Hey all! I'm on the fence with the HTC One. There are a lot of things I like, but there are also a lot of things I don't. I'm hoping for some thoughts/advice/perspective that might help in my decision.
Let me start with a bit of background. My first Android was the Evo 3D. I loved everything about that phone, and realize now that it spoiled my expectations for what an Android device should be. It was a corporate phone, though, so when I lost the job, it had to go. This was right before the launch of the HTC One and the Galaxy S4, but I couldn't wait, so I got an LG Spectrum 2 to hold me over. It's fine for what I need, but I'm really eager to get a flagship phone in my hand.
I've read (okay, skimmed) the "Real World Review" sticky. It seems like that's a more general discussion. I decided to start a new thread because I'm trying to focus in on specific features/aspects of the phone. Also, since this isn't really a review, I wanted to avoid a potential attempted hijacking charge.
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Home screens
There are two things about the home screens that bother me. One is that they don't wrap (or loop, or carousel, or whatever). As far as I can tell, there's no setting for this. Please correct me if I'm mistaken.
The other is management in general. It bothers me that you can't rearrange the home screens. It's not something I do often, but it does make it much easier to configure the layout. Does this bother you? If not, why?
Dock
I don't remember if this was possible with the Evo 3D, but on the One, the lockscreen icons cannot be set independently. This is unfortunate because the apps I want to access from the lock screen are often different from what I'd like to have on the dock.
Furthermore, the dock icons can only be configured from the app drawer. That's not too bad, but icons added to the dock are removed from the app drawer! To me, the app drawer is where you go when you're having trouble finding something, so I want everything to be there. I don't want to be scrolling through app after app looking for something only to realize I hid it in a folder on the dock. I doubt this is something I'd encounter very often, if ever, but I still think it's annoying. What do you think?
Camera
The camera is one of the major selling points of the One, and I've seen some compelling low-light comparisons. I'm not sure I like the way they have you switch between the front and rear facing cameras, though. It seems more gimmicky than practical. How does this feature compare to an on-screen toggle? Is it better, worse, or just different?
Settings
In general, it seems like the One doesn't have a lot UI options. I was poking around looking for things like the lockscreen icons and home screen wrap and was surprised to find them missing. I don't remember everything specifically, but in general, it seemed like the things I could change weren't very substantial, and the things that I wanted to change, I couldn't. I understand not wanting to overwhelm the user with settings, but it seemed like the One went too far in the other direction. Have you had problems configuring the One how you'd like? If so, what were you trying to do?
There's one feature on my LG that I like, and that's having the brightness slider right in the notification tray. Again, please correct me if I'm mistaken, but it does not seem that the One can be configured this way. I know the One has a brightness widget, and I think you can configure it as a quick toggle, but it's nice to be able to adjust the brightness without having to be able to actually see the screen.
Another point, which again, is a minor one, is that on the One, you can either manually adjust the brightness, or you can set it to adjust automatically. With my LG, I can set the brightness to automatically adjust, but still set the slider as a reference, so I can configure it to auto-adjust around, say, 20% or 80% as opposed to having it fully automated.
Other
Aside from that there's BlinkFeed's omnipresence, the lack of expandable storage and removable battery, and the fact that the power button is on the top left instead of the top right where I'd expect. I've already got past all that stuff, though, so We can skip it.
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The biggest selling point for me is the front-facing speakers. After that is the honest-to-goodness spell checker (as opposed to just a text-predictor paired with a loathsome auto-correcter). I like the Sense Clock (the old default one) and the weather-based live wallpaper. In the end, though, I can't decide if I would rather live with all of the One's little quirks, or without its main features.
How about you? If you could do it again, would you? Or would you consider another device instead? What would keep you coming back to the One? What would drive you toward another device? If it didn't have the front-facing speakers, would you still pick the One over its rivals?
arty:
