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HTC One X: Beautiful, But Not Without Its Shortcomings

01.05.2012
It was love at first sight: From the moment I unboxed the ($200 with a new two-year contract on AT&T; price as of as of 5/1/2012) I immediately fell for its slim profile and brilliant 4.7-inch display. But it was more than just the phone's good looks that snagged my heart, as the came with a tasty serving of Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4) and a long enough battery life to keep me satisfied for hours on end. But like all romances, this one was not without its sour spots, and even the One X's smoking-fast LTE connectivity was not enough for me to overlook the phone's poor call quality and its clunky HTC Sense overlay running over Android.

Design

The HTC One X is a great-looking phone. The white polycarbonate body makes the phone lightweight without compromising durability, and the 4.7-inch 1280-by-720-resolution Gorilla Glass display should be roomy enough to accommodate even the pudgiest of fingers. Though the phone packs a large screen, it never felt too big to hold, and I had no trouble slipping it in or out of the pocket of my jeans.

Besides the aforementioned screen, the front of the phone also holds a set of three hardware navigation buttons (Back, Home, and Recent Apps), as well as a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera. One the back is an 8-megapixel camera (more on it later), and a set of pin connectors for hooking up the One X to compatible accessories, like a car or media dock. The power button sits comfortably at the top of the phone, right next to the microSIM card slot. During my time with the phone, I found that excessive shaking could cause the SIM card to jostle in its slot, making the phone think that the SIM card had been removed. This shouldn't be a problem for most people, but if you use your phone while running, you could encounter some issues.

Performance

Whereas the ships with an Nvidia Tegra 3 quad-core processor, the AT&T version is powered by a Qualcomm 1.5GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor. The reason for this is that the dual-core S4 supports LTE connectivity while the Tegra 3 did not at the time of manufacturing. Despite the fewer cores, the One X is an utter beast when it comes to performance: Apps all ran buttery-smooth, and the phone never once stuttered or stalled when running even the most graphics-intensive games.