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HTC unveils revamped HTC One flagship Android smartphone

bbc.co.uk

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Re: HTC unveils revamped HTC One flagship Android smartphone

#21

Post by CrazedGeek »

darklajid wrote: post #19
CrazedGeek wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it's worth, some of the manufacturer UIs are better than AOSP now. TouchWiz is actually quite nice now, shockingly enough.

Maybe (I cannot say a thing about TouchWiz). Do you get reasonable fast upgrades for old (like, month old) phones though, if Android moves forward? Do you get updates at all? Does it (the 'improved' ROM) include unremovable crapware? Even if all answers to the questions above are positive (as in, the 'right' answer): Do you buy a phone for the software improvements on top of a widely available platform? I buy decent…

Based on my experiences with the Epic 4G Touch, Galaxy S3, and Note 2, in order: Yes, for at least one major version (this is a little hard to qualify). Yes, but nearly all of it is disableable (there's one app that isn't, but it's small and never runs, so I don't care too much). No, but if I'm buying the phone already, it's a nice extra.

I tend to buy my devices based purely on what they can do now as opposed to that and future support, which I know isn't really common here. If it's a tradeoff between future software improvements (which recently haven't been all that substantial: 4.2 was nothing special, and 4.1 was only slightly better than ICS) and current hardware capabilities (those phones are all reasonably thin and have removable batteries and SD card slots, two things that the Nexus line currently lacks), I'm going with the hardware.

Re: HTC unveils revamped HTC One flagship Android smartphone

#22

Post by mrich »

darklajid wrote: post #10

It hopes that new software features will help to make its new handset stand out. Bzzt. Thank you very much. I'm in the market for a new phone, you are not targeting me. Sense? No way. And no, 'Software' on top of Android is not going to make your phone nice to buy for this particular guy here. Searching on for a decent 'stock' device..

I still don't understand the hate HTC gets for Sense, it is mostly great and an improvement over stock Android. Also HTC provide new Android versions nowadays in reasonable time. Android and the "derivatives" are evolving quickly, make sure you are not judging on outdated facts.

Re: HTC unveils revamped HTC One flagship Android smartphone

#23

Post by WrkInProgress »

jtreminio wrote: post #15

I really wanted to love HTC. I bought and still enjoy my HTC One X for AT&T ... but their complete lack of support for the mod community, and in fact stonewalling them, has completely turned me off to the company. I will never buy another HTC phone again.

I have the HTC One X (International Version) apart for the horrible thing that is HTC Sense 4 (apart from the camera improvements and certain dialer improvements), I've been able to root and load custom ROMS on my phone without any issues.

HTC even set up a site to make it easy to unlock the bootloader here: http://www.htcdev.com/bootloader

Re: HTC unveils revamped HTC One flagship Android smartphone

#24

Post by vetinari »

mrich wrote: post #22
darklajid wrote: post #10

It hopes that new software features will help to make its new handset stand out. Bzzt. Thank you very much. I'm in the market for a new phone, you are not targeting me. Sense? No way. And no, 'Software' on top of Android is not going to make your phone nice to buy for this particular guy here. Searching on for a decent 'stock' device..

I still don't understand the hate HTC gets for Sense, it is mostly great and an improvement over stock Android. Also HTC provide new Android versions nowadays in reasonable time. Android and the "derivatives" are evolving quickly, make sure you are not judging on outdated facts.

This device, which will be available at the end of March, will come with Android 4.1.2.

Meanwhile, 4.2.2 is already out in the wild. HTC's attitude towards updates is not something that I imagine as reasonable time.

Re: HTC unveils revamped HTC One flagship Android smartphone

#25

Post by ebtalley »

tjoff wrote: post #20
CrazedGeek wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it's worth, some of the manufacturer UIs are better than AOSP now. TouchWiz is actually quite nice now, shockingly enough.

TouchWiz is horrid . Also, even if it some day would become decent it would still be inferior just because it's tied to one manufacturer.

I have to chime in on the opposite spectrum. I had an evo and use a note 2 as the primary phone. I rooted the evo and put on Cynogen because I got more from the phone by doing so. Removing touchwiz and putting on cynogen or other aosp on the note would net me less functionality this time around. Unless google adds a stylus to their spec I don't see the (absolute) inferiority of forking the aosp trunk.

call it redhat vs debian.

