Design, Performance, and Usability

We’ve already comprehensively covered the core proposition of the HTC One in our original review. Suffice to say, the appeal of the matte-finish metal handset hasn’t waned since then. Build quality keeps it at the top of the pile of Android devices in recent memory, for a start, and having weighed the One against the Galaxy S 4 at the Samsung phone’s launch, it’s clear that HTC has the edge in design and quality. One mild concern is the tendency of the white polycarbonate inset strip running the edge of the phone to pick up color smudges when we kept it in our jeans pocket, though these usually rubbed off.

Some of the details stand out after a longer period with the phone. BoomSound has a ridiculous name, but we can’t argue with the audio performance: we’ve found ourselves showing off more video, as well as reaching for the One in preference to other devices when it comes to consuming multimedia from services like Netflix, simply because the front-facing stereo speakers are simply that good. The power from the speakers is also incredibly useful when using the One as a navigation device in the car, while the screen they flank is no slouch either, with a combination of 1080p Full HD resolution and a color balance that’s refreshingly level rather than skewed to over-saturation.

HTC One walkthrough:

Sense 5 and the BlinkFeed homescreen – which pulls together news, Facebook, Twitter, calendar, and tips from the phone – continues to draw our attention, even with the gloss of newness taken off it. With its Flipboard-style feed of headlines and images, BlinkFeed makes for a great distraction, though we can’t help but wish HTC would hurry up and add offline caching of articles, the ability to add your own RSS feeds, and Google+/Google Now integration. The latter would arguably make the biggest difference; we like the low-noise way the One slots your upcoming appointments into the first page of BlinkFeed tiles each day, and it would make a perfect fit for Google Now suggestions.

Overall, Sense 5 combined with Android 4.1 performs well, and with the exception of Photosphere we’ve not really missed anything from the very latest version of Jelly Bean. AT&T’s version of the One includes a customized browser, but despite our initial concerns, performance actually improved over the stock phone. In SunSpider, the test of JavaScript performance, the European One scored 1,118.9ms versus the 1,035.1ms of the AT&T version (in SunSpider, faster is better). Overall, we had no issues with the One’s quadcore 1.7GHz Snapdragon 600 processor pulling its weight running apps, and even AT&T’s preloaded software – which includes DriveMode, Family Map, Locker, Navigator, Ready2Go, Messages, myAT&T, Smart Wi-Fi, YPmobile, and Device Help – are neatly clustered into a folder rather than scattershot across the app launcher.

It’s not all perfect, though. A lingering frustration is the black menu bar that often appears in third-party apps, where HTC has followed Android guidelines and dropped a dedicated menu key, but apps aren’t yet putting the three-dot softkey where it should be, tucked out of the way in the corner. That means you lose a stripe of your 4.7-inch screen to a single control (the functionality of which varies widely) but, more annoyingly, the on-screen keyboard shifts up to accommodate it.

That has at times played havoc with our typing, our thumbs not extending sufficiently to avoid the menu key and thus interrupting text entry. Admittedly, it’s not HTC’s fault, but it’s an ongoing annoyance that apps not adhering to the latest Android UI guidelines continue to hit the Play store.

Camera and Multimedia

HTC’s UltraPixel strategy has proved divisive, with the company chasing more light instead of more megapixels. We’ve covered how the One uses its 4-megapixels extensively in our review, but we also gave the smartphone its chance to shine out in the wild, taking it to the New York Auto Show last month.

Your average tradeshow is tough going on a camera, whether it’s a DSLR, a point-and-shoot, or on a smartphone. The lighting ranges from ridiculously bright, meaning you get masses of reflections and glare, to moodily dark, making details difficult to pick out and the threat of noise a constant. In-between, there’s all manner of colored lights that can confuse a camera’s sensor.

The NY Auto Show was no different, but the HTC One held its own for the most part. All of the photos and video from our coverage of the new Chevrolet Camaro Z28 and the Corvette Stingray was taken using the One, for example, with us also using the Zoe “highlight” feature that creates summary videos based on 3.6s snippets of video and burst-stills.

For the photos, despite the mixed lighting conditions, the quality was surprisingly high. Blur is noticeably absent, the One being able to stick to faster shutter-speeds and lower ISOs thanks to its greater appetite for light, and photos which combine well-lit areas alongside much darker ones are impressively balanced. The phone is fast, too: back-to-back shots are roughly as swift as you can repeatedly tap the on-screen button.

Video, meanwhile, looks great at 1080p Full HD resolution, with the same impressive low-light and mixed-lighting performance as for stills. However, the noisy show floor proved a challenge for the One’s stereo microphones at times, however: you can certainly make out speech compared to background noise, but it lacks the pinpoint clarity you’d get with a directional microphone or a dedicated clip-on mic.

Nonetheless, for immediacy and convenience, the One certainly held its own. At full resolution and in perfect lighting, HTC’s choice of big pixels rather than lots of them struggles somewhat, but in more everyday situations the convenience of being able to take low-light situations in your stride wins out.

The downside with the One – and, specifically, with Zoe photography, which simultaneously grabs 20 stills and 3.6s of Full HD video – remains how multimedia is managed, particularly off the phone. We’ve already highlighted how poorly that plays with auto-upload services, such as those offered by Dropbox, Google+, and Facebook, which basically fill your cloud storage with dozens of nearly-identical shots. The AT&T version is no different in that respect, and HTC desperately needs to step up and address offloading media with its HTC Sync Manager app.

While it’s at it, we wouldn’t argue with more themes and flexibility for the Zoe highlights system: the One’s automatically curated showreels, which come complete with transitions, filters, and background music. We’re still impressed by how neatly the One knits these together, but the option for longer clips (currently it’s 30 seconds only) and the ability to use your own music would make the feature considerably more useful. We’ve found people are much more willing to watch our photos and video when they’re stitched into a highlight reel, and so a greater number of presets (out of the box there are six to choose between) would make it all the more engaging.

HTC Sense, Zoe, and Highlights demo:

One advantage those looking to AT&T for their One will have is capacity. The carrier has the US exclusive on the 64GB version, other networks making do with the 32GB model, and given the amount of data Zoe photography creates, and that there’s no microSD storage option, that makes a big difference. It’s not a cheap way to boost capacity, though: AT&T is asking $199.99 for the 32GB One, or $100 more to double the memory.

Phone, LTE, and Battery

HTC’s BoomSound speaker technology means the One has no problems pushing out in-call audio, and happily performance on AT&T’s network matched up with that. We had no problems keeping a signal, even though HTC squeezes the One’s antennas into the tiny polycarbonate notches in the unibody case, and hardly a dropped call, even in areas where coverage was patchy.

We tested LTE performance in multiple locations where AT&T currently offers service, including New York City, Denver, Wichita, and San Francisco. Speeds ranged from as much as 39Mbps downloads and nearly 19Mbps uploads, location depending, though averaged out at 15.95Mbps down and 7.06Mbps up. In contrast, we saw peeks of 37Mbps down and nearly 11Mbps up on an iPhone 5 using Verizon’s LTE network.

LTE has a reputation for being power hungry, and while the One’s 2,300 mAh battery isn’t small, the fact that it can’t be removed – unlike, say, the battery in Samsung’s Galaxy S 4 – has left some wary of the quadcore smartphone. In practice, we’ve found the One has sufficient legs to last through the day, particularly if its power management systems are turned on. These put data to sleep after periods of extended inactivity, waking them only occasionally to check for new messages and other updates, as well as reducing screen brightness and enabling other frugal systems.

Over the course of a sixteen hour day, then, with a mixture of cellular and WiFi connectivity, we saw roughly 30-percent of the battery left. More patchy use of WiFi saw LTE take a greater toll, with 20-percent left after just over twelve hours. However, even when we forgot to plug the charger in overnight, the One proved frugal, only dropping a few percentage points thanks to the data throttling.

Wrap-Up

Nothing about AT&T’s version of the HTC One has changed our positive impression of the smartphone. In fact, native LTE support for the US has only improved our takeaway opinion: the One is beautifully constructed, slickly designed, fast, has thoughtful software tweaks – a few third-party app UI glitches aside – and a great, flexible camera.

The road ahead for HTC isn’t going to be an easy one. Samsung’s Galaxy S 4 is the specter on the near horizon, and for however much it may offer an evolutionary step up from its Galaxy S III predecessor, it comes with the might of the South Korean company’s prodigious marketing machine (and its equally massive budget). In contrast, the One sees HTC take a far greater risk than it has in recent years – in investment in construction, camera strategy, and software – and, for the most part, that pays off in the quality of the overall device.

The Samsung Galaxy S 4 is, if last year’s model is anything to go by, likely to be the default choice for Android buyers in 2013. However, the HTC One is arguably the more thoughtful choice. In AT&T form, it’s our favorite Android handset of the moment.

Hardware & Design

The first thing you’ll notice with the Torque is its rugged look. It has a textured hard plastic Dura-Grip casing that protects it from drops, and every port is covered with a flap to keep water and dust out. The battery cover can come off, however, and it’s held on with a rather large screw that only requires a quarter turn to “unlock” it, so to speak. The cover is made out of a slightly-flexible rubber material to make it easy to pop off. Underneath the rear plate is a 2500mAh battery that powers the show, and it’s a slightly larger battery than we initially expected, but seeing how the Torque is meant for the adventurer, it’s critical to have a phone that can last all day.

The Torque comes with a 4-inch IPS display with a 800×480 resolution. Of course, that’s not really all that impressive, and those looking primarily for a top-quality display will want to look elsewhere, but otherwise it gets the job done, and most people who would need a rugged phone most likely won’t even care about the display’s quality in the first place. The screen is covered with a pre-installed screen protector as well, but it makes the screen look slightly blurry. We’re not sure what kind of screen protector is on the phone, but we could definitely tell that it made text and small icons a little blotchy.

As for the internals, the Torque comes with a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 dual-core processor clocked at 1.2GHz accompanied with 1GB of RAM. Sadly, it only has a measly 1GB of storage, but the phone has a microSD card slot that accepts up to 32GB of additional storage. The Torque sports a 5MP camera on the back, with a 1.3MP front-facing camera — more about that later.

As for ports and buttons, the Torque doesn’t rely on touch-based soft buttons. The phone consists of all physical buttons, including the three navigation buttons on the front. On the right side, there’s a dedicated camera button that acts as a shutter button, but it won’t open up the camera app itself. On the right side, there’s a volume rocker and a big yellow button for push-to-talk communication. On the top is the power button and a toggle button for turning the push-to-talk speaker on and off. Also on the top is the headphone jack in the middle. Then, on the bottom you have the microUSB port and the microphone.

The Torque also sports front-facing speakers, which is quite a rarity nowadays, and we were surprised to see that on a phone like this. The device houses the speakers at the bottom right below the navigation buttons, and I found it to be quite nice not having to cup my hand from the rear in order to get the sound to direct to the front, so having front-facing speakers is a small, but huge feature on this phone. As for the earpiece, it’s actually built into the glass display, and it relies on vibrations to deliver sound to your ear. It’s a weird concept, but Kyocera claims it makes voice calling quality better, especially in loud environments, like at a concert.

As for how rugged the Torque is, Kyocera claims it to be a pretty robust beast. The device meets Military Standard 810G, which applies to protection from dust, shock, vibration, temperature, rain, low pressure, solar radiation, and immersion in water for up to 30 minutes in up to 1 meter of water. I ended up dropping it a couple of times on my kitchen’s tile floor at different angles and it didn’t scratch it one bit, and it made more of a “thud” sound rather than a high-pitched cracking noise that you would get with most other smartphones. I even brought it in the shower with me and it was fine the whole time. However, Kyocera notes that the phone is inoperable while the screen is wet. We’re not sure if the phone disables itself somehow to avoid damage, but the phone stays on — you just can’t use it. In the end, you probably don’t need to worry too much about damaging the phone, which is something that most other smartphone owners can’t say about their precious toys.

Software

The Torque runs Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, and the interface looks to be mostly stock, although there are a few pre-installed apps that may get in your way. Other than that, though, it looks like Kyocera mostly left the user interface alone, which is a huge plus for those wanting a true Android experience. However, those wanting the latest operating system will be disappointed for now, but Kyocera plans to upgrade the device to Jelly Bean within the next few months.

However, there are still a couple of Kyocera-exclusive features within the software, including a modified lock screen, that allows you to swipe the unlock circle in any direction to unlock the phone, and there’s also a camera icon that does the same thing. The icons at the bottom of the home screen are also just slightly changed up, with an ID app to the far right that allows you change the theme of the user interface.

Camera

The camera on the Torque isn’t the best, to put it simply. Even with adequate lighting, photos turned out to be really noisy, and white balance wasn’t working too well in most situations. Low-light capabilities weren’t too bad, though, but there was still a lot of noise in the photos, of course. I noticed that the camera would only focus the frame after I pressed the shutter button, meaning that as I was lining up my shot, the frame would remain blurry until I took the picture. At that point, the camera would quickly focus the frame and snap the photo. It only appeared to be doing that specifically with macro and other close-up shots, though.

Video quality was subpar as well. Automatic exposure and white balancing were average, but it would take a few seconds to refocus if I moved the camera around. As with the photos, ISO and noise were apparent, and while the camera is capable of shooting in HD, the quality isn’t too great, and it mostly looks like a standard-definition video that was blown up to HD standards, which as you know, doesn’t have good results. Overall, if you’re going hiking and are planning to do some sightseeing, you may want to bring a dedicated camera to take photos of that beautiful sunset over the canyon.

Performance & Battery Life

We ran the Torque through our go-to benchmarking apps, Quadrant and AnTuTu, and the results were a bit better than we expected. In AnTuTu, the Torque scored a 10,500, which is right on par with the Samsung Galaxy Note and the Galaxy S II, while just lagging behind a bit from the ASUS Transformer Prime. In Quadrant, the Torque scored just under a 4,200, which puts it on par with the Transformer Prime and almost up to snuff with the HTC One X, which is quite impressive.

As for battery life, knowing that the Torque had a 2500mAh battery, I was expecting to go longer than usual with this phone, and that’s exactly what happened. Streaming Netflix TV shows and movies non-stop on the Torque ended up lasting eight hours before the battery even reached 25%, and with normal use, it was easily lasting a couple of days without a problem. Of course, the large battery mixed with the low power requirements of the internal components makes the Torque one of the few smartphones on the market that can last a long time on a single charge.

Wrap-Up

In the end, while the Torque probably won’t win any awards in the looks department, it certainly gets props for being an extremely rugged smartphone. There’s definitely some things that could be better if it wants to compete with the flagship devices currently on the market, so you’ll definitely have to make some sacrifices in the performance department if you’re wanting something rugged. Although, we’d almost just rather get a better phone, slap on an OtterBox case, and call it a day.

Design

Stunning. The HTC One makes a compelling argument for being the best-made Android phone we can recall, a design that both looks and feels premium (though photos don’t tend to do it justice, making it look flat and overly simplistic). Last year’s One X was a solid device, with its polycarbonate plastic casing, but the One is leagues ahead. HTC went back to basics – CNC-intensive manufacturing processes; clever rethinking of how to finesse the most out of minimal antennas – with its industrial design, and the end result is a phone that’s creak-free and somehow timeless in the same way that Apple’s MacBook Pro design has gracefully evolved.

On the front, HTC’s favorite micro-drilling process has spread from the earpiece to the slip of metal under the display, while the company continues to insist that Google’s on-screen buttons are a waste of valuable display space, and so includes touch-sensitive keys. We’re down to just two of them, however – Back and Home – flanking an HTC logo that doesn’t do anything if you tap it. We can’t help but wish the logo was the home button, since we kept stabbing at it out of habit.

A thin band of white polycarbonate runs the chamfered edge of the One, enclosing the power key (which doubles as an IR blaster) and headphone socket on the top edge, and the microUSB port on the bottom. A volume rocker is on the side, flush with the casing. On the back, the gently bowed metal has been carefully shot through with narrow strips of plastic which allow the antennas to do their magic; there’s a neat stylistic flourish with the upper band dipping to encircle the camera lens, but we could do without the Beats Audio logo which looks a little garish in comparison to the discretely metallic HTC branding.

All that metal and sturdiness comes with a compromise, and that’s the battery. HTC has opted for a non-removable Li-Poly pack, a healthy 2,300 mAh, which is fixed inside. Exactly how many people ever actually swap out their batteries is unclear, but it could prove an early deal-breaker for some. Similarly, there’s no microSD card slot, HTC unable to accommodate it in the 137.4 x 68.2 x 9.3 mm, 143g frame.

Hardware and Performance

HTC has thrown the works at the One, and pretty much all but wireless charging has stuck. So, you get a fast processor – Qualcomm’s 1.7GHz Snapdragon 600 quadcore, to be exact – and 2GB of memory, along with a 4.7-inch Full HD display (more on which later). Connectivity includes LTE, HSPA/WCDMA, and GSM/EDGE, along with WiFi a/b/g/n/ac, MHL-HDMI with the right adapter, Bluetooth 4.0 with aptX audio support, NFC, and Miracast wireless display, while there’s also a digital compass, GPS, GLONASS, gyroscope, accelerometer, and proximity/ambient light sensors.

Without a microSD card slot, internal storage becomes all the more important. HTC has sensibly bypassed the 16GB point and instead opted for 32GB and 64GB versions, though the latter will be only available in certain, limited locations. Our 32GB review unit had 25.49GB free out of the box. There’s a free 25GB chunk of Dropbox storage, too, though we’d still rather see expandable local memory if given the option.

It’s particularly topical since the One does so well with multimedia. For once, the Beats Audio doesn’t feel like a cynical marketing mention: the One really does exceed what other phones can do, both when it comes to recording and playing back sound. For the former, it’s down to two dual-membrane microphones, which HTC calls Sense Voice: in short, one half of each microphone handles high signal-to-noise ratio sound, such as regular speech, up to around the 75dB point, while above that there’s a high sound pressure level membrane that can cope with the more boisterous sounds you’d encounter at a concert or club.

Sample recording from a concert

Together they’re designed to handle every audio situation the phone might find itself in, whether that’s doing speakerphone duty in a quiet office, recording your kids on the swings at the park, or in the front row of a gig. Best of all, it actually works: the stereo pick-up is excellent in normal conditions, but as soon as things get loud and you’d expect a regular phone to get overwhelmed, the One just bulldozes ahead. We kept trying to identify the point where the membranes hand over, but in fact it’s more of a seamless blend; you simply can’t tell what the One is doing, which is really as it should be.

On the flip side are the speakers, which HTC is equally proud of. The One brings them up-front, flanking the display, and gives them significantly larger chambers to resonate in. Look beyond the awkward BoomSound branding and the result is impressive: loud but without distortion, and with bass that belies the fact you’re listening to a phone. The speakers get their own Beats Audio branded amplifier, too, with a second powering the headphone socket. Interestingly, HTC isn’t bundling any Beats Audio headphones in the box this time around, only a regular wired hands-free kit, though the One worked well with every aftermarket set we tried.

We can’t complain about the One’s overall performance, the Snapdragon 600 putting in a convincing show both in everyday use and in benchmarks. In Quadrant, the HTC scored 12,127, a huge step up from the 7,400 of the One X+, while in AnTuTu it managed 24,283, up from the 16,245 of the One X+. In Qualcomm’s Vellamo test, it scored 2,398 in the HTML5 category and 779 in the Metal category. In SunSpider, the browser test of JavaScript performance, the One scored 1118.9ms (faster is better. Overall, then, it’s clear that the One can handle anything you could throw at it today, and is likely to remain that way for the foreseeable future.

Display

Point-three of an inch shouldn’t make a difference, but it does. HTC’s decision to go with a 4.7-inch screen, against the 5-inch panel of the DROID DNA and Butterfly J, is a welcome one: you still get the rich, creamy Full HD resolution, but that slightly condensed 1080p adds up to both 468ppi pixel density and a handset that’s easier to hold.

HTC has stuck with LCD rather than looking to AMOLED, and the result is a panel that’s beautifully balanced. Accurate colors, rich blacks, and viewing angles that are so broad as to look pasted on. It could arguably do with being a little brighter at its maximum setting – we’ve been spoiled with recent high-nit panels from LG and others, which do better at battling sunlight – but it’s a great all-rounder nonetheless.

Software

HTC Sense

HTC Sense has had a long and at-times tortured journey. What started as HTC’s attempt to tame the wild-west of raw Android back in the v1.5 days gradually became heavier, slower, and arguably less necessary as Google tightened up its own software. What were once HTC-exclusive features gradually became baked into Android-proper, and – despite a few little-developed additions, like OnLive gaming and HTC Watch – HTC seemed more interested in simply visually differentiating its phones than actually delivering a legitimately more usable UI.

That doesn’t fly in 2013, when pure Android has an increasing number of fans, and rivals like Samsung have gone tweak and enhancement crazy with their own software modifications. Happily HTC has taken a clean-slate approach with Sense 5.0 on the One, and much of its new strategy works.

For a start, the swollen icons and cartoony feel has been pared back dramatically, keeping little more than wire-frame outlines of HTC’s weather icons (some things, like zombies, refuse to die). Instead, you get some welcome use of Google’s Roboto font – in its condensed form, which makes it look both familiar and distinctive – and a crisper, more simplistic layout with flatter icons and a black/white/blue color scheme that’s reminiscent of Windows Phone in places.

The familiar homescreen is still present, though now limited to four panes of icons or widgets – HTC says its research indicates the vast majority of users settle on a screen or two of icons, and then never bother changing them – while the app launcher comes with several apps already organized away into folders, part of HTC’s encouragement to keep the layout (either 3×4 or 4×5) tidy. Our units direct from HTC have little in the way of bloatware preinstalled, and we know the company is working with carriers to try to minimize how many “added extras” get thrown in, with the goal being to have them at least corralled into a folder from the start.

Interestingly, you can treat the app launcher as a homescreen; jump from it into an app and then hit the Home key, and you’ll go straight back to the launcher rather than the traditional desktop. However, HTC has another part of its homescreen that it hopes will become your default.

HTC BlinkFeed

BlinkFeed is HTC’s latest try at pulling together social, something it started several years back in FriendFeed. However, the new system is far more comprehensive, featuring not only Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Flickr content, but news from multiple online sources. Outwardly similar in appearance and functionality to newsreading-app Flipboard, BlinkFeed sits to a side-swipe of the desktop and fills the screen with page after page of mixed content from news and social.

In its first generation, you can only choose from HTC’s selection of news sources – future iterations will support general RSS feeds being added, HTC tells us – but it’s a pretty comprehensive selection from the outset, and tailored depending on your location. Those in the US will see sources like USA Today and the WSJ, while those in the UK will get the BBC and the Guardian, for instance. Subscriptions can be added on a category basis – technology, for instance, or sport – or from a specific provider. If you’re on a WiFi connection then the list is updated automatically every couple of hours by default, whereas out of the box it’s manual-only refreshes on a cellular data connection. A quick pull down on the BlinkFeed list triggers a check for new articles (as well as showing the options menu for managing subscriptions).

We’re generally wary of news reader apps, especially those preloaded by manufacturers, since they’re usually subpar compared to third-party options like Flipboard. BlinkFeed, though, is surprisingly capable. HTC describes its purpose as serving up “snackable” content, the sort of glanceable tidbit that might catch your attention when you instinctively reach for your phone in a moment of distraction, and in that respect it operates as a gateway rather than trying to be the be-all and end-all of news consumption.

Tap an article – small icons and text at the bottom of each thumbnail show whether its come from a news site or been shared from Twitter, Facebook, or another social source, along with who shared it – and it opens in the regular browser. Tweets open in the official Twitter app, Facebook links in the Facebook app; not some HTC version the company has cooked up. In the future, you’ll be able to choose alternative apps – so, for instance, you could use your third-party Twitter software of choice rather than the microblogging company’s own app – but that’s not supported at launch. If the flow of news gets too much for you, you can shut it off and use BlinkFeed solely as a social feed, or vice-versa. Other apps will also periodically inject their content into BlinkFeed too, so for instance the gallery might remind you of an old photo taken if you revisit a location, or HTC might slide in a pane with tips about an under-utilized feature. Sadly, despite its cards arguably making the most sense for inclusion, there’s currently no Google Now integration.

Despite our skepticism, we quickly grew to like BlinkFeed. Part of that’s down to speed: there’s very little lag in scrolling through the list – HTC has wisely kept the animations to a minimum, with just a small amount of tile-tilt when you flick through each page – and stories open up quickly. HTC’s content partner does a fair amount of server-side processing to keep data transfer time and overall traffic to a minimum: the One gets the headline and an image (news sources with photos get priority over text-only stories) and then only accesses a specially formatted article when you actually tap on it. There’s also a push to show the full article rather than just an excerpt, as sometimes find on Flipboard, though you can always open up the page on the original site, or share it via any of the usual Android methods. It’s perfect for the casual grazing smartphone addicts do in every moment of downtime.

BlinkFeed is obviously a first-generation product, but HTC has ambitious plans for its development. Our advice has always been to buy a device for what it does today, not what it might be updated to do tomorrow, though HTC has at least made changes to Sense in v.5 to address a key complaint: that software updates are frustratingly infrequent. Typically, that’s because a new firmware version demands considerable interaction between manufacturer and the carriers, and often only comes when Google pushes out a new version of Android.

