The 4.7” HTC One smartphone has been acclaimed for its Apple-esque all metal Design. It has spawned a smaller version with a 4.3” screen in the One Mini. But what if you want larger, a phablet? Sorry Cali, I said the P word. You have the 5.7” Note 3 or the G Pro which is getting a bit long in the tooth. Both are very….plastic. You want a HTC One Max and they’re giving it to you.
If you look at the HTC One Max…okay let’s just say it, it’s a giant HTC One. At 164.5×82.5×10.29mm, it’s considerably larger than the Note 3. Nothing new in terms of design language, but there really doesn’t have to be. Aluminum with a black bezel around the screen. The Heart of this device is the 5.9” 1920×1080 display. That’s the same resolution of the newest Note, but this is 0.2” larger. That comes out to 373ppi. Less than other 1080 smartphones, but its still far above what Apple considered retina. You will have no problem seeing this monster. However, I could not find what type of display this is.
Performance will come up short compared to the Note 3. Where the competition has the top of the line Quad core Snapdragon 800 at 2.3ghz with the Adreno 330 graphics. The One Max has the next step down in the Snapdragon 600. Its CPU is still quad core, but 1.7ghz and it has the step down Adreno 320 graphics. I would be lying if I said this wasn’t slightly disappointing, but the 600 is a fast chip in its own right. Hopefully the downgraded processor coaxes more time out of the giant 3300mAh battery.
The speakers on this phone are of note. They are double front facing and they have a built in amplifier. While that should result in better sound than passive speakers, that’s not the most interesting part; the branding is. Rumors of HTC’s breakup with Beats Audio appear to have legs as these are marketed under HTC’s own BoomSound branding with no mention of Beats. The camera seems to be the same HTC UltraPixel sensor found in the One though lacking OIS this time around. They use a large (for a smartphone) ⅓” sensor with 2.0 micron pixels for better performance, especially in low light. The same 2.1mp HD camera with a wide angle lens is up front as well. As long as you don’t need to make big prints, this should be an excellent phone for pictures and video. For security, there’s a TouchID-esque fingerprint reader. It works much like Apple’s implementation for locking and unlocking the phone, though with up to 3 fingers instead of five. That being said, you can also set it up to launch up to 3 apps just by touching that finger to the sensor. The placing on this one is on the back, beneath the camera which might be harder to get to. The software is HTC’s Sense 5.5 which is a highly customized version of Android 4.3.
The HTC One Max will be available on carriers worldwide, including Sprint and Verizon, starting at the end of October. It was come in 16GB and 32 flavors and will have MicroSD for further expansion.
Source: HTC
