News - HTC One Android smartphone is unveiled in London

[HEXUS]

New flagship will launch shortly after MWC, coming first to USA and the UK.

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[iamlorro]

loved the look of the one x. not interested in this. it looks to be a big shift in their design

[danroyle]

I like the look of this.
And finally someone has realised more mega pixel doesn't mean a better picture.

[kingpotnoodle]

4MP won't cut it, most people won't delve into the detail. The 1080p display is a headline maker but whether it looks any better than 720p screens remains to be seen, the specs are otherwise par for the course on a Q2 2013 handset... it's realy all about the software and the price. Sense is good, might even run smooth with 2GB but the price is a tad high.

[pipTheGeek]

Having now owned a Samsung, I really miss HTC Sense. I didn't like the look of the one X, I do really like the look and specs of this phone. Lets hope they have given it a user removable battery and a microSD slot as it was these omissions from the one X that pushed me to the S3. (that and the lack of a menu button)

And I'm really pleased they have finally stopped the ridiculous megapixel war on camera phones, lets hope sanity soons spreads to the compact camera market.

[this_is_gav]

If it had the SD card slot, I'd jump at this. Loving that someone has gone down the route of actually improving photos rather than just the size of them, but at 32GB tops... nope.

[mikemikemi]

Quite like the look of this, definitely worth a look in the flesh, not bothered by lack of micro sd, 32gb is plenty for me and I think I read somewhere there'll be a 64GB as well.

[Noli]

Specs are impressive but I think phones are now beginning to reach the point which computers did 3 years ago where the mid-range models are basically 'powerful enough' and the top tier are only for power users. I love the progress in tech but I just don't need 1080p in my pocket and 99% of apps can run fine on on mid-range phones. Most of the power user things I want to do on my pc still can't be done on a phone even though they're getting the horsepower now because they're so much faster from a practical point of view with a keyboard, precision input and big monitors...

[this_is_gav]

I read somewhere there'll be a 64GB as well.

Only in Asia though. Europe are limited to the 32GB.

I wouldn't care if I didn't stray outside of the middle of one of the major cities with a great 4G signal and some nice cloud storage and a 4G tariff that actually let me use it, but like most of the UK, I don't just use my phone in a city.

[crossy]

Having now owned a Samsung, I really miss HTC Sense. I didn't like the look of the one X, I do really like the look and specs of this phone. Lets hope they have given it a user removable battery and a microSD slot as it was these omissions from the one X that pushed me to the S3. (that and the lack of a menu button)

Can't see HTC going "backwards" to user-serviceable battery and/or upgradable storage. If the HO had either then I think that would have been mentioned.

I actually quite like the look of this device, but I think the triumvirate of fixed memory, fixed battery and Sense UI probably make it a non-starter for me. Yes, I know I could be more organised to get around the memory issue, and probably run something to rip out Sense (which I loathe - old fashioned and slow compared to stock Android, or even TouchWiz), but that still leaves the battery - which I guess I'd have to live with.

And I'm really pleased they have finally stopped the ridiculous megapixel war on camera phones, lets hope sanity soons spreads to the compact camera market.

Hear-hear. Quality over quantity every time - I still think my old SE X10 had a "better" camera than the Samsung S3 that replaced it. The other point, of course, is that all those 13MPix images use a lot more of your valuable memory than a plain ole 8MPix one - another reason not to be impressed with headline figures.

Shame no-one has the guts to give us a thicker phone and use the extra space to squeeze in an optical zoom - to me that'd be far more attractive than 10MPix+ sensors. Was looking at the point-n-click's in Argos the other day and was thinking that we must be getting close to the point where it's doable.

[DeludedGuy]

The Sony Xperia Z still looks better overall...

[warejon9]

Having now owned a Samsung, I really miss HTC Sense. I didn't like the look of the one X, I do really like the look and specs of this phone. Lets hope they have given it a user removable battery and a microSD slot as it was these omissions from the one X that pushed me to the S3. (that and the lack of a menu button)

Can't see HTC going "backwards" to user-serviceable battery and/or upgradable storage. If the HO had either then I think that would have been mentioned.

I actually quite like the look of this device, but I think the triumvirate of fixed memory, fixed battery and Sense UI probably make it a non-starter for me. Yes, I know I could be more organised to get around the memory issue, and probably run something to rip out Sense (which I loathe - old fashioned and slow compared to stock Android, or even TouchWiz), but that still leaves the battery - which I guess I'd have to live with.

And I'm really pleased they have finally stopped the ridiculous megapixel war on camera phones, lets hope sanity soons spreads to the compact camera market.

