HTC One X is The Eero Saarinen Phone

I like the HTC One X. So does the girl next to me, and just about every girl I talk to. So you can stop reading now if your only question is whether chicks dig it. They do. And if you are a girl, yes, the phone is a nerd magnet.


Meet the new member of Cirque de Soleil... HTC One X is very easy to balance

The One X is bigger, faster, sleeker, and more powerful than any other Android phone. Thanks to the brand new Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor, the new and decisive performance leader for dual-core phones, the One X has unbeatable core application performance. Almost as if to hedge their bets, the equally awesome NVIDIA Tegra 3 is featured in the Global version (EMEA, APAC, BRICA regions/markets), and while not armed with the Krait or their their equivalent CPU cores, the GPU in Tegra 3 is exceptional and provides superior 3D performance. Sadly, Tegra 3 came without 4G LTE support and for US market the decision was simple - use a dual-core Qualcomm with LTE support. Both versions of the One X give the new iPad 3 a run for its money while fitting very comfortably in your pocket. Unfortunately, this  phone tempts us to go too far, too early. It may be the most powerful phone of its age, but it is not a Jedi yet.

The image processor in the One X adds exceptional responsiveness, real time effects, and photo burst speed. Acquisition modes include 8 megapixel photo capture concurrent with taking 1080p video and a slow motion mode which allows you to capture at a high frame rate but play back at a slower one. I have taken hundreds of photos every day I have had this phone and I will share more of these than you may care to see. I invited my friend Tim Steckler to work with my on side by side shots with a Galaxy SII and with my 8 megapixel Olympus E-420 DSLR. Not a fair fight with the DSLR but it’s interesting to see what you get. The processing capability exceeds the optics and sensor size but the photos are impressive and the responsiveness is appreciated. It is hard to do the One X image processing capabilities and integrated photo application justice, the capabilities are rich enough to warrant their own review. If you want to see more photos from the HTC One X just follow me on Twitter as @solotko - I will be letting these fly starting later today.

The world of HD... display.
The screen is stunning if fairly oversaturated. Until I did a side by side my fond memories of the iPhone 4 display continued to haunt me, but every iPhone 4 owner I talked to was jealous and the side by side was not a fair fight. The size of the One X screen make watching video enjoyable and practical. Surely it is eating through the battery like mice in cheese. The iPhone Retina display, for all of its is clarity and pixel density is conquered by the unbelievably luminous and grand display of the One X. In side by side comparisons watching The Hobbit official trailer with the Galaxy SII we generally liked our One X display more, which tended toward yellow rather than green in the SII. The integration of the glass into the phone’s mono body with a smooth beveled edge is a classy touch. For everyone I talked to who was worried about the size of the handset, and all of them were overcome by the experience of watching video and taking photos on the One X.

For testing I was unkind to the phone. I am by all accounts a demanding PC user and value the power and flexibility of a PC. Tempted by the outstanding performance of the phone and Google’s Android ICS operating system I began to cross the streams, mixing traditionally PC uses with mobile ones. This yielded mostly impressive results and occasional frustrations as many apps that need to exist do not, and Adobe Flash still creates a rift between the PC web and the mobile web.

Thinking toward the future, the impressive combination of image processing and computational prowess makes me think that we are on the verge of a new age of computing. I believe this generation of devices will created a tear in the time-space continuum opening the way to new species of augmented reality applications. The processing required for augmented reality to unfold makes an intelligent assistant like SIRI sound low maintenance; she only requires network access to the cloud and speech processing - which while tricky is managed by dedicated silicon. Augmented Reality is the eight mass medium and it requires a significant and holistic combination of local computing, visual IP, and image processing capability, real time rendering, 3D visualization, and the same cloud interactivity. Ultimately, it is the bar against which all future phones will be judged. Fancy headgear optional.

Expect more on this topic here at BSN* in the near future.