macros (which it doesn't) so you can turn on and configure all your gear with it through a single button touch. Then you could really put your Logitech Harmony in drawer.\nOne and Done\nHTC's overall thrust \u2014 that the One was conceived and built with real-world use in mind \u2014 is compelling. I'd love to have some of the features on my iPhone, especially the IR blaster and good-sounding stereo speakers. Zoe and BlinkFeed are great in theory, but those functions are served by apps on almost any platform; HTC just seems to think they weren't convenient enough before. We'll see.\nIf anything from today's HTC One unveiling catches on, I hope it's the move away from even talking about megapixels in phone cameras. Let's all just agree that smartphone cameras are high-resolution enough, and the discussion should shift to image sensors, lenses, pixel size, stabilization and other factors. If One has any kind of legacy, let's make it that."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2013/02/19/htc-one-hands-on/>