Re: HTC unveils revamped HTC One flagship Android smartphone

#26

Post by [deleted] »

tjoff wrote: post #20
CrazedGeek wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it's worth, some of the manufacturer UIs are better than AOSP now. TouchWiz is actually quite nice now, shockingly enough.

TouchWiz is horrid . Also, even if it some day would become decent it would still be inferior just because it's tied to one manufacturer.

[deleted]

Re: HTC unveils revamped HTC One flagship Android smartphone

#27

Post by vetinari »

vardump wrote: post #16
meddlepal wrote: post #7

I won't purchase another HTC after they screwed thunderbolt owners by delivering ICS 6+ months late.

HTC Desire Z (AKA HTC Vision) user here. No ICS firmware. Stuck on Android 2.3.3, so this is my first and last HTC phone - I won't support vendors that don't provide timely updates. 512 MB RAM, but typically only 100-150 MB free, so it constantly reloads/restarts any apps and the HTC Sense UI itself. Google Play in-app purchases don't work. My next phone will be whatever Google's next flagship phone will be, assuming…

Don't hold your breath for "fixing" LTE and microsd in Nexuses.

LTE is currently a negotiation point in hands of carriers. The price of supporting LTE would be no timely updates (see also Verizon and Sprint Galaxy Nexus). This is something that Google will not compromise about.

MicroSD is a slightly different story, it has several problems:

UX ones:

- most users are confused by two separate storage pools (see the confusion: "I have XY gigabites free on the phone, why can't I install this app?") - the SD card has to be unmounted, when the phone is attached to the computer - that means killing everything, that was launched from the card.

Technical:

- The MicroSD performance is inferior to eMMC.

Legal:

- You have to license FAT32 and exFAT (for SDXC) from Microsoft. (Yes, I know that it is technically possible to use different filesystems with SD cards - but that is a decision that would not go very well with mainstream users who just want to connect the phone to their Windows or Apple computer).

Re: HTC unveils revamped HTC One flagship Android smartphone

#28

Post by fuzzythinker »

I'm very surprised by the negative comments about HTC/TouchWiz. I got the DNA and I'm totally in love with it (except for a few minor quirks). It has a 5" screen but overall size is about the same as S3 due to DNA's near edge to edge display. It is ultra thin and lightweight too. It seems like this is going to be even a better device than the DNA due to it being more a "normal" size phone but with the 4.7" screen but same 1080p display.

Re: HTC unveils revamped HTC One flagship Android smartphone

#29

Post by untog »

darklajid wrote: post #10

It hopes that new software features will help to make its new handset stand out. Bzzt. Thank you very much. I'm in the market for a new phone, you are not targeting me. Sense? No way. And no, 'Software' on top of Android is not going to make your phone nice to buy for this particular guy here. Searching on for a decent 'stock' device..

Plenty of people do like Sense, though. I agree with you- I hate it, and I'm disappointed that my only real device choice is a Nexus 4. But we're a minority, and manufacturers need to differentiate themselves from each other.

Re: HTC unveils revamped HTC One flagship Android smartphone

#30

Post by untog »

vetinari wrote: post #27
vardump wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HTC Desire Z (AKA HTC Vision) user here. No ICS firmware. Stuck on Android 2.3.3, so this is my first and last HTC phone - I won't support vendors that don't provide timely updates. 512 MB RAM, but typically only 100-150 MB free, so it constantly reloads/restarts any apps and the HTC Sense UI itself. Google Play in-app purchases don't work. My next phone will be whatever Google's next flagship phone will be, assuming…

Don't hold your breath for "fixing" LTE and microsd in Nexuses. LTE is currently a negotiation point in hands of carriers. The price of supporting LTE would be no timely updates (see also Verizon and Sprint Galaxy Nexus). This is something that Google will not compromise about. MicroSD is a slightly different story, it has several problems: UX ones: - most users are confused by two separate storage pools (see the con…

I'm still interested by the fate of LTE in the Nexus 4- it has the hardware for it, but it's manually disabled. When T-Mobile launch their LTE network it'll be interesting to see if any hacks will re-enable it. It could end up being one of the first technically unlicensed LTE devices.
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