To address that, HTC has divorced the update process for its own apps from the underlying OS. Rather than being forced to wait for a significant firmware change before it can tweak, patch, and generally improve BlinkFeed and other homegrown software, HTC will be able to update them piecemeal. So, when BlinkFeed finally gets third-party app support, or RSS subscription support, HTC will be able to deliver that functionality in the same manner as an app downloaded from the Google Play store can.

We’ve heard promises of more timely upgrades before, so the proof of HTC’s ambitious new system will be in the delivery. However, if it can do it, it will go a long way to drawing some of the venom many feel about OEM skins like Sense. That’s not to say HTC has turned over a new leaf entirely: the One launches running Android 4.1.2, rather than 4.2, with the company promising an update soon.

HTC Get Started

Once upon a time, HTC offered a web-based counterpart to Sense on its phones, with mobile content access, backup, find-my-phone security, and remote locking. That was quietly retired in early 2012, however, with HTC promising bright new things in its place. Those bright new things have taken until now, and the HTC One, to arrive.

HTC Get Started is, the company tells us, in part a reaction to the growing number of online sales of phones: now, buyers will be able to jump straight into their new phone experience, even while they’re waiting for the One to be physically delivered. In short, it’s a simple way to set up a new device. After choosing your model (and carrier variant), you can personalize the applications, sounds, bookmarks, wallpapers, lock screen options, and even the feeds in BlinkFeed, all via a web interface on the desktop.

You can start from a blank slate, or pick from seven presets – family, games, music, photos, social, sports, or travel – which each populate the One with a set of feeds, apps, bookmarks, sounds, and other settings. So, if you opt for the games preset, you get Temple Run and Angry Birds Space automatically installed, along with gaming and sports content for BlinkFeed, and some of the popular gaming news and reviews sites bookmarked in the browser. Every choice is previewed on a mock-up of the One shown alongside.

If you’d rather craft your own setup, you can step through each content stage, picking ringtones, notifications, and alarms – or uploading your own audio to snip a sound from it – then choosing from either preloaded bookmarks or add your own, as well as from HTC’s wallpapers or one of your own images uploaded specially. All of the apps you choose come direct from the Google Play store, which means they update just as if you loaded them manually on the phone itself.

It’s the accounts section of Get Started that’s the most useful, however. Rather than punch in your email and Dropbox credentials during the on-device setup wizard – something which can be frustrating, pecking in passwords on a soft keyboard – you can register them in the browser interface. The whole thing is then finished off with either the creation of an HTC account or, alternatively, by logging in with your Facebook or Weibo username and password. When you start up the phone, you can punch those credentials in, and the One gets automagically set up just as you arranged it online.

Given how much time we spend setting up new devices, we’re unsurprisingly fans of HTC Get Started. You don’t have to be a phone reviewer to appreciate its simplicity, however; one of the most frustrating issues new smartphone owners can face is not being quite sure what to actually do with their powerful new gadget, and so HTC’s smorgasbord of curated apps is a great launching point. Unfortunately there’s no way, at present, to synchronize Sense in the other direction – you can’t back-up your exact phone layout to Get Started, edit it online, and then later restore that to the device – but HTC does at least offer a backup system that preserves most of the layout and settings of your handset.

TV

HTC’s clever integration of an IR blaster into the One’s power button gets a purpose right out of the box, with the company’s simply-named TV app. Built on Peel technology – which powers the universal remote system included on some Galaxy Tab tablets, for instance – the app basically replaces your usual home entertainment remotes and throws in a channel guide too.

First-time setup involves telling the app where you live and what content providers you have – cable, satellite, free-to-air digital, etc. – then selecting your TV model and any other A/V kit you might have. HTC has a long list of manufacturers to choose from, and we were up and running with our TVs simply by choosing the brand; testing basically involves firing off a power signal, and making sure the TV turns on as expected. Multiple devices can be set up and switched between, and if you’ve something not on the list then you can teach the TV app how to use it: the IR blaster also works as a remote reader, and so by pointing the controller for your mystery device at the One, you can step through all of the key controls. That way, we were able to set up an Apple TV, a preset for which was missing from HTC’s list.

When you open TV, you find a screen of currently-playing shows based on the channels you receive. Each gets a preview and a bar running along the bottom showing how far through the show is; tapping it automatically changes the channel, or you can open up an information page with an episode summary, a list of actors, and other details. It’s there you can also favorite shows: from that point, those you’ve favorited will show up higher in the “now playing” list, as well as have reminders of new episodes pushed into your BlinkFeed. A side-swipe from the main screen shows what’s coming up next, as well as allowing you to dig into the future schedule or break your planning down channel-by-channel. It’s also possible to permanently hide channels you’re not interested in.

Exit the TV app and a shortcut automatically appears in the notification bar, complete with quick access to the power, to the full remote page, and details of what you’re currently watching. Set the phone down with TV running and, if it goes to sleep, it’ll wake up automatically when you pick it up. You can pull the app up even if the phone is PIN-locked, too, though for security users won’t be able to jump from the TV app to other content on your phone if you’ve left it on the coffee table. It’s worth noting that the app only knows what’s on if you’ve been using it exclusively; if you switch between the One and your regular remote, there’s no way for the phone to figure out what channel is currently playing.

The other aspect of TV is streaming content, though here HTC’s provision is slightly less developed. You can stream video directly from the phone to a TV – it’s incredibly straightforward, too, as long as it supports DLNA or Miracast, and is basically a matter of choosing the screen of choice and then watching the content show up – or from third-party services like Netflix and Hulu Plus. Eventually, HTC aims to have the TV app control the native streaming apps on smart TVs, but for now it works best if you have HTC’s own MediaLink HD box plugged into your set via HDMI.

As with BlinkFeed, HTC has more in store for the TV app. Right now, it’s responsive but not predictive: it’ll remind you of an upcoming show if you’ve favorited it before, but it won’t make suggestions based on what it thinks you might like. That’s in the pipeline, though, and HTC will be able to iterate more regularly thanks to its streamlined update system. Meanwhile, HTC is pitching an API for the IR blaster around A/V app developers, hoping for broader adoption there, too. For the moment, it’s a handy system if you’re laden with remotes or often lose them, though it’s perhaps too early to be a must-have feature.

Kid Mode

Handing your offspring your phone – especially if it’s logged into an app or multimedia store, complete with a credit card registered – can be a recipe for disaster. To fix that, HTC equips the One with Kid Mode, powered by Zoodles, which offers a captive selection of games, age-appropriate multimedia, storybooks, and more, all with a child-friendly interface.

There’s support for time limits on how long games and the web are accessible, as well as ad-blocking and site whitelisting for controlling what kids will come across online. Each child has their own “Playground” user-account, with management from a centralized dashboard. It’s worth noting that Zoodles is already available for Android devices in general, in addition to Mac, PC, iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad.

Camera

The One’s camera is probably HTC’s biggest risk with its new flagship, a concerted decision to step off the megapixel bandwagon and instead reconsider smartphone photography from the perspective of how owners really use their phones. So, the One has a “mere” 4-megapixel camera – less than a third of the 13-megapixels Sony has equipped the Xperia Z with, for instance, or LG on the Optimus G Pro – but it’s a specially designed sensor exclusively for HTC’s use.

The key is light. HTC’s research suggests most users take photos indoors or in subpar lighting conditions, rather than outdoors where most phone cameras do their best work. Although ramping up the megapixels increases detail, it also makes each pixel smaller – assuming you want to keep a pocket-friendly phone unlike, say, Nokia with the capable but bloated sensor of the 808 PureView – and that means each gets less light and so the final image gets more noise and other glitches.

HTC’s approach is to use huge pixels – capable of grabbing over 300x the light of some rival cameras – so that, even though the final image may not be as large as from an 8- or 13-megapixel device, its overall quality is higher. More light means faster shutter speeds are possible, which helps cut down on phone shake; HTC also adds in two-axis optical image stabilization to assist with that. The resulting data is fed straight into the latest version of HTC’s ImageChip processing, which finesses things based on the RAW data rather than, as other phones tend to, on the converted JPEG.

Sample shots

The difference is quite literally night and day when it comes to low-light images. Scenes that, on a Galaxy S III or an iPhone 5 are so murky as to be all but useless, come out with significant amounts of detail on the One. The One has an LED flash – which will automatically choose between five degrees of brightness, depending on the distance between the phone and the subject – but you can comfortably leave it off more often than not. As well as greater detail, the One can do less post-processing to remove blur, since the bigger pixels allow for faster shutter speeds.

In more ideal conditions, the One’s shots suffer if you blow them up and compare them side-by-side with higher-megapixel images. The 4-megapixel sensor simply lacks the resolution to compete on that level. Nonetheless, at more typical levels of crop, we’re left impressed by the standard of stills from the One. Colors are accurate and there’s admirably little noise, HTC’s favored 28mm f/2.0 lens making its presence known once more.

Up front, meanwhile, there’s a 2.1-megapixel camera which also has an f/2.0 lens, and HTC has borrowed the One X+’s wide-angle optics so that you can fit more people in-frame at any one time. It’ll shoot 1080p Full HD video, too (though not Zoe shots; more on which in a moment), plus HDR stills, and there’s a useful timer which means you can tap the screen and still have time to post before the frame is captured.

As for video, the One can capture 1080p footage at 30fps, or 720p footage at 60fps; there’s support for HDR video, as well as simultaneously capturing a full-resolution still image while you’re recording video. The results for video are as impressive as those for still images, with excellent colors, balance, and brightness levels, and minimal judder or noise. The low-light performance isn’t quite as convincing as for still shots, though the One handles scenes with mixed high- and low-brightness well: in footage of a show, for instance, with bright lights on-stage and darkness elsewhere, both areas were cleanly visible.

HTC Zoe

If HTC has its way, though, we’ll not be taking just photos or video, but a hybrid of the two. Called Zoe, it’s HTC’s vision of the future of mobile photography: a 0.6s pre-capture of video, from before you hit the on-screen button, then three seconds of video along with twenty stills. There’s no quality compromise involved – stills are at full resolution, and video is at 1080p complete with audio.

Each cluster of content can then be used in interesting ways. At the most basic, it brings the gallery alive: as you look at albums and thumbnails, the 3.6s video clips cycle through as if you’re looking at a magical Harry Potter newspaper. However, open up a Zoe and you can scroll through the clip with a timeline bar, picking out individual frames to keep. HTC has baked in some editing features too, so you can pick out faces from different frames and combine them into one, ensuring everyone has their eyes open and are smiling, or remove objects from the picture. The One can identify faces, too, and allow per-face tweaks like eye-whitening, anime-style enlarging, and skin smoothing.

Each event – a group of recent Zoe clusters, either automatically created by the One or manually merged or split off – gets a thirty second “highlight reel” that the phone produces itself. That sits at the top of the event view, and is basically an automatically curated overview of the themed content. There are six themes to choose from – ranging from “Eifel” with its quirky Parisian style, to the more hipster “Vega” with fast chops and cool color tones – and you can switch between them at will, the reel changing on-the-fly. Hit the remix button, meanwhile, and you instantly get another edit, the speed at which it’s created a testament to HTC’s processing power.

The technology behind the highlight reel is surprisingly complex, too. The cuts aren’t solely random; instead, the One is analyzing each clip and photo for the most interesting parts, such as those which include action, or faces, or even how often you’ve looked at specific photos in the gallery. What you can’t do is manually tweak the reels – only have the phone cook up a new remix itself – or use your own music; HTC tells us the latter is likely to come in a future update, as well as more themes to choose from, but for now you’re limited to the six preloaded.

We’ll admit, it seemed like a gimmick at first. Yet after a short while – and the fact that shooting a Zoe basically has no downside compared to a photo; there’s no processing lag after it finishes, for instance, you simple tap the button and watch the little red highlight slide across the icon – we found ourselves sticking in Zoe mode altogether. Being able to step back through the array of stills, even to before the point we actually took the photo, and pick out the best frame was useful for portrait and action shots, while the highlight reel is the perfect length for Facebook sharing (without boring friends and family with minute after minute of the same mundane thing).

That sharing can be done directly to YouTube, Facebook, or something similar, with the reel exported as an MP4. However, there’s also Zoe Share, HTC’s own social system. A free online gallery, it allows you to choose a reel and an accompanying ten photos or Zoes to upload to a special gallery, with the One automatically pinging you a link in the notification bar which can then be shared via email, Twitter, Facebook, or somewhere else.

Zoe Share isn’t ideal, however. For a start there’s a time limit on how long HTC will host the collections – currently three months – after which they get deleted. Individual stills can be downloaded from Zoe Share, but not individual Zoe clips nor the thirty second highlight reel. Links are entirely public, too; you can’t have a private Zoe Share, with a password in case someone forwards the URL, for instance. There’s also no way to change the video resolution – it defaults to 1080p – which can mean slow uploads unless you’re lucky enough to have a decent connection.

