HTC's One X is a 4G smartphone with Android Ice Cream Sandwich, HTC Sense 4 and Beats By Dre built in. The phone hits AT&T's network on May 6 for $199.
The
HTC One X, an Android-running, 4G-equipped smartphone that the skidding,
Taiwan-based company hopes will bring its business back under control, will be
available May 6 for $199, AT&T announced April 18.
The
One X, which is geared toward this agenda, boasts a number of firsts. Its the
first smartphone to launch on the AT&T network running Android 4.0, known
as Ice Cream Sandwich. Its the first AT&T smartphone with built-in Beats
by Dre Audiosaid to offer distortion-free sound and rich bass whether youre
watching a movie or streaming music. And finally, its AT&Ts first HTC
phone to ship with Sense 4, the latest version of the manufacturers user
interface (UI).
While nearly all Android-running phone makers wrap Android
in a customized UI, HTCs is often cited as a favorite. This new version is
said to bring improved battery performance, some assistance with the sound
experience and improvements to the back-facing camerawhich is 8 megapixels and
can do cool things like take photos while shooting HD video, take photos from
existing video and snap photos in fast succession when the shutter button is
held down. Also aided by what HTC calls an ImageChip, the camera can go from
locked screen to snapping photos in just seconds, and it reportedly performs
equally well in low-light, no-light and back-lit conditions. Plus, it can take
a burst of photos, to ensure users catch the right shot.
On the front, for video calls, theres also a 1.3-megapixel
camera.
The One X has a polycarbonate frame that supports an Nvidia
Tegra 3 1.5GHz processor and a 4.7-inch display with a 720p HD screen thats
said to make viewing video clear from all angles, even when the phone is angled
up to 80 degrees. It can act as a mobile hotspot and GPS, offers microSD card support,
and has HDMI Media Link capabilities, so users can stream to an HDTV.
HTC introduced the
One seriesT-Mobile will also get a version, called the One Vat the
Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona, Spain, in February. Keen to entice
users, HTC introduced it with an offer of 25GB of free cloud storage for two
years, in cooperation with partner Dropbox.
While HTC had several success stories in the early days of
Android adoption, an onslaught of Android options from competitors, as well as
the Apple iPhone, has left HTC struggling for market traction. On April 8, it
announced a first-quarter net income of $151 million, which represented a 70
percent decline from a year earlier.
HTC executives, like Motorola executives, have said that as
part of a new strategy theyll introduce fewer but more differentiated products
going forward.
HTC CFO Winston Yung, during a February conference call, admitted
HTC dropped the ball with its fourth-quarter products and that there were
lessons to be learned. With the One, HTC will hopefully show off some of what
it has learned.
The HTC One X will be available for preorder beginning April
22.
Michelle Maisto has been covering the enterprise mobility space for a decade, beginning with Knowledge Management, Field Force Automation and eCRM, and most recently as the editor-in-chief of Mobile Enterprise magazine. She earned an MFA in nonfiction writing from Columbia University, and in her spare time obsesses about food. Her first book, The Gastronomy of Marriage, if forthcoming from Random House in September 2009.
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