HTC One V

HTC One V

 

The One V will probably end up outselling both of them due to its price. It’s also when you consider the price is when you realize that its specs are perfectly in line with what other phones in that price have to offer. The One V even has a couple of things that the others don’t, such as Android 4.0 pre-installed and an aluminum unibody. Let us take a closer look at this phone.

DesignUnlike the One X and the One S, the One V’s design isn’t particularly original. It looks practically identical to the HTC Legend that came out two years ago. Having said that, other than the basic shape, no two parts on the two phones are identical. The One V is thinner, narrower, shorter and lighter than the Legend. There are no physical keys below the display, nor is there an optical trackpad. There are also several other minor differences.

The One V’s design is much more refined and sophisticated than Legend’s. The front of the phone looks a lot simpler and cleaner. You will notice that the display area is slightly raised above the aluminum body and is not completely flush. Above the display is the earpiece underneath a long grille. Unfortunately, the One V does not have a front facing camera.

Below the display are the three capacitive keys like the other One series phones that consists of the back, menu and multitasking keys. Finally, there is the characteristic chin that was much more common on older HTC phones but has faded over the years.

On the left side of the phone, we find the micro USB port. Unlike the Sony Ericsson Xperia neo V, there is no micro HDMI port here. On the right are the volume control keys, which, as you may have noticed, have switched sides on recent phones whereas older HTC phones always had them on the left.

On top of the phone are the 3.5mm headphone jack, power button and the notification indicator. The indicator is design in a way such that it can be seen from the front, top and the rear of the phone, although it’s brightest when seen from the top.

On the back is the 5 megapixel camera lens with the LED flash near the top. At the bottom is a small plastic cap that comes off and conceals the SIM card slot and the microSD card slot. Unlike the other One series phones, the One V does not support micro SIM cards. What it does have in common is the battery, which is non-removable.

You will also find the loudspeaker placed underneath the plastic cap and due to the angle of the chin it doesn’t get covered when you place the phone on a surface.

The One V uses an aluminum unibody design, similar to the Legend. The metal surface has a really nice matte finish with a coarse texture. This makes the phone feel really great and light years ahead of the cheap, plasticky phones you usually see in this price range (Read: Xperia neo V). Build quality is great too and the phone feels well put together. Despite the metal construction, the phone is surprisingly light.

DisplayThe HTC One V has a 3.7-inch, 800 x 480 resolution, Super LCD coated with Corning’s Gorilla Glass. The display on this phone is really amazing. Warm, rich colors in particular look great. Other things such as black levels, viewing angles, outdoor visibility are also excellent. We’re glad to say that HTC has continued their tradition of using top-notch LCDs on their phones, despite their pricing.

Hardware and SoftwareThe HTC One V has a Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8255 SoC that includes a 1GHz Scorpion CPU and Adreno 205 GPU. In terms of memory you get 512MB, which is a downgrade from some of the older HTC phones such as the Desire S, Incredible S and the Rhyme that had 768MB.

As for storage space, HTC claims to offer 4GB of internal memory but all you get out of that is a meager 1GB. The only purpose of this memory is to install apps. Since the phone also needs another memory for storing photos and videos in case the user does not plug in a microSD card, HTC has given a ridiculously low 95MB of memory that exists just for the sake of it. As such, a memory card for this phone is a must. Thankfully, the phone comes with an 8GB memory card.

Then you have the usual connectivity features that include HSPA, Wi-Fi 802.11n, Bluetooth 4.0, A-GPS and USB 2.0. The phone supports Wi-Fi Direct for directly communicating with other Wi-Fi Direct devices without having to go through a router or an access point. There is no GLONASS or NFC support.

Music and videos The HTC One V comes with the Beats Audio branding that is now starting to become common on HTC phones. Even here it is nothing more than a sound effect that boosts the volume and the bass in the music and for some reason HTC thinks this makes the music sound the way the artist intended. Apparently musicians think everyone uses HTC phones with Beats Audio.

Anyway, coming back to the phone, we had some major issues with the audio quality on the One V. At first we thought this might be an issue with only our handset but after an online search it revealed that some others too have been experiencing it.

Basically, if you use a sentive pair of earphones you will be hearing a lot of CPU and radio noise in the background that sounds like the kind of sound you hear when you place a mobile phone that is on a call next to a speaker set. The noise is not constant but kicks in whenever you start playing something with sound, which can be anything. It does not change with the volume, which is why it is most noticeable when the volume is low. It’s also inconsistent, so at times it will be quieter than usual.

The reason for this could be poor EMI shielding. A similar problem was seen on the Samsung Galaxy S II that used the in famous Yamaha DAC. We are not sure what DAC HTC is using but it’s clearly not very good. We didn’t face this issue on the One X.

The problem is, if your phone has this issue, there is nothing you can do about it. You can get it replaced (good luck explaining it to your usual store keeper) but there is no guarantee that the new phone won’t have this issue either. It does matter what earphones or headphones you use. Sensitive in-ear earphones will make the noise that much more apparent than bigger, open back headphones. Also, at higher volumes it’s not really noticeable at all, so you can try that as well.

Moving over to video playback, the stock video player can play videos in AVI, MP4, MKV and WMV formats. As usual, the phone does not have support for AC3 or DTS audio, which leaves half of the MKV files without any audio. We tried playing some videos in DicePlayer app and they all played well up to 720p resolution. The videos look great on the display and even the loudspeaker sounds very nice. Too bad you still hear the static sound in the background when you use earphones.

Battery Life The battery life on the One V is pretty good. With regular usage the phone would last us for a day and a half. In our video playback test, the phone lasted for almost five and a half hours, enough to play a movie thrice and still have plenty of power left.

Verdict Few days ago we gave the HTC One V the honor of the best all-round smartphone under Rs. 20,000 and we stick to it. There are a few other phones such as the Sony Ericsson Xperia neo V and LG Optimus Black but none of them match the One V in terms of overall performance.

What tilts the odds in the HTC’s favor are the premium build quality and finish, superb display, good camera, good battery life and the latest version of Android. Unfortunately, things are not perfect, what with the occasionally sluggish performance and the high amount of noise through the headphone jack.

Still, for Rs. 17,435, the HTC One V is very good value for money and one of the best smartphones you can buy today.