Again, HTC tells us it’s working on a more comprehensive export system – perhaps integrated into the HTC Sync Manager app, which is used to synchronize audio and other content from your PC or Mac to the phone and back, as well as doing file browsing duties – but there’s no timescale for when it might arrive. Meanwhile, if you use an auto-upload service, whether Dropbox (as is prompted during the initial One setup) or something like Google+, every one of the twenty Zoe frames gets automatically uploaded, and there’s no way (aside from manually deleting the shots) to have it only upload one or two of them. Storage – whether on-device or cloud – could quickly become an issue, with each cluster of Zoe content coming in at around 32MB (the 30s video along is 4MB).

That said, we still think it’s a great feature. Zoe injects the fun back into being a mobile shutterbug, producing multimedia that others would actually want to look at. In fact, the biggest drawback of the One isn’t its photo quality, or its overall usability, but trying to educate potential buyers as to what makes the camera special. HTC does itself few favors by turning the full force of its branding machine on the One’s camera system, with confusing results. Instead of megapixels you get UltraPixels; the video/snapshot clusters are called Zoe; but there are also Zoe Highlights, the longer videos that pull in content from multiple Zoes for the ad-hoc, curated 30 second clip complete with music and filters. It’s enough to confuse even the professionals, and that doesn’t bode well for how easy a sale it might be.

Phone and Battery

Given the quality of the HTC One’s music playback performance, we had high hopes for in-call audio. Interestingly, though, the phone was pretty average: the earpiece has a somewhat hollow sound to it, with callers certainly audible but not quite as clear as on some other devices. We had no complaints about microphone performance, though, with the One’s noise cancellation doing a capable job, and the speakerphone was suitably loud.

HTC quotes up to 18hrs 3G talktime (27hrs 2G) from the One, or 500hrs 3G standby (479hrs 2G); that’s based on our European-spec review units, since US-spec versions aren’t available yet. Given the size of the display (and the amount we’ve been playing with the One, particularly the camera) it comes as little surprise that it falls in line with other recent smartphones in terms of real-world longevity.

With all of the usual accounts doing their work in the background – push email, Facebook and/or Google+ multimedia uploads, periodic checking of social networks, etc. – and with regular use, we took the phone down from 88-percent to around 20-percent in the space of just over 7.5hrs. That’s predominantly on WiFi, though with some AT&T HSPA+ use. From a full charge to flat, then, with heavy use you could expect in excess of nine hours of runtime.

Unsurprisingly, once you notch back on some of the background activity, things start to improve significantly, and in fact HTC offers a Power Saver option – readily accessed from the notifications pull-down – which optionally throttles the CPU, lowers screen brightness, turns off vibration alerts, and shuts off off data when the phone is locked. Unfortunately there’s no way to prioritize certain apps to maintain their connection with Power Saver is turned on, which means you won’t get the benefits of push-email and similar. Instead, the One wakes the radio periodically to check what’s new, with no user control over how frequently that happens.

Display and camera are the biggest battery hogs, really. The impact of the screen isn’t much of a shock, since it’s a common culprit, but camera users might be surprised by how much in the way of resources significant use of Zoe photography can cause. After all, the One is constantly buffering video and photos whenever Zoe mode is active in the camera app.

There are two ways of looking at the One’s battery showing – and bear in mind we’ll be running ongoing battery testing over the coming days, including on LTE networks. You could be disappointed, frustrated by the fact that big screens and lots of data use take their toll on a battery, even if it’s a reasonably sized 2,300 mAh pack; you could also decry HTC’s decision to chase solid form over replaceable battery flexibility. Or, you might accept the regular recharging as a fact of life with any modern smartphone; we’re yet to find one – barring perhaps the DROID RAZR MAXX and Galaxy Note II, each of which have simply huge batteries and the oversized form-factors to accommodate them – which doesn’t demand such compromises.

Wrap-up

It doesn’t take genius to realize that the One is HTC’s best phone in a long time. The build quality and crisp, minimalistic design is a step above any other Android phone, and comfortably sits alongside the iPhone 5 for premium feel in the hand. The display is beautiful, the UltraPixel camera technology and Zoe system both ambitious but capable of hugely engaging results, and the performance superlative. Meanwhile, HTC Sense has finally rediscovered its roots, and evolved with BlinkFeed into a legitimately useful and compelling interface – one which didn’t instantly leave us pining for unmodified Android.

Nor is the One perfect, however. The battery life is merely average, and while the UltraPixel system pays dividends in low-light performance, it’s not the solution to every photographic need that HTC might have billed it as. HTC may not be the first to eschew removable storage and a replaceable battery, but we still don’t like it when they’re omitted.

Nonetheless, there’s a sense that HTC’s challenge isn’t in the device – after all, it had good phones in 2012 – but in the market. Samsung’s risen star in the Android ecosystem has left little room for rivals, and HTC simply lacks the marketing heft to build the same brand-recognition that “Galaxy” has achieved. That’s notwithstanding the fact that HTC’s phone looks better, is built better, takes generally better photos, and has arguably better software than the Galaxy S III; we’ll have to wait and see how it holds up to the new Galaxy, but Samsung will need to pull out all the stops if it hopes to even get close to rivalling the One for its perfect quality feel.

Just as it took becoming the underdog to force Nokia to adopt an innovative “challenger” attitude, so its taken a rough year to provoke HTC into raising its game. The end result is a phone that’s beautiful, solid, and cleverly, thoughtfully equipped – one which makes bold challenges to our expectations of hardware specifications and software. Now, HTC has to find a way to educate consumers as to why they should care about it.

Chris Davies contributed to this review

Hardware

It’s XpressCovers all over again; only better. Nokia has played with interchangeable covers for its Windows Phone range before, but the Lumia 620 has the most eye-catching system yet. Multiple color options out of the gate – Nokia expects the Lumia 620 to be popular with teenage users, first-time smartphone adopters, and geeks needing a second device, so is covering its bases with hue and finish – make for a readily customized handset that recalls S40 devices of old.

That’s not to say the covers are old-tech. Our positive impressions start with the quality: the Lumia 620 may be offered on £150 ($235) pre-pay plans, but it doesn’t feel a cheap phone. More than that, though, Nokia has come up with distinctive designs, thanks to its “Dual Shot” construction process, which pairs two layers of translucent and/or opaque plastic, with either matte or gloss finish. There’s a punchy, shiny green with a yellow inner, or a spunky two-tone magenta, for those wanting a stand-out device, while the white and the matte cyan are more discrete. Nokia will also offer a black shell for no-nonsense sorts.

Stripping off and reattaching covers is a matter of pushing the camera lens on the back and levering out the core of the phone. Cleverly, the headset jack is built into the shell – it docks with a cut-out in the phone – increasing structural rigidity as well as making for easy replacement should the connector break. There’s no need to restart the Lumia 620 when you switch covers, meaning you’re up and running again in seconds, and Nokia expects the shells to be under £20 ($31) meaning they’re not extortionate. Our only mild complaint is the overall thickness: accommodating removable husks and the double-layer construction of the cases themselves means the Lumia ends up reasonably chubby: short and squat with its 115.4 x 61.1 x 11 mm dimensions.

A fancy suit wouldn’t be much to call home about if the rest of the Lumia 620 didn’t hold up, but happily Nokia has learned from its spec mistakes with the Lumia 610. Inside there’s a 1GHz Snapdragon S4 Plus processor paired with 512MB of RAM and 8GB of storage; owners also get a microSD card slot for expanding that by up to 64GBz. Connectivity includes quadband HSPA+ (850/900/1900/2100) and quadband GSM/EDGE, meaning that – though Nokia has no US launch plans it can tell us about right now – the phone will actually work on both AT&T and T-Mobile 3G networks.

Then there’s WiFi a/b/g/n and Bluetooth 3.0, though Nokia also finds room in the budget for NFC, which can be used to instantly pair the Lumia 620 with a wireless speaker, for instance. There’s also a front-facing camera, something the Lumia 610 lacked, albeit running at a conservative VGA resolution. A 5-megapixel camera with LED flash is on the back.

With a slowly growing movement of smartphone users rebelling against the ever-increasing size of handset displays, it comes as little surprise that the Lumia 620′s 3.8-inch display got some interest. Helping keep the overall bulk of the phone down, it’s 800 x 480 WVGA resolution doesn’t get close to the 720p or above of more expensive handsets, but that’s not to say it’s a bad panel. In fact, Nokia wheels out its ClearBlack LCD technology again to good effect, with excellent outdoor-visibilty and decent color reproduction.

Software

You know what you get with Windows Phone 8 on a recent Nokia: a clean UI that lends itself well to the first-time audience likely lured in by the Lumia 620′s affordable price; a shortage of some of the must-have apps (though the situation is, gradually, improving); and a bevy of Nokia’s own software enhancements to sweeten the overall deal. So, you get the usual Metro interface with Live Tiles, solid Office 2013 and Xbox integration, and the convenience of hooks into SkyDrive, with the bonus of Nokia Music, the various camera add-ons, and augmented-reality.

Nokia Music is a useful addition, particularly if you’re not of a mind to create your own playlists (Spotify is now on Windows Phone, which ticks a big box many would-be users were hung up on), and you can’t argue with the price (since Nokia bundles free access). Audio quality from the Lumia 620′s headphone output was solid, while the speaker belies the compactness of the phone, making up for some loss of finesse at higher volumes with sheer strength of sound.

As for overall performance, bar a couple of glitches when the Lumia 620 froze momentarily, the 1GHz dualcore processor served Nokia well. You’d have to be looking particularly closely to see the difference in app-loading speed and other factors between the cheap Nokia and, say, its top-of-the-range Lumia 920 sibling. In SunSpider, the browser test of Javascript performance, the Lumia 620 managed a speed of 1,453.4ms (lower is better).

Camera

5-megapixels may not pit the Lumia 620 against any of the higher-end smartphones we’ve seen in the past few months, but it’s good for a budget device, and the Nokia uses its pixels well. Given good light, preferably outdoors, and the stills are great for the price: sharp and with accurate colors. Close-ups are also crisp, and even in lower-light situations the Lumia 620 avoided the murk and noise that generally affects cheaper phones.

As for video, that maintains the accuracy of color and overall balance, though it’s best to keep as steady a hand as you can since the optical image stabilization of the Lumia 920 isn’t present here. Audio capture is also good.

Nokia throws some extra camera apps into its Windows Phone range, the most interesting of which are Cinemagraph and Smart Shoot. Cinemagraph is an easy way of creating a mash-up of photo and video, grabbing a brief clip and then allowing you to mask out all but specific areas you still want to have moving. They can then be shared to the usual social networks, though they’re stored on Nokia’s server and farmed out as links. However, save one to your computer and you’ll find it’s a .gif that can be used on Tumblr or other sites.

As for Smart Shoot, that uses the facial recognition technology Nokia acquired when it bought Scalado, and basically fires of a clutch of stills in rapid succession and then allows you to piece together the perfect group shot using faces snipped from different frames. It’s the same system as we’ve seen on BlackBerry 10, and works reasonably well, though you do need to be facing the camera head-on – and with nothing obscuring your face – if Smart Shoot is to correctly identify you.

Phone and Battery

We have high expectations of Nokia devices when it comes to phone and battery life, a leftover of Symbian phones’ particular strengths in those categories. Happily, the Lumia 620 holds up in that respect too, despite the different OS: we comfortably managed a day and half of use – with push email, a mixture of streaming and cached audio from Nokia Music, photography, web browsing, some GPS use, a few calls, and some messaging – before having to go near the microUSB charger. Phone calls, meanwhile, were crisp, as well as loud through the speakerphone, and we had no problem clinging to a signal.

Wrap-Up

Reset your expectations of a smartphone. Stop thinking of it as an either/or decision Android or iOS; put yourself in the mindset of the everyman. We’ve praised Windows Phone before for its suitability to a new smartphone user, and the Lumia 620 fits that category well. The hardware is cheap but distinctive and easily customized; the software is fit for purpose – email, browsing, camera, and multimedia are served well, and while there are still missing apps, it’s questionable whether the target audience will notice their absence – and the price can’t be argued with.

Still, we can’t help but think that the Lumia 620 is wasted on newbies. More than a few of the tech professionals we’ve spoken to in recent weeks – people who have their pick of the top-tier smartphones, and who probably have most of the must-haves sitting on their desk – have professed a degree of affection for the new baby Nokia. Yes, the diminutive size and carefree covers help, but it’s really more the singularity of purpose that draws you in.

