I was standing in the AT&T store Friday, when I very hesitantly handed my iPhone 4S to an AT&T employee and whispered “I need to transfer my phone number to this HTC OneX+ phone”. I literally had tears in my eyes. Call me crazy. Some would call my iPhone 4s, my 3rd hand, but I knew I was ready to take the leap. Even after reviewing several other Android devices, I never felt as ready to switch. I was always either holding my iPhone or had it in my pocket and at night it could be found near my pillow. For the last few years I have been connected to the world via my iPhone.
Then, I made the leap.
While I am working with HTC to review the HTC OneX+ smartphone, HTC did not request or require that I stop using my current phone, but to fully immerse myself in the HTC and Android world and to give you the most accurate and honest review of the HTC OneX+, I felt it was a necessary step. I live and breathe Mac. I have two MacBook laptops, an iPad, and most of my immediate family have an iPhone.
My HTC One X+ Homescreen
I have reviewed several Android phones and the HTC OneX+ for AT& is one that I found very easy to use and.. get hooked on. It just feels natural. Within the first few hours of having this phone I was using it to check my email, Twitter and Facebook streams. I have used the phone for 3 days now.
This post about the HTC OneX+ is the first in a series of about 3 so stay tuned or subscribe to my feed to read more as I learn more about the phone.
Let me start the review off with a list of my top 5 Smartphone must-have features.
My Top 5 Smartphone Feature Must Have’s:
- Great graphics
- Multitasking
- Incredible photos
- Sync with my iTunes music library
- A lot of storage space
My iPhone 4S has all of those features. The HTC One X+ has these ADDITIONAL features:
- Quad-core processor vs iPhone 4S’ Dual Core processor
- Graphics Accelerator
- 1.6 megapixel front facing camera vs. 0.3 megapixel on the iPhone 4S
- The Battery capacity is 2,100 mAh vs the 1,432 mAh that the iPhone 4S has
- The CPU speed is 1.70 GHz vs the iPhone 4S’ 1.00 GHz CPU speed
- HTC OneX+ has 64GB vs. 16GB in the iPhone 4S
- While the HTC One X+ is the larger of the two phones, it weighs less than the iPhone 4S by 2 ounces.
- Screen size. Are you ready? The HTC OneX+ sports a 4.7″ screen while the iPhone 4S has a 3.5″ screen.
Am I having any issues transitioning to the HTC OneX+?
I’m glad you asked. Read on to learn about the transitions I’m facing while switching from the iPhone 4S to the HTC OneX+.
Before I go into detail about the issues I’m having with the transition from an iPhone 4S/iOS to the HTC OneX+/Android Jelly Bean, let me explain what I use my smartphone for.
As far as I’m concerned, these are the primary purposes of a smartphone:
- Calling people and receiving calls
- Checking and responding to emails
- Texting and SMS
- Keeping up with friends on Twitter and Facebook
- Updating my blogs via WordPress and other apps
- Keeping up with my long list of things to do via apps
- Reading news
- Catching up with my favorite tech & gadget blogs while putting my daughter to bed
- Watching and listening to podcasts
- Listening to music in the car
- Getting directions via GPS apps
- Keeping up with my son’s location via Google’s Latitude app
- Playing games
- WordPress
- Hootsuite
- Foursquare
- Google Chrome
- Pandora
- Evernote
- Zinio
- Google Currents
- Mashable
- Google Latitude
- Mint
- Kindle
- iHeartRadio
- TripleTown (my new game addiction)
A few noticeable differences between the iPhone 4S and HTC OneX+
Keyboard differences
1. Something that is proving to be a bit of a learning curve for me is the keyboard. While it has a great built-in word suggestion tool, I am not used to it yet and sometimes the words appearing above what I’m typing throws me off.
2. The iPhone keyboard initially presents the user with letters only. The iPhone user then presses a “123″ button in the lower left of the keyboard to bring up numbers only. The HTC OneX+ keyboard presents the user with letter keys with a number in the top right corner of every letter key. I find having the numbers on the letter keys to be cluttery.
I expect to have moved past these issues within one or two days as use the phone more.
Photo color
An identical photo taken with the iPhone 4S and HTC OneX+ and iPhone 4S present me with photos with differing colors. A white shirt is still white but with a hint of cyan. My daughter has a yellow skin tone like I do but in the HTC One X+ photos, her skin doesn’t have its natural yellow tone. I think the colors are truer on the iPhone 4S. There are so many settings on the HTC OneX+ that I have no doubt that if I adjust a few settings, the color will look truer than it does not. I am working with the camera’s ‘out of the box’ settings so I will have to play with it more to give you a better review of the camera and color presentation/quality. This is just an initial find. I worked in a photo laboratory for years and have a very good eye for the slightest in color variation. Too much cyan.. yuck. Too much magenta… not good. The HTC OneX+ appears to lean on the side of too much cyan. I will play with the camera settings and hope to fix the color issue soon.
I will gladly sacrifice the slight color differentiation for the crisp, sharp, beautiful quality of the photos taken on the HTC One X+. I can clearly make out strands of my daughter’s hair in the HTC OneX+ photos I took vs. not being able to, in the iPhone 4S photo.
Screen brightness
Even at the HTC OneX+’s brightest setting, the screen is not as bright as the iPhone 4S screen but I’m not complaining.
Battery life
I have found after using the HTC OneX+ for three solid days.. and nights, that the battery life appears to be shorter than the iPhone 4S batter life. I have pushed the OneX+ by taking a lot of photos and using a lot of apps simultaneously, so we’ll see if battery life improves over the next few days as I learn more about multitasking and remember to use the Task Manager app. Upon the advice of my brother-in-law I have downloaded the app Juice Defender Plus which should help with the HTC OneX+ battery life. I will include details on that in my next review.
HTC OneX+ – Review #1 Summary
I wrote much of this post using the WordPress app on the HTC OneX+ and found the OneX+ to be pleasant to write on at length on. Ultimately, the size of the phone and screen, overshadowed the cluttered keyboard. I’m getting used to it already.
Switching my phone number from my trusty iPhone 4S to the HTC OneX+ was a huge leap for me. I feel confident that the OneX+ will meet my needs for both a smartphone and a camera.
Stay tuned for more and if you have any Android app recommendations or comments or questions about iPhone vs. HTC OneX+, please leave them in the comments below.
Note to my readers: I received a complimentary HTC OneX+ for purposes of this review. I am not committed to writing reviews for the phone as a result of receiving the complimentary phone. As always, all opinions presented in my posts are 100% honest.
I Made The Switch.. From an iPhone 4S to the HTC OneX+! – #TroopOneX #HTCOne @HTC is a post from: The Mommy Insider. It looks like you are reading this post in your favorite RSS reader. Don’t be shy..hop on over to check out our current giveaways, coupon codes, and to share your comments!
from The Mommy Insider http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/mommyinsider/~3/n3GZi-EzhIA/ January 10, 2013 at 09:27PM