Hear-hear. Quality over quantity every time - I still think my old SE X10 had a "better" camera than the Samsung S3 that replaced it. The other point, of course, is that all those 13MPix images use a lot more of your valuable memory than a plain ole 8MPix one - another reason not to be impressed with headline figures.

Shame no-one has the guts to give us a thicker phone and use the extra space to squeeze in an optical zoom - to me that'd be far more attractive than 10MPix+ sensors. Was looking at the point-n-click's in Argos the other day and was thinking that we must be getting close to the point where it's doable.

The 808 Pureview had a 10x lossless zoom at 8mp, it was digital zoom (but still lossless).
This HTC seems to look like the Z10, takes parts from Windows phone, and tech from the 808 and lumia 920.
Its a bit cheeky to call it their own. Also in a twitter feed its actually got the 12th largest sensor put in a phone.

[Smudger]

Would be tempting, but for the fact you'll get 1 Android update, maybe 2, then they'll announce that the hardware isn't compatible with the next upgrade, even though there are phone with lesser specs which miraculously can get the update...

[DeludedGuy]

Would be tempting, but for the fact you'll get 1 Android update, maybe 2, then they'll announce that the hardware isn't compatible with the next upgrade, even though there are phone with lesser specs which miraculously can get the update...

Are you just making this up because my HTC Sensation has received several updates thus far...

[Smudger]

Really? I've got the Sensation, I got the update to 4.0, then one minor update, and since then, nothing.

Considering the phone was less than a year old the last time I had an update, it's pretty pathetic...

[TheAnimus]

Hear-hear. Quality over quantity every time - I still think my old SE X10 had a "better" camera than the Samsung S3 that replaced it. The other point, of course, is that all those 13MPix images use a lot more of your valuable memory than a plain ole 8MPix one - another reason not to be impressed with headline figures.

Actually..... I'm not overly impressed by this.

The sensor has the same overal size and footprint as the Lumia 920's pureview.

The sensor (apparently, obviously this could be wrong) has a bayer filter.

Lets talk about pixel densisty and noise. One of the causes of noise is a "stray" photon or similar hitting the senor trough. That is to say that the larger the area, the larger the sample, the less signficance such a strike has. It is also important because it means each pixel can be less sensative, which means less amplification of noise.

So just how much is this change? Well apparently it has 2 microns per pixel. Now if you consider a camera which has say 1.2 microns per pixel that is going to be an improvement right?

But no, not always. The Bayer sensor pattern is a bit of a pain. The human eye you see does not see simply RGB, the primary colours of light we all learn in school. It has certian bits that respond to certain frequencies. The levels of which are not neatly distrabuted or ordered. Myself I find no beauty in the maths of light, compared to the maths of music.

The bayer sensor is a simplistic way of biasing the colour sensing of cameras for our bizzare state that is our eye.

obviously the issue here is the fewer pixels you have the more apparent the cheating of the colour sensor will become, the more effect the bias of the green becomes apparent.

We all know sensors are square, so we can use the whole difference of squares thing to compare them, but that still doesn't take in to account the bayer sensor hit.

Very roughly speaking a 4 mega pixel image, is in fact comparable to a downsampled 12 megapixel, not the 16 you might be thinking. Again this is due to biasing of colour filters.

There is bound to be a sweet spot for sensor size, pixel density etc, my fear is that HTC haven't found it. What will make more of an effect is that the camera can go to f/2.0, this is quite wide and fast for a sensor it's size, it will still have plenty of Depth of Feild so the image will look sharp.

But without sensor shift stabilisation, I am skeptical to how good the low light images will look. I've been seriously impressed, even more so with the update, with the images the lumia 920 gets in dark environment. Downsample them to 1megapixel and they are rather passable. Downsampling to 1 megapixel many of the artificats due to the sensor will be apparent, these show up when there is a lot of local contrast, which is often common in night shots.

This is why I say, I'm interested to see, hopefully I'll get a play with one, but this isn't the time to start saying the megapixels don't matter. megapixels do matter, just so do a lot of other things. Sadly the HTC ultrapixel thing hasn't announced anything else yet. Which is why this strikes me as a low cost option. Compared to mechanical stabilisation or sensor shift, the cost of these imprvoements are minimal. Only the cost for the crystal to make f/2.0. For a premium flagship phone, to be sold at such cost, I'm unsure. It might beat the iPhone 5 in low light, but thats kinda easy, the camera on that device is not expensive, but thats simple a case of 2 vs 2.8.

Shame no-one has the guts to give us a thicker phone and use the extra space to squeeze in an optical zoom - to me that'd be far more attractive than 10MPix+ sensors. Was looking at the point-n-click's in Argos the other day and was thinking that we must be getting close to the point where it's doable.

I thought samsung had made something in this space?