The Lumia 620 does its job, for the right price, with minimal compromise. There are no obvious omissions, like the missing front camera of its predecessor, and services like Nokia Music and Cinemagram give it a degree of out-of-the-box completeness that’s arguably missing from other devices. For the price we’d recommend it over a cheap Android handset, especially if you’re a new smartphone user, but there’s plenty more than low-cost appeal in the Lumia 620′s favor.

The HTC Windows Phone 8X sports a 4.3-inch Super LCD2 720p display with a pixel density of 342ppi, and it’s protected with Gorilla Glass 2. We have to say that there’s not much to complain about with the display — viewing angles are adequate, and images and text are really crisp. The back consists of a curved piece of soft-touch plastic that provides a wonderful grip for those with butter fingers. The back is also flat enough that the device is able to rest on a surface without rocking back and forth. Holding the device feels great, and since it has a smaller 4.3-inch screen, the overall size of the 8X doesn’t make it overwhelming to hold.

Below: Our own Cory Gunther walks us through Windows Phone 8 using the HTC Windows Phone 8X, which is the same device featured in this review, save for the carrier.

On the top of the handset, you have the headphone jack (enhanced with Beats Audio technology, of course) and the power button, while the volume rocker and a dedicated camera button are placed on the right side, along with the SIM card slot towards the top. On the back, there’s the 8MP shooter with the speaker placed towards the bottom right underneath the carrier branding. The microUSB port is placed directly on the bottom in the center — right where we like it.

On the inside, there’s the Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 chip with a dual-core Krait processor clocked at 1.5GHz — the same chip that’s in the Samsung Galaxy S III and Nokia’s Lumia 920. Partnered with the S4 are Adreno 225 graphics, and there’s also 1GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage (sorry, no microSD slot on this one either).

There’s really nothing to scoff at when it comes to performance. The 8X is fast and snappy, and the animations (which are what makes Windows Phone 8 look really good) are incredibly smooth. Apps opened quickly, and the dedicated camera button on the side of the phone makes it easy to snap a photo, which is great to have, honestly, since the camera app takes a bit of scrolling to get to. The 1800mAh battery is adequate, and while you’ll be able to go most of the day without having to keep it near an outlet, you’ll most likely have to charge it up by the evening with average usage.

Verizon’s version of the Windows Phone 8X has a little bit of the carrier’s own offerings squished inside the rest of the WP8 user interface. Thankfully, Verizon doesn’t go too crazy with the carrier-specific apps. There’s VZ Navigator, NFL Mobile, and My Verizon Mobile, which lets you manage your Verizon account and check to see how many minutes you’ve used up, as well as how much data you have left during the billing period. None of Verizon’s bloatware — if you could even call it that — gets in the way at all, and I actually hardly even noticed that the apps were there.

The 8X has an 8MP f/2.0 rear camera with a 2.1MP front-facing shooter. There’s nothing to complain about here, and while it’s not the best camera on a Windows Phone 8 device, it certainly performs. If you can’t get your hands on a Lumia 920 (which arguably has the best camera on a WP8 handset), the 8X is a good second choice. It handles low-light conditions surprisingly well. Although, even with adequate lighting, images sometimes appear darker than what they should. However, autofocus, as well as auto-exposure and white balance work pretty well.

The dedicated camera button on the side of the device is two-stage, which means you can push the button halfway down to lock in the settings and then all the way down to snap the photo. The button takes a little bit of force in order to push it down all the way, but you can also use the touchscreen as the shutter button for an alternative.

Wrap-up

Essentially, the 8X from HTC is a great and solid device to test out Windows Phone 8. Personally, it was my first time playing around with Windows Phone 8, and while it did take a little bit of time to get used to the UI, Microsoft clearly made a clean and and stylish mobile operating system, and it ran great on the 8X. Overall, if you’re wanting to stick with Verizon as a carrier (thus, taking the Lumia 920 out of the running), the 8X is an excellent choice if you’re looking for a Windows Phone 8 handset. Of course, there’s only a few options to choose from on Verizon, so the competition is still light at this point, but for $199, the 8X can certainly compete with other handsets out of the WP8 group.

Hardware

If you’ve been keeping up to date with recent Android devices, the Nexus 4 should come as little surprise. Like Samsung before it, LG has looked to a recent flagship to build from, and the Nexus 4 is a not-too-distant cousin to the LG Optimus G.

That’s not a bad place to start, however. The Optimus passes over its 4.7-inch 1280 x 768 resolution HD IPS+ display – mustering 320ppi, versus the 326ppi of the iPhone 5, but in practical terms equally smooth in appearance – and while LCD is a first for the previously all-AMOLED Nexus line-up, it’s a beautiful panel. Blacks are deep and rich, while colors are bright but not over-saturated as can sometimes be the case with AMOLED. LG’s integration of the touch-layer and the top glass means graphics swim right underneath your fingertip.

The Nexus 4 also gets Qualcomm’s 1.5GHz quadcore Snapdragon S4 Pro with Adreno 320 GPU and 2GB of RAM. As per the Galaxy Nexus, there’s no room for a microSD card: instead, you’re stuck with either 8GB or 16GB of internal storage, and relying on Google Drive if you need any more.

It’s not the only compromise, either. Unlike the Optimus G, the Nexus 4 lacks LTE, topping out instead at pentaband HSPA+ 42Mbps with support for both AT&T and T-Mobile USA’s networks. That, Google has said, is because of the cost and complexity of outfitting phones with LTE radios to suit each carrier, particularly when you’re aiming – as the search giant is – to sell more devices unlocked and SIM-free than you are subsidized through carriers. Other connectivity isn’t quite so disappointing, with dual band WiFi b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC for Android Beam, and microUSB.

The usual array of sensors are present – accelerometer, digital compass, ambient light, proximity, gyroscope, barometer, and GPS – and the 2,100 mAh battery can be charged either via microUSB as normal, or using a wireless charger. Google has opted for the Qi standard, which means any compatible wireless charger – including those Nokia will offer alongside its new Lumia Windows Phone 8 range – will work to juice up your Nexus.

On the back there’s an 8-megapixel camera and an LED flash, while the front-facing camera offers 1.3-megapixel resolution. The 139g body itself – which measures in at 133.9 x 68.7 x 9.1 mm – is made of a combination of plastic and glass, and feels considerably better in the hand than it looks in pictures. The edges of the Gorilla Glass 2 fascia curve slightly along the longer sides, meaning your thumb never encounters a blunt line when you’re swiping, and the glass back panel is a cool, crisp touch. The soft-touch sides are easily gripped, and while opinions have been mixed here about the sparkly finish LG has given the rear, it’s at least better than mock carbon-fiber.

Performance

With a final software update yet to come – more on that in the next section on Android 4.2 Jelly Bean – it’s possible that Google could coax some extra performance out of the Nexus 4. As it stands, our benchmarking describes a phone that falls behind what the near-identically specified Optimus G achieved. In AnTuTu, the Nexus 4 scored 8,903, behind the scores of the HTC One X+, Note II, and Galaxy S III; in the same test, the Optimus G managed a huge 11,278.

In Smartbench 2012, the Nexus 4 scored 2961 in the productivity category and 2954 in gaming, while in Quadrant it edged ahead of the original HTC One X with a score of 4961. SunSpider, the test of browser JavaScript performance, the new Nexus scored 2170.4ms (lower is better).

What’s interesting is that the difference in raw numbers doesn’t add up to a phone that feels sluggish in use. No matter the app or the complexity of the webpage, the Nexus 4 whipped through with zero lag or delay. It’s fast and responsive, and a great playing ground for the new version of Jelly Bean.

Android 4.2 Jelly Bean

Google’s new version of Android is a minor refresh, as the unchanged name suggests, but there are a few key improvements which the Nexus 4 (and the Nexus 10 tablet) debut. Ostensibly it looks the same as Jelly Bean as we’ve seen it before, with the most visible difference promising to be the new lock screen, which will show widgets for calendar, email, and other apps. Third-party developers will be able to add their own lock screen widgets to apps available from the Play marketplace. Unfortunately, the new lock screen tech wasn’t ready in time for our review, and will go live when the final ROM hits the Nexus 4 in time for its November 13 release.

What we could try is the new Google Now, which introduces fresh cards highlighting nearby events and concerts, upcoming hotel and flight reservations, places known for being photography hot-spots, and what movies are showing in nearby theaters. Voice search gets an update too, and can now be used – if you speak sufficiently clearly, and have a data connection – to set and search appointments along with open up apps. It’s worth noting, though, that Jelly Bean 4.1 users can already try the new features by updating the Google Search app on their device.

Android’s flexibility with third-party keyboards has seen a number of alternative input options arise, though Google may well be putting some of them out of business with its new Gesture Type ‘board. Like Swype, it allows text entry by sliding a finger between letters, rather than the usual hunt and tap, with a new word prediction system floating a box above your fingertip for easier review. It makes a real difference with one-handed typing, Google’s new system keeping up with faster swiping and proving capable of picking out the most likely word we were typing, as well as gradually learning from our most frequently used words.

Wireless displays, with Miracast, are now supported natively, though you’ll of course need a smart TV or monitor that can handle the standard. Alternatively, there are various third-party set-top boxes that can bring an existing screen up to speed. It works particularly well when watching streaming video, whether rented from Google Play and streamed from the cloud, or stored locally on the Nexus 4 itself.

Jelly Bean was already a solid, capable OS, and this 4.2 version only polishes that. There are a few useful tweaks to the Gmail app with new gestures to shift messages from the inbox to the archive, along with zoom support. Finally, the pull-down notifications menu offers options to respond to an alert, not just open or dismiss it. You can snooze a ringing alarm, for instance, or fire off an email to meeting attendees from a reminder about an upcoming appointment.

Camera

The Nexus 4′s main camera uses an 8-megapixel BSI sensor with f/2.4 lens, and is capable of 1080p Full HD video; unlike some variants of the Optimus G, it misses out on the 13-megapixel sensor. Up front is a 1.3-megapixel camera with 720p video recording.

Previous Nexus phones haven’t been known for their incredible camera quality, but the Nexus 4 delivers a noticeable step up. It’s not the best camera we’ve seen on a recent phone – Samsung’s Galaxy S III produces more colorful stills, to our eyes, for instance – but it’s a huge improvement over the Googlephones that came before.

Video, unsurprisingly, is much in line with what we saw from the Optimus G. Colors are accurate, if a little muted, and the continuous autofocus makes it easy to piece together a more impressive clip than the usual point-and-shoot.

(Click for expanded view)

Of course, it’s Photo Sphere that has been getting the most attention, a new addition to Android devices. It pieces together different frames into an overall 360-degree image, which can then be shared as stills or uploaded to Google Maps for use with the Street View viewer. In practice, while some impressive images can be coaxed out of Photo Sphere, it’s also capable of some pretty underwhelming pictures. Indoors, with busy scenes, we had problems with badly-blended joins; outdoor panoramas proved far more successful.

Phone and Battery

Voice calls with the Nexus 4 were in line with what we experienced from the Optimus G, clear and with no issues with drops or static; the dual microphones help there. Google quotes up to 10hrs of talktime from the 2,100 mAh battery, or up to 7hrs web browsing, though in our experience it was heavily dependent on how bright we had the screen set. LG’s HD IPS+ technology is certainly capable of some impressive brightness levels, but it also chews through battery life at the same time. Set to a more moderate level, we got through a full day before needing a recharge.

Of course, Google would like you to be setting the Nexus 4 down on a wireless charger when you’re not using it, though one isn’t included in the box. The switch to Qi technology from previous types of dock means you don’t get Pogo pins on the Nexus 4, though the number of products that actually use them is so slim that for most people it’s unlikely to make a difference.

Pricing and Value

Google’s first Nexus was not only a spur to smartphone manufacturers, but the company’s attempt to claw back some autonomy in mobile from carriers. That failed to transpire, but Google hasn’t given up on its strategy of marginalizing them to “dumb pipes.” The Nexus 4 will be offered via T-Mobile USA, priced at $199 for the 16GB model with a new, two-year agreement, but the real deal is when you go SIM-free.

Google is offering the Nexus 4 via the Play store, priced at $299 for the 8GB or $349 for the 16GB, unlocked and SIM-free. That means you can simply drop in your choice of AT&T or T-Mobile SIM – or, indeed, a SIM from an international provider – and get going, whether it’s a post-pay or a pre-pay card.

The deals available when you’re not wanting a subsidized device are generally significantly better, and so those willing to piece together a phone and plan separately are at an advantage. Considering the specifications, the Nexus 4 makes other Android phones – not to mention recently-announced Windows Phone 8 devices and the iPhone – start to look expensive.

Wrap-up

The LG Nexus 4 and Android 4.2 Jelly Bean are a very strong combination. LG’s flagship hardware is capable of a smoothness we’ve only really seen hinted at with the effects of Project Butter until now; on the S4 Pro chipset it simply flies. Meanwhile, the gradual refinement of Android itself is more than welcome, and though Photo Sphere is undoubtedly a gimmick, features like Gesture Type make a noticeable difference to the usability of the phone.

