HTC One X is The Eero Saarinen Phone

Like a Vision from Eero Saarinen

"Beauty is no quality in things themselves: It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty." 

― David Hume, Of the Standard of Taste and Other Essays

The design evokes the vision of Saarinen in 1957 and perfected in 1967 with 2001 A Space Odyssey and the modernist decadence of the early 1970’s. It’s black on white monobody design is a simplistic triumph and the beveled integration of the glass looks remarkably natural yet futuristically engineered. It is extremely light and the screen, oversaturated and oversized, is striking and universally appealing. This is the Saarinen phone and he deserves a design credit.

This creates the dilemma, similar to an iPhone, that ultimately you want to use it without a case, which guarantees that you will eventually break your screen.

One young lady remarked how wonderfully clean and print free the screen was. It may have been an unanticipated benefit of my microfiber lined pockets, but the screen class and its bevel seem immune to imperfection.



Everyone seems both impressed and intimidated by its massive 4.7" screen, but the camera is standard eight million pixel affair. Go figure, I could palm two of these. Go on to the Internet for objective complaints about handset size, I couldn’t be happier.

I encourage the wealthy to use their One X’s without cases, if design ever mattered, no time like the present to share good design with the world. It makes the Galaxy series of phones and even HTC’s own One S look deplorable. For the middling class you will need to encase it in rubber and I feel your pain. The poor will live without and will probably lead happier lives for rejecting the psychological dependence and cultural phenomenon of persistent connection the cloud.

Personally, the HTC One X violates my sensibilities on replaceable batteries and a few drops are sure to scuff its plastic case, no matter the exotic science of its composition.

So there you have it, beauty that won’t last, but a beauty at that.