HTC took the excellent HTC One and super-sized it. Here are our first impressions
HTC took the excellent HTC One Android phone and supersized it. The One Max is, like its little brother, a beautiful object. The feel of the materials, and the way they fi t together, is impeccable. It’s mainly aluminium, aside from the glass front and plasticky edge.
At 10.3mm and 217g it’s extremely hefty, mind. The HTC One Max is well constructed and feels as though you could use it to shield yourself from flying bullets. It is a solid workhorse that is also stylish. And you won’t need a case.
The One Max is the only phone apart from the iPhone 5s to include a fi ngerprint scanner. You can store up to three fi ngerprints. The One Max is built around a 5.9in Super LCD3 capacitive touchscreen. The display’s full-HD resolution results in a sharp pixel density of 373ppi. It’s great for watching videos and viewing content, but not using one-handed.
A Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 dual-core processor running at 1.7GHz, Adreno 320 graphics and 2GB of RAM power the One Max. We found the device perfectly snappy, but perhaps not as impressive as other flagship handsets.
You can choose 16- or 32GB of storage, with a potentially important microSDXC slot offering expansion up to a further 64GB. Like the HTC One, the Max comes complete with comically named ‘BoomSound’ front-facing stereo speakers, near-field communication (NFC) and an infrared transmitter. It also shares the One’s ‘Ultrapixel’ camera, which has fewer but larger pixels than other smartphones. This is a decent smartphone camera that can quickly capture shots and is well suited to low-light.
The HTC One Max runs Android 4.3 Jelly Bean, but it is heavily customised with HTC’s Sense overlay. The interface is clean, stylish and slick, but the BlinkFeed content-flow feature is an element that you will either love or hate. HTC has opted for a huge 12.2Wh battery and, although the rear cover of the phone removable, the battery is not. With average usage the phone will last one or two days before needing a charge.
Verdict
It won’t be for everyone, but if you want a big phone (and we mean BIG), you could do a lot worse than the HTC One Max. This is a serious performer that is built to look good and last.