That makes it all the more frustrating that so few people will have access to Android 4.2. With so few devices updated to even the previous version of Jelly Bean, the saga of Android fragmentation shows little sign of ending. Google’s strategy to address that appears to be more affordable hardware, though it remains to be seen whether the company can make unlocked devices popular in a way that it failed to manage at the start of the Nexus project.

None of that takes away from how capable the LG Nexus 4 is, however, and how keenly priced. Nexus devices are already appealing, being as they are at the front of the line for new Android updates, but until now there’s always been a compromise somewhere along the way. With the Nexus 4, the compromise is as small as its ever been, and the fact that it’s so very affordable makes it strongly recommended for those wanting the best of Android today.

Hardware

Though twelve months old, the first Galaxy Note still doesn’t look too shabby in terms of specifications, and so the Note II generally tightens up the package and polishes off any glaringly rough edges. Design-wise, it’s now more akin to the Galaxy S III – all curves and fake chrome edges – than the model it replaces, and side-by-side the pair are obviously from the same family. At 80.5 x 151.1 x 9.4 mm and 182.5g, it’s slightly longer and heavier than the first Note, though also narrower and thinner; slimmer bezels have meant Samsung can fit a bigger display despite the only moderate size changes, now at 5.5-inches rather than 5.3-inches.

The panel itself continues to use HD Super AMOLED technology, though the resolution has changed: the Note II drops an 80-pixel column and trims things down to 1280 x 720 (rather than 1280 x 800). That means the Note II is actually showing less on-screen than before, despite the larger display, but it also makes it more directly compatible with apps for 720p smartphones, not to mention likely making Samsung’s own software engineers’ lives easier.

There’s more to the screen change than the size and resolution, however. Samsung has thrown out the contentious PenTile panel of before, maligned for its surfeit of green pixels, and replaced it with a brand new pixel layout that gets a step closer to true RGB. The end result is a far more balanced display that looks incredibly good: bright and color-rich, with the syrupy blacks we’re used to, and a crispness to text that’s distinctly better than what the first Note could manage. Samsung’s default color temperature remains more saturated than we’d like, but you can easily tweak that between four presets – dynamic, standard, natural, and movie – in the settings.

Inside there have been some advances too, with the Exynos processor now packing four cores and running at 1.6GHz. It’s paired with a healthy 2GB of RAM – something some, but not all, of the original Note versions offered – and either 16GB, 32GB, or 64GB of storage, with a microSDHC card slot to bolster that. Samsung’s default battery is also considerably improved, at 3,100 mAh up almost a quarter over the handset it replaces, and that gives plenty of juice for the surfeit of radios.

HSPA+ 21Mbps and LTE 100Mbps will be offered, though the 4G versions will be country-dependent; all models get Bluetooth 4.0 with aptX high-quality audio support, WiFi a/b/g/n (2.4GHz/5GHz) with WiFi Direct, NFC, and USB 2.0 Host for hooking up accessories like external storage. There’s also A-GPS and Glonass positioning, an accelerometer, digital compass, proximity sensor, gyroscope, and a barometer, while a multicolor LED light hides up near the earpiece.

Two cameras are included, an 8-megapixel main shooter on the back with an LED flash, backside-illuminated sensor, and Full HD video recording, and a 1.9-megapixel front-facing camera, also with a backside-illuminated sensor, itself also capable of 1080p video. A 3.5mm headphone jack is on the top edge; the microUSB port is on the bottom, as is the bay for the stylus (more on which in a moment). Samsung persists in putting the volume rocket and the power/lock key on the sides of the Note II – left and right edges respectively – but they’ve been shuffled further down the body than before, and are easier to press when holding the phone around the middle.

Still, this is undoubtedly a large phone, and our recommendation with the original Note to try before you buy still holds true second time around. The slightly narrower form-factor does make a mild difference in hand-feel, as do the curvier corners, though it can be a stretch reaching down to the menu and back soft-keys – flanking a squashed home/task-switcher button – if you’re trying for single-handed use. Those with a fondness for skinny jeans may find the Note II altogether too much for comfort, though the slick, gloss-finish plastic, while not as premium in its feel as the brushed metal of the iPhone 5, does mean the Samsung can slip friction-free into the tighter of crevices.

Stylus

Ever since the iPhone launched, we’ve seen attempts to pair capacitive touchscreens with styli, but Samsung looked beyond dreary finger-mimicry with the Note’s digital pen. Instead, it turned to digitizer expert Wacom – known for its high-quality graphics tablets – for the active digitizer that accompanies the Note II’s capacitive screen. It means you can use the Note II with your finger, as you’d expect, but also whip out its pen and get far more precise input as well as pressure sensitivity, useful if you’re sketching or using handwriting recognition.

For the new Note II, the stylus itself has had an overhaul. It’s now thicker and longer than the previous version (though still fits snugly inside the body of the phone) and the tip has a new coating that’s kinder to the screen and feels more like a ballpoint pen when you’re writing. The difference in barrel width does make a difference to comfort, now less like pinching a pen refill between your fingertips, though the button on the side – which can be used to call up sub-menus of commands, app depending – still takes a little getting used to.

Samsung now supports hover with the pen, the display recognizing that the nib is floating a half-centimeter or so above the display. It gives the Note II a second degree of input: like positioning your computer cursor over an icon or control, but not actually clicking it. In Samsung’s case, the actual functionality varies depending on the app, though it means you can see things like calendar event details without having to actually tap into the appointment, preview the content of a message from the inbox list, or look inside a gallery album. You can also use hover to scroll through lists, holding the nib near the end to automatically slide through the options.

Software and Performance

Launching a new Android phone running anything other than the latest version of the OS, particularly when it’s a flagship, is grounds for a severe scolding, so thankfully the Note II runs Android 4.1 Jelly Bean out of the box. For a long time we’ve been critical of companies who redress Android in their own custom interfaces, but TouchWiz on the Galaxy Note II does at least bring functionality beyond what Jelly Bean alone delivers.

The most obvious of those changes are aesthetic, but as you spend more time with the Note II – particularly with the pen – you see the tweaks and touches that go beyond design. Many of those are familiar from the original Note, of course: you still get the S Planner calendar app, which allows you to circle dates with the stylus and generally scrawl across your agenda, and S Note with its notebooks of memos, diary entries, meeting notes, and more. S Note content can be synchronized with Google Docs or Evernote, too, which makes it far more useful than traditional notes trapped in physical notebook.

Samsung Galaxy Note II software review:

Samsung’s stylus can also be used to grab sections of the display as screenshots. There’s support for the hand-side-swipe to grab a full screenshot, just as on the Galaxy S III, but you can also hold down the barrel button of the pen and snip out a shape – as basic as a circle or square, or something more finicky – and then annotate it or add it to a notebook. S Note has various preset shapes and clipart, too, and you can add voice recordings, sections of maps, photos, video, and other attachments to each note.

New is Quick Command, summoned by holding down the barrel button and swiping up the display; it works no matter what app you’re currently in, and brings up a floating dialog for pen-triggered shortcuts. Write a question mark, for instance, followed by “weather” and you’ll get a browser search for the current weather; write “@” and a name, and a new email will open up with suggestions as to the recipient from your contacts (if you’ve only one contact with that name, they’ll automatically be selected). Somewhat annoyingly, given the excellent Gmail app is one of the boons of Android, Quick Command’s email composer only works with the customized regular email application. Samsung preconfigures a number of shortcuts, but you can also train it to recognize your own.

If you’d rather not use handwriting recognition – which requires reasonable penmanship – there’s a spacious onscreen keyboard which becomes practically obscene in its size when the Note II is in landscape orientation. New for this second-gen model, though, is the ability to offset the keyboard for one-handed use: you can choose to shrink it down and nudge it over to the left or the right of the phone, making it easier to tap with your thumb while holding the Note II with the same hand. It’s an interesting approach, and worked fairly well, though the sheer size of the handset does mean it requires some balancing to keep it from toppling out of your hand.

S Voice, Samsung’s answer to Siri, is present, and triggered by default by a double-press of the home button. It’s still patchy in its usefulness, however, and we had mixed results day to day; since the processing is all done server-side, it’s possible for Samsung to upgrade and add new features just as Apple did with Siri in iOS 6, though the functionality appears to be unchanged versus what we saw on the Galaxy S III.

New with Jelly Bean, though, is Google Now, Android’s attempt to bring some context and prediction to the platform. It’s triggered from an icon in the task-switcher menu – hold down the home button and you’ll see it, flanked by a shortcut to the task killer and a button to axe all the currently running apps. As on the Galaxy Nexus, where we first saw it, Google Now is of mixed use, and you need to have invested your digital life in Google’s service if you want to get the best out of it. If you’ve set up your calendar, for instance, Google Now will remind you of an upcoming appointment and help you with directions to get there, as well as telling you the weather. It’s still early days for mobile context engines, but we’re glad to see it show up on the Note II.

Jelly Bean’s other improvements are included too. There’s Project Butter behind the scenes, keeping the interface moving slickly, and the Note II did indeed keep up with every swipe. If we ever had any hiccups it was usually down to the sheer size of the display; swiping an unwanted notification from the drop-down menu, for instance (now with a handy preview of the content of new messages) required just a little bit more of a flick than we would do by default, meaning it would sometimes take a couple of tries before it disappeared. Given time, though, we’d expect to get used to that.

In addition to Google’s own Android backup, Samsung has added in support for its Cloud service. Register for a free Samsung account, and you can sync your calendar, contacts, internet history, and S Note data; you can also do device backups, of logs, SMS and MMS messaging, and wallpapers, either on-demand or according to a regular schedule. If you’d rather not use Samsung’s cloud, there’s baked-in support for Dropbox instead.

Multi Window borrows from the Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet, pitting two apps side-by-side on the display. Unlike on the Note 10.1, there’s no noticeable performance hit, and it’s useful being able to quickly review a webpage while jotting reminders in S Note, or keep an eye on an IM conversation.

We had high hopes for the Note II’s performance, and the reality didn’t disappoint. Day-to-day it’s smooth and lag-free, capable of handling any app we could throw at it. In terms of raw numbers, we saw a score of 5908 in Quadrant and 1829 in Vellamo 2′s HTML5 tests and 635 in its Metal tests, while SunSpider came in at 1044.7ms. In short, this is one of the fastest, slickest Android devices around.

Camera

The Note II shares the same camera with the Galaxy S III, an 8-megapixel backside-illuminated sensor with autofocus and an LED flash on the back, and a 1.9-megapixel webcam on the front. As with the smaller phone, it’s capable of some great shots, though it can sometimes tend toward over-exposure and we saw some interesting lens flare when trying to shoot brighter scenes. Close-up shots do particularly well, though, and while sometimes blue skies looked over-saturated on the Note II’s display, they were more realistic when we viewed them off the phone.

Samsung provides an HDR mode, which combines shots of various exposures to make one with artificially broader dynamic range, together with a burst shot mode for grabbing multiple frames in rapid succession. Panoramic capture is supported, again, just as on the Galaxy S III. There’s control over exposure, brightness, and other basics, together with the usual array of filters.

Video, meanwhile, is captured at up to 1080p Full HD resolution whether with the front or back cameras, and marks another solid showing by the Note II. There’s little in the way of motion blur, even with faster moving scenes, and the Note II can handle reasonably low-light scenes without descending into too much noise and grain. Stereo audio is also captured.

1080p Full HD video sample:

With support for MHL-HDMI output, with the right adapter you’ll be able to hook up the Note II to a display or projector and review whatever footage you’ve recorded. Alternatively, there’s Samsung’s AllShare technology for wireless streaming, either to the company’s own HDTV dongle, or to any DLNA-compliant device.

Phone and Battery

Holding a device of this size to your head and making voice calls is still a good way to feel self-conscious in public, though the growing popularity of the original Note means there’s less of that “talking into a tablet” conspicuousness than before. We experienced no dropped calls on the Vodafone network. The extra length of the Note II does mean the microphone and earpiece are well spaced, and voice calls in general were of high quality. The speakerphone, too, proved loud and resilient to crackle. If you really do feel too ridiculous holding the Note II to the side of your head, there’s Bluetooth for wireless headsets, and the aptX support meant, when tested with an aptX-compatible stereo headset, music playback quality was noticeably improved.

Samsung has outfitted the Note II with a vast battery – 3,100 mAh, and since it’s user-replaceable you could feasibly swap it out for another – though the big display and quadcore processor means it’s not shy about drinking power. Nonetheless, even with a day of heavy use – including push email turned on, using the camera and then automatically uploading photos and video to the cloud, Google Maps, the browser, some sketching with the pen, and a couple of YouTube videos, not to mention a couple of short calls and some SMS messaging – we reached the end of the day with juice to spare.

There are new power management tools on the Note II, too, with the existing Power Saving mode (which dims the screen and throttles back the processor, among other things) joined by a new Blocking Mode. That allows you to shut off incoming calls and notifications, alerts from the alarm or timer, and even whether the LED notification light blinks, either permanently or within certain hours. It’s ideal if you leave your phone on your nightstand when you’re sleeping and don’t want to be perpetually disturbed by bleeps and flashing, particularly because you can also set a list of priority contacts who will be allowed through the lockdown.

With some sensible use of the settings, then, you could feasibly have two days of use on a charge, though that will depend on how much you use 3G (on this European-spec model; US versions will have LTE, which is even more power-hungry) and other features.

Wrap-Up

For some, the original Galaxy Note was a monstrosity: not quite a phone, not quite a tablet, and not standing any chance at all of ending up in their pocket or bag. They’re unlikely to be any more convinced by this refined, faster successor, since the main criticisms are the same: it’s big, it’s heavier than many phones, and it often requires two hands to use it properly.

Those not immediately turned off by the Note II’s size have a more tempting prospect ahead of them. The new phone offers a bigger display and better pen functionality, not to mention a jump in core performance and – until Samsung can push out OS updates – a newer and more user-friendly version of Android and TouchWiz than its predecessor. It’s nicer to look at and hold, faster in use, and lasts longer; most importantly, it takes greater advantage of the digital pen, something which continues to set the Note II apart from most of the competition.

First time around, Samsung had to convince us there was still a place for the stylus with today’s smartphones. That ice has already been broken for the Galaxy Note II, and while its audience is undoubtedly smaller than for the Galaxy S III, perhaps, or the iPhone 5, those opting for Samsung’s biggest smartphone will find themselves with a handset whose capabilities are even bigger than its display.

Design

Unmistakably iPhone, and yet different. It takes little more than a glance to recognize the iPhone 5′s lineage, though with closer examination it’s clear quite how many aesthetic changes have been made in this sixth-generation handset. The new phone is thinner and longer than its predecessor; its anodized aluminum back replacing the old model’s glass; the “sandwich” construction made more discrete.

Importantly, none of these changes have been forced for the sake of aesthetics alone, and in ensuring that they keep the DNA of previous models. The iPhone 5 is longer – 123.8mm now, versus the 115.2mm of before – so that it can accommodate a larger display. Its stretched appearance, meanwhile, is to keep the width of the display consistent: that means it can still be comfortably used with a single hand, the thumb extending to reach the limits of the UI without demanding that the person holding it stretch or use a second hand.

Aluminum rather than glass means the rear panel can be thinner, as well as more resilient to drops, and the change in profile maximizes internal space and emphasizes the waif-life 7.6mm thickness. At 112g it’s lighter in the hand, too, though the combination of the sturdy casing and premium materials means the iPhone 5 doesn’t feel cheap. In fact, like a good haircut, picking up the new model doesn’t feel like a drastic change or departure from what came before. It’s familiar enough to be usable, consistent.

Not everybody wants a big phone, though some people do. We’re lucky that the iPhone 5 and the Samsung Galaxy S III, and other handsets exist, to fit those different needs. I’ve been using Samsung’s flagship as my regular device since it was launched, and returning to pre-5 iPhones has felt cramped in comparison.

With the iPhone 5, though, it’s been love at first swipe. The larger screen – still Retina resolution, at 326ppi, of course – is a great size compromise between the trend toward larger phones of the mobile industry overall, and Apple’s own insistence on a resolutely pocketable device. The quality of the display bears mention too, however; Apple has used an in-cell touchscreen, doing away with another layer, and while ironically that has no noticeable change in touch sensitivity, it makes a significant one in how the screen looks and how the iPhone 5 feels overall.

Graphics swim directly under the fingertip, without any of the sense of buried depth you find with some panels. Viewing angles are incredibly broad – you can sit entirely offside from the iPhone 5 and still see the display with no color inversions – and the pared-down construction means the overall screen assembly is thinner and thus the iPhone 5 as a whole can be slimmer. It’s a truly beautiful display, with the best colors I’ve seen in a mobile device.

As with the iPod touch, Apple has shifted the iPhone 5′s headphone socket to the bottom edge of the handset. It takes a little getting used to, but after a short while it makes sense: you can drop the phone into your pocket top-first, without the cables getting caught up. It leaves the top edge only bearing the power/lock button, with the familiar round volume keys on the left edge, under a ring/silent switch.

Apple offers two color options, “white & silver” and “black & slate”; each uses the same mixture of glass and metal, and has color-matched beading between the antenna strips running around the outer-edge of the phone. They’re finished with a beautiful chamfered edge, which Apple says is diamond-cut; it’s unfortunately reasonably prone to scrapes, however, and after just a few days of relatively kid-glove treatment, this black review model bore at least one small scar. It would likely be less obvious with a white version.

Overall, though, it’s a beautiful piece of engineering and design, and something you really have to hold in your hand to appreciate: neither photos nor words can quite do the accuracy of the construction and precise tolerances justice. Apple, for instance, says it employs two 29-megapixel cameras during the chassis manufacturing process, to match together the very best pairing of aluminum housing and glass inlay out of 725 unique options.

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Hardware

The familiar exterior hides a clean sweep of changes inside the iPhone 5, with hardly a stone left unturned in bringing the new device up to par. Taking center stage is the Apple A6 chipset, a new processor of the company’s own design, and which Apple claims to be twice as fast as the A5 in the iPhone 4S. Graphics performance has also been doubled, Apple says.

In practice, I couldn’t find a single app to slow the iPhone 5 down. All of Apple’s core software has been updated – more on which in a moment – to suit the new screen resolution of 1136 x 640 rather than the 960 x 640, and even when crunching Full HD video in iMovie (still currently in beta on this test unit), there was no sluggishness or lag. Apple’s freedom to customize software and hardware so that they’re perfectly in tune shows its benefits again, with none of the jitters that can affect even the most powerful pre-Jelly Bean Android devices.

The display may be bigger but so is the resolution, so Apple’s Retina boast carries over from the iPhone 4S. Higher resolution panels are proliferating across the top-tier smartphones, but the iPhone 5′s 326ppi pixel density means individual dots are still all but invisible to the naked eye. The in-cell touchscreen has also left the panel clearer in direct and indirect sunlight, a real advantage when you’re using the smartphone outdoors.

Two connectivity standards make their iPhone debut on this latest model: LTE and Lightning. In fact, there are three iPhone 5 variants to handle different LTE networks in operation around the world, though even with up to five bands in this Verizon model, there are still networks either available or in the pipeline that the handset is incompatible with. That’s down to fragmentation in LTE deployment rather than a shortcoming of the iPhone 5, however, and something each smartphone manufacturer has to deal with.

Apple’s approach, in the US, is to offer one iPhone 5 with AT&T LTE support and another with Verizon and Sprint LTE. Each supports a selection of other, international 4G carriers, and there’s a third model for Europe and most of Asia to handle LTE there. It makes for an altogether confusing situation when roaming, as even though a network operating in your next holiday destination may have LTE service, it might not be on frequencies compatible with your particular iPhone 5. Still, once you’ve got an LTE connection, the iPhone 5 flies. I’ve regularly seen download rates of around 13Mbps and upload rates of around 3Mbps.

The other new connection is Lightning, a proprietary sync/charge port that replaces the aging 30-pin Dock Connector. Apple presents this new socket as an inevitability of the shrinking process – it simply couldn’t make such a small device if it needed to accommodate the far larger old-style connector – but it also brings some other advantages, such as being reversible. No more guessing in the dark as to which way round the charger on your nightstand plugs in, as it will connect either way.

There’s no change in synchronization speed with Lightning, but it might require some changes in your other accessories. The port requires an adapter to hook up to the old-style Dock Connector, something which won’t be available until October. Then, there’ll be two versions, one a simple dongle and the other a short (0.2m) cable. It’s potentially frustrating if you’ve got an existing speaker-dock or car kit that uses the previous port, but we’re already seeing third-party manufacturers step up with new designs and/or interchangeable dock plates for that hardware which supports it. Apple, meanwhile, is pushing ahead with its wireless streaming options for media, and indeed the iPhone 5 supports AirPlay for sound and video, and Bluetooth 4.0 with A2DP support. WiFi a/b/g/n (with dual band support for 802.11n) rounds out the main connectivity options.

Apple has skipped NFC, leaving the short-range wireless technology that is gradually showing up in Android and Windows Phone devices. That comes as a disappointment for anybody hoping to see contactless payments integrated into the new Passport app in iOS 6, though it’s questionably whether NFC has reached any sort of tipping point in the mass market. Accommodating NFC hardware would presumably have made the iPhone 5 slightly larger, a compromise Apple is apparently unwilling to accept for something far from popularized yet. Having had it on the Galaxy S III, however, and only used it a small handful of times, I’m not sure that Apple was wrong in that decision, either.

Overall, Apple has come up with a phone that’s thinner and more flexible in how it can be used, without sacrificing the features of the iPhone 4S. True, it doesn’t tick every possible box on the spec sheet, but what it does deliver is a sensible compromise of day-to-day usability in both hardware and form-factor.

iOS 6

Instantly familiar, but with a twist. Apple may have stretched the iPhone 5′s screen – freeing up space for another row of icons on the homescreen, for instance – but iOS 6 won’t scare away anybody used to an earlier iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. This latest version apparently includes more than 200 new features, though what you’ll actually notice boils down to a few key points.

Maps and Siri are probably the biggest points of change. Google Maps is gone, replaced by an app of Apple’s own development, and for the most part it’s very successful. Being homegrown means Maps can integrate more consistently into the overall iOS experience, so now you get integration with the lock screen – showing the next step of your journey without having to actually unlock the phone first – and if the iPhone 5 is sleeping when your turn is approaching, Maps will wake it up to prompt you.

2D and 3D mapping, along with photo-realistic flyover views, all look great on the 4-inch Retina display, and there’s no lag when swiping around, rotating the map, or zooming in and out. Apple has embedded traffic alerts into its app too, so turn-by-turn navigation – with spoken prompts, naturally – takes into account the actual road conditions rather than just the basic speed limits, when it figures out your ETA. That data can also be used to prompt detours if Maps figures out there’s a delay ahead.

Unfortunately, it’s not perfect. The excellent mass transit mode in Google Maps has no counterpart in Apple Maps, so there’s no way to plan journeys that include bus, train, or other public transportation. Apple currently expects third-party apps to fill that gap. It’s something I missed while testing the iPhone 5 during events away from home, when I rely on mass transit in cities I’m less familiar with.

Siri, meanwhile, can help in more situations and integrates more comprehensively with online services, such as restaurant booking. You can now ask for a recommendation of a nearby place to eat, based on cuisine type, see Yelp reviews, and then book through OpenTable. Rotten Tomatoes movie review data is used to suggest what might be worth seeing at nearby theaters (along with access to trailers, IMDB movie facts, and showtimes, all without leaving Siri’s interface), and there’s support for finding out baseball, basketball, football, hockey, and soccer scores and upcoming fixture information.

One of the simplest changes – opening apps by voice – has proved one of the most useful for me, particularly in the car. You can now simply tap the home button and say “open Maps” for instance, and the app loads up instantly. What makes it useful is the speed at which it happens; there’s no churning away as can be the case with S Voice on the Galaxy S III, where it’s often quicker to simply swipe through the app launcher to find the right icon. Finally, Siri now works in more places and in more dialects.

Passbook is Apple’s attempt to corral loyalty cards, gift cards, membership documents, coupons, passes, and tickets into a single place, all stacked into a neat wallet UI. It’s location-aware, so will suggest potentially relevant items depending on where you are – the Starbucks card will pop up if you’re near a Starbucks cafe, for instance – though there are currently only a few compatible services and apps actually supporting it. Obviously it would be nice to be able to use NFC to actually pay for items with a gift card, but right now it’s a case of scanning QR codes. We’ll revisit Passbook later, when there’s more to actually test with the system.

Similarly, it will take a little time for developers to get up to speed with the new 4-inch display. Right now, existing apps are letterboxed – they have black bars top and bottom (in portrait orientation) – rather than stretched, and that’s certainly the right way of handling it. However, it’s also annoying as it emphasizes the current waste of space. Apple tells me it’s a relatively simple matter for developers to update their apps to suit the new size, and hopefully that will happen sooner rather than later; all of Apple’s own native apps – including those not bundled with the iPhone 5, such as the iWork suite – have been refreshed to suit the higher resolution.

iOS has been criticized of late for not introducing any drastic changes. There are still no widgets, as you’d get in Android, for instance. Still, while Android is arguably more flexible, when it comes to everyday use, I – like a lot of people in the mainstream – find I more usually set up my device once and then don’t change it. There are few widgets that I actually use, in fact.

