HTC One V Reviews

The HTC One V is very much the kid brother among the recent spate of HTC One handsets (the others are the HTC One X andHTC One S), but its sights are very firmly set on the Android mid range.

At first glance it has the feel of the HTC Legend of old, but aside from that distinctive little chin at the bottom, it's really a very different phone - now encased in black (like our review sample, supplied by 3, though it's also available in grey or brown) metal and rubberised plastic, it has more processing power, a better (and bigger) screen, improved sound and of course the latest Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich operating system and HTC 4.0 interface.

Design

It's considerably smaller than those other two powerhouses - much less "look at me", which will certainly appeal to some. The screen is 3.7-inches, which would have been a goodly size not so long ago (it's near enough the same size as the iPhone 4S after all), but following the recent trend for widescreen movie viewers at the top end of the smart phone market, it actually looks quite petite. Still, it delivers a resolution of 480x800 pixels which looks beautifully sharp and like other HTCs it's nicely sensitive too.

Beneath the screen is a touch-sensitive strip with the One series' take on the standard Android buttons - home, back and recent apps, which also acts as a menu button if you long press it.

Performance

The single-core 1GHz processor backed by 512MB RAM puts it well behind the might of big brother the HTC One X's quad-core 1.5GHz and, perhaps because of the still rather busy OS, it seems to take its time a little when opening apps , skimming through menus and browsing online. It delivered a fairly modest AnTuTu performance benchmark score of 2,599, putting it behind the LG Optimus L7 and Huawei Ascend G300.

It may have the latest version of HTC's Sense interface, with its easy charm and handy widgets, but that doesn't mean it's the same version that you'll find on the pricier HTCs. This pared-down version eschews some of the more powerful phones' 3D graphics on the menu for instance. But while it looks a little flatter, it makes sense in terms of performance.

Cameras

The lack of a front-facing camera means you don't get Ice Cream Sandwich's rather gimmicky Face Unlock feature either - no great loss - and there are less widgets and apps preloaded. While these cuts might drop the HTC One V from the very highest level, it's still a very well-specced and capable phone, and compares well with other midrangers like the Samsung Galaxy Ace Plus or the Sony Ericsson Xperia Ray.

The five-megapixel camera comes with autofocus, a "smart" LED flash and a BSI sensor for enhancing low-light pics. It also has face detection and auto smile capture, which is supposed to take a snap as soon as it focuses on a smile - which seemed to work quite well, and understood the difference between a live subject and a photograph.

HTC has added a new image processing chip to its One series cameras, which has helped to raise it out of the photo doldrums but while picture quality isn't bad, seeming to avoid the excessive colour saturation we saw on the One S, it's certainly not exceptional. It has 720p HD video recording capability though and while it's not full HD, it does a decent enough job.

Memory, sound and battery

The 4GB of onboard memory is beefed up by a supplied 2GB microSD card, and you can of course add your own up to 32GB. Like its brethren, the One V also comes with a Dropbox deal offering 25GB of online storage for two years and you can use this to automatically sync any of your pics.

The One V also comes with Beats Audio technology, which means you get some seriously beefed up bass when you switch the audio processing on. Unfortunately, this time round you don't get the distinctive BA headphones.

Battery-wise it held up pretty well, delivering a full day of fairly heavy use comfortably.

Conclusion

Unlike most midrange Android phones, the HTC One V gives you the latest Android Ice Cream Sandwich straight out of the box. Add to that a quality casing, beautiful interface, fine screen and an okay camera, and despite its rather sluggardly processor, you've got yourself a gem of a handset.

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