HTC One Max review: Supersized

GSMArena team, 14 October 2013.

Introduction

It's phablet o'clock on HTC's watch. Now that HTC has had enough fun expanding the One portfolio towards the compact end of the spectrum, they are making a go towards the other way. HTC's first foray in the niche is appropriately named One Max and builds on a proven formula that emphasizes media consumption and looks, while bringing a few welcome new tricks to the lineup.

HTC One Max official images

The expandable storage deals with one of the few longest-standing complaints about the One and means you are no longer going to be limited in your selection of videos and songs to enjoy through the excellent speakers and on the now even bigger screen. There's also the latest Android release powering the whole thing, coupled with the latest edition of HTC's proprietary Sense UI.

Key features

• Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE support; 3G with HSPA; LTE


• 5.9" 16M-color 1080p Super LCD3 capacitive touchscreen with 373ppi pixel density


• Android OS v4.3 Jelly Bean with Sense UI 5.5


• Quad-core 1.7 GHz Krait 300 CPU, 2 GB RAM, Adreno 320 GPU; Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 chipset


• 4 MP autofocus "UltraPixel" camera with 1/3" sensor size, 2µm pixel size; LED flash


• 1080p video recording @ 30fps with HDR mode, continuous autofocus and stereo sound


• HTC Zoe


• 2.1 MP front-facing camera, 1080p video recording


• Wi-Fi a/b/g/n, Wi-Fi Direct and DLNA; Wireless TV-out (Miracast)


• GPS with A-GPS, GLONASS


• 16GB/32GB of built-in storage, expandable via a microSD slot


• MHL-enabled microUSB port


• Bluetooth v4.0


• NFC


• Standard 3.5 mm audio jack


• Accelerometer and proximity sensor


• Active noise cancellation with dedicated mic


• Sleek aluminum body


• Front-mounted stereo speakers with BoomSound tech


• Class-leading audio output

Main disadvantages

• 4MP UltraPixel camera has less than stellar performance in good light


• Non user-replaceable battery


• Poor video and audio codec support out of box


• Fingerprint scanner let down by software support


• Snapdragon 600 chipset is no longer the snappiest around

The choice of Snapdragon 600 over its more capable Snapdragon 800 brother is bound to raise a few eyebrows, but realistically, the Snapdragon 600 is no slouch either and it has never left an impression of being underpowered. And with the resolution unchanged over the HTC One, there will be no extra strain on the GPU it to worry about either.

The HTC One Max at ours

So what we need to find out now is if the Sense UI 5.5 is as good as HTC touts it to be and if the fingerprint scanner can be a key selling point. We already saw an excellent hardware implementation of the feature by Apple in the iPhone 5s, but the software failed to leverage on that properly. We now set out to find what HTC did differently and how well it works.

But first thing - first. The HTC One Max is getting a proper physical examination right after the break.

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