What you get with iOS is a consistent ecosystem: iTunes, iCloud, the App Store. Services that work together, particularly if you’re pairing an iPhone 5 with an iPad or a Mac. iTunes Match, for instance – Apple’s service where you pay a yearly fee for access to legal, streaming versions of your existing MP3 collection, however you acquired it – has made a significant difference to how I listen to music across devices, as has iTunes in the Cloud.

Versus Android, I miss the Google Voice integration, and the best Gmail experience is certainly on Android phones and tablets, but you still get compatibility with both in iOS 6. Both platforms come with compromises, in that sense. Overall, if you’re coming to iOS 6 looking for a different software experience, then the iPhone 5 isn’t for you. That still leaves plenty to enjoy for everyone else.

Camera

Most smartphone manufacturers concur that the camera is one of the features buyers use most often, and the iPhone 5′s 8-megapixel iSight lives up to those expectations. The resolution may be the same as before, but the combination of a new backside-illuminated sensor and a reworked lens – covered with a tough sapphire crystal glass – along with new software and processing, add up to stills and video a step above what the iPhone 4S can deliver.

In fact, the iPhone 5 truly rivals a dedicated point & shoot in its camera abilities. Stills are crisp and bright, using a new spacial noise reduction system that can identify any outlier pixels – such as a rogue green dot in among an otherwise blue sky – and iron them out. There’s also a low-light mode that promises a roughly two f-stop improvement in brightness and sensitivity by scaling down the end resolution and combining the data from four adjacent pixel clusters into each final dot in the frame. It’s similar to some of what we’ve seen Nokia do with PureView, though without the need for a vast, bulky sensor.

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Video, meanwhile, is recorded at 1080p Full HD, with face detection for up to ten people in-frame and digital image stabilization. There’s now the ability to take snapshots while simultaneously recording, too. Compared to the clips produced by the iPhone 4S, the iPhone 5′s footage is smoother and more detailed, with less visible noise in darker scenes. The front-facing camera also supports 720p HD video recording.

iOS 6 introduces Panorama mode – it will also be added to the iPhone 4S – to create far larger stills by stitching together multiple frames automatically. Hit the button and the iPhone guides you across the scene, flashing up useful tips such as warning you if you need to slow down. It’s possible to piece together roughly six frame-widths, though you needn’t use that many if you don’t want to; there’s the option to hit “Done” prematurely, and end up with a smaller panorama.

Panoramic shots have been possible on other smartphones for some time now, it’s true, and via third-party apps for previous iPhones, but Apple’s own system is particularly slick. The processing is all done in real-time, so there’s no waiting around at the end for the camera app to crunch the various frames together; instead, you can get on with shooting your next photo or video. If you’ve ever missed a camera opportunity on an Android phone because you’ve been waiting for a panoramic shot to finish processing, you’ll know how frustrating that can be.

Most importantly, the quality is considerably better than I’ve seen elsewhere. Apple says the final stills can be anything up to 28-megapixels, though that will vary depending on the size of the scene and the detail it includes. Either way, where some panoramas can look noisy and pixelated, lacking in the detail you’d get from snapping just one section of the scene in regular camera mode, the iPhone 5 produces simply incredible stills. The joins are particularly impressive, with none of the giveaway blur that can undermine some panorama.

Phone, LTE and FaceTime

The iPhone 5 has not one but three microphones dotted around its chassis – one on top near the earpiece, one on the bottom, and one on the back near the camera – for noise cancellation. This works with a complicated system called beamforming, allowing the handset to pinpoint exactly where the user’s voice is coming from, but the upshot is amazing sound quality. Noise cancellation works for both incoming and outgoing audio in calls and FaceTime video chats, and if your carrier supports wideband audio, the iPhone 5 can handle that too.

The Verizon LTE of this review unit is a great boost for speed, though it’s worth remembering that this particular iPhone 5 can’t handle simultaneous voice and data. It’s not something that’s really been an issue, for me, though if you hold frequent speakerphone calls while browsing the web it might prove more of a hindrance. AT&T’s version of the iPhone 5 doesn’t encounter the same limitation, if that’s a serious consideration for you.

Most impressive change has been the enabling of FaceTime over 3G/4G, with Apple’s video calling system now operating over mobile data connections rather than solely over WiFi. That will be enabled for the iPhone 4S as well with the arrival of iOS 6 (though not, unfortunately, for the iPhone 4). As a parent who frequently travels away from home, it’s made a huge difference to how I keep in touch, day to day, with my family.

The key part is how straightforward FaceTime makes the process. Yes, other platforms have had video calling before, and there are plenty of apps like Skype and Fring which offer it too, but Apple’s system makes it a two-click affair from iMessage. Easy means not only am I more likely to use it, but my less-tech-savvy friends and family are also more likely to call me: functionality is only useful if it’s easy enough to operate, after all.

Battery

Apple’s justification for leaving LTE out of the iPhone 4S was, in part at least, because of the impact the initial 4G radios had on battery life. That’s presumably been addressed to the company’s satisfaction now, because not only does the iPhone 5 have LTE but it even manages to best its immediate predecessor for runtime.

From a full charge, Apple suggests iPhone 5 owners will see up to 8hrs 3G talktime or 225hrs of standby. Alternatively, a full iPhone 5 is said to be good for up to 8hrs of 3G or LTE internet browsing, or 10hrs over WiFi; up to 10hrs of video playback; or up to 40hrs of audio playback.

In practice, with heavy use of both LTE and WiFi, push email turned on, media playback and streaming, some browsing and Maps use with GPS, and iCloud sync active, I squeezed more than 5hrs 30mins of active use (and almost 7hrs 45mins of standby) from the iPhone 5. That is, it’s worth repeating, with very heavy use. In short, you could comfortably go through a full day without particularly sparing the iPhone 5, and still remain free of the nearest AC adapter.

Would I like to be able to change the battery myself? Certainly; it’s something I particularly appreciate in the Galaxy S III, and indeed I usually carry at lease one spare battery pack around for the Samsung. Instead, I’m having to work around it with the iPhone 5, though the impressive runtimes I’ve been seeing have helped mitigate the frustration. Am I willing to give up the convenience of switching battery? Yes, for the benefits in size: making the battery non-removable means the phone overall can be smaller.

I’ve a similar argument around wireless charging. Yes, it would be a nice addition, if Apple had seen fit to include it. However, it would likely have required a compromise in size, and I’m still not convinced on the overall convenience. When I plug in to recharge via a cable, I can still pick up the iPhone and use it; that’s tougher to do when it’s sat on a charging dock. I’d expect to see third-party wireless charging systems – probably including an extended battery shell – arrive soon enough.

Accessories

Until now, bundled earphones with any smartphone have generally been good candidates for the trash. Apple’s new EarPod buds, however, change all that: included with the iPhone 5, and a $29 option for anyone else, they promise to deliver the same sort of audio as significantly more expensive earphones.

The interesting news is that they really do work. Apple has done no small amount of work testing different earbud shapes in hundreds of different ears, resulting in the amorphous blobs you see here; they’re punctuated with three different speaker ports, both on the inner edge and integrated into the stem. Bass is the most obvious improvement, while mids and trebles are clearer and crisper. There’s more detail to music, and voice calls – which work with the call-answer button and volume keys in-line with the cable – sound bright and hiss-free.

As for fit, the EarPods obviously don’t match a set of custom-molded earphones, but they’re certainly better than the old style. I was able to jog while wearing them without them falling out, though they’re still probably not the best option for those doing serious exercise. Nonetheless, for audio quality they’re more in line with a decent (sub-$100) aftermarket set, and certainly worth auditioning before you automatically junk them.

Otherwise, all that’s in the box with the iPhone 5 is a Lightning to USB cable, a USB power adapter, a small carry-case for the EarPods, and the usual sparse printed documentation. If you want the Lighting to 30-pin Dock Connector adapter, you’ll have to wait until October for that to start shipping.

Wrap-Up

Does the iPhone 5 feel better in the hand than the iPhone 4S? Is it faster, and smoother running; does it have a more capable camera; can it access data more rapidly while on the move? Does the combination of iPhone hardware and iOS software feel the most holistic and balanced of any Apple smartphone to-date? The answer to all those questions is yes. Apple has addressed the bigger-screen debate with a solution that doesn’t undermine key usability promises, delivered LTE without destroying battery life, and wrapped it up in a design that’s both comfortably familiar and crisply revitalized.

The iPhone 5 probably won’t take any more marketshare from Android than the iPhone 4S did before it. Neither of the major platforms is going anywhere, and each has its loyal user-base. But, it’s the best iPhone so far, and breaking 2m sales in the first 24hrs of preorders suggests the public at large is confident of the same thing.

What the iPhone 5 really convinces me, though, is that throwing bells and whistles into a device doesn’t necessarily make it a better phone in the end. I’d drifted from the iPhone 4S because I had core needs it was no longer satisfying: a larger screen, for instance. Where the iPhone 5 edges back into the picture is in how well it integrates into my daily life. So many things I can make work on Android – video calling, for instance, but iPhone simply makes them more straightforward. If they’re straightforward, that means I use them more.

Competition between mobile platforms keeps the industry moving and innovating. That can often present itself as a surfeit of innovation: feature upon feature, piled high in an all-singing, all-dancing device. Right now, the iPhone 5 has the best balance of everyday usability and performance, without the distraction of functionality that is clever but unintuitive. It’s an area in which Apple excels, and it’s the reason the iPhone 5 is one of the best smartphones on the market today.

What you get with GeoSociety is not only the same basic set of controls you get with Pokemon, but the same general plot line as well. All the strage components are there, from you waking up in your mothers house without a clue of what you’re supposed to do in the world to your very own training center where you choose from one of three monsters to carry around with you the rest of the game! The big difference is in the details: there’s no Gary, for example, to annoy you throughout the game.

You still get to battle, to collect monsters throughout the game to do battle with – you even get to explore the world with essentially the same pixel-heavy graphics that the Pokemon franchise has loved for so long. The battle sequence is also turn-based, you can choose which moves your monster is doing, and you battle both wild monsters as well as other human opponents with their own contenders. Then there’s the bonuses: like being able to run instead of having to walk through the whole game. No need for a bike!

This game will cost you $1.99 on the App Store right this second and I can’t believe how fun it really, really is. I’ve literally not had this much Pokemon-related fun since I played Pokemon Red on my original GameBoy. Grab it!

As you advance through the grid, you’ll find that your ability to move to different squares changes based on what move you made last. If you head straight through several of your moves, you may find yourself crashing into a wall because you don’t have the ability to gain a great enough turn radius. If you don’t advance enough squares by moving as far from your current space to the next, your opponents may out-race you.

And your opponents can block your moves as well. Any player can potentially figure out where their opponent is going to land next by checking the amount of squares and direction they last moved. Blocking an opponent is as simple as moving into the selection of points your opponent was bound to head into next. Once you’ve mastered the art of blocking, you’ll be good to go to win almost any race.

This game is out on the iTunes App Store right this second for a grand total of $0.99, and its worth every penny. You can play against a robot, against an opponent you’ve got sitting next to you by switching your phone back and forth between one another, opponents on a wi-fi network, and opponents through the web on Game Center. It’s fun stuff!

Before you start in the Pinterest app, you’ve got to have a Pinterest account. You can sign up in the app or do this in your web browser on the iPhone or on your computer at home at Pinterest.com – once you’ve done this, you’re in. Once you’re in, you’ll see that there are five buttons below a vertically scrolling set of images pinned by you and the people that you follow. This is your Following list and is the furthest left button on your screen also. Once you start scrolling downward, the menu disappears rather intuitively and re-appears whenever you scroll back upwards again.

Each “pin” can be re-pinned, you can see who pinned the pin, and you can see who else pinned or decided to “Like” the pin. You can also share the pins with the “More…” button if you’d like to expand your experience beyond just the Pinterest app. Next you’ll find the “Explore” button which will show off three streams of pins rather than just one, each of these pins accessible with a simple tap. These pins are categorized by tags and through this section of the app you’ll be able to find new people to Follow to increase the value of your Following wall.

On the far right you’ll find your Profile, this being what people see when they investigate who is pinning your pins, and one in from the right is the Activity section which shows you who has been interacting with your Profile and your Pins. In the center is your Camera section which will allow you to take photos from the app and pin them or collect photos you’ve previously taken from your own photo library.

Pin and pin and pin! This app and this Pinterest phenomenon are popular because of how easy they are to use and because it’s fun to collect images. Popular uses of Pinterest are creating “pinboards” for weddings and home decoration, but you can certainly create boards for whatever you like. