I got a chance recently to take a good look at HTC’s newest One Mobile Phone. It makes great use of the EE package that is data-generous and not a whole lot of money. The plan I looked at on the 4G LTE carrier was at £41 per month, unlimited calls and texts, and 1GB of data. There were other plans with more or less data available at varying costs.
Design
Out-of-the-box the first impression of the SV is that it is sleeker than the others in its line, but I don’t see it standing out in a crowd of modern smart-phones. It is a well-built solid phone, with good proportions. It’s 128mm x 66.9mm. It is 9.2mm thick and weighs just 122g so it is a comfortable hold. Overall it is similar to the One S, with better construction. Its case is primarily polycarbonate plastic, available in several colour choices and the removable back cover is has a soft feel.
The button and plug layout is comfortable and includes a mini USB port as well as a 3.5mm headphone jack, a power button, located at the top, and volume keys on the top right side. The front glass is the strong Gorilla Glass 2 and it has sloped edges that blend seamlessly into the body.
The button layout on the face is the standard HTC three button set of Back, Home, and Open –Apps. More impressive is the 109.22mm WVGA screen. It is bright and colours appear strong and saturated and the picture remains sharp when you look at it tipped to the side. Overall for design and feel the SV rates slightly above the average.
Features
When discussing the HTC One SV’s features we should start with its speed. Here is where it seems to hold its own against the competition. The SV utilizes a dual-core processor by Qualcomm with a speed of 1.2GHz. Now there are the faster quad-cores out there, but pair the dual up with the 4G LTE network and web pages load without delay and streaming media is smooth and seamless. The internal memory is on the low side at 8G, but HTC more than makes up for this by including a micro SD slot accessible under the back panel that not only allows you more storage, but with an inexpensive SD card adaptor you can just pop that card in most laptops making file transfer much simpler than cables or Bluetooth.
Still on the subject of the rear compartment; that is also where the SIM Card and removable 1800 mAh battery reside. This battery can provide a ridiculous amount of ‘up’ time even when multitasking; which, of course, is what the Android operating system that runs the SV does best. Some question HTC’s use of the older Ice Cream Sandwich version of Android, but it handles the SV’s modest features perfectly and that’s what counts in the end.
Entertainment
The SV’s Audio-Visual package includes two cameras and sound enhancement by Beats Audio. The primary camera has a zoom lens and flash and the 5-megapixel capture aided by HTC’s Image Sense and VideoPic produces HD video as well as high-res stills that are clear with crisp colour even in less-than-perfect light. The video, which captures at a rate of 30fps, is surprisingly better than the stills under some conditions. There is also a generous amount of photographic tools, such as HTC Panorama, One-Press Continuous shooting, and a number of scene modes and special effect filters. The SV also sports a second camera with its lens facing the user, hidden under the glass with the light and proximity sensors. It is just a 1.6-megapixel used primarily for video-chat and other live applications.
Thus we have reached the end of our tour and test of the HTC One SV. It has easily passed all the standard requirements the demanding modern smart-phone user needs. Even though it does not sit more than a few spaces above the middle of the list for overall design and performance, its price as part of the standard EE contract makes it tops for value.
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Travis Bliffen is a technology writer. He is well-versed in a variety of technical areas, and enjoys researching and review noteworthy products such as the HTC One SV. When he is not writing about technology, he also enjoys covering the internet marketing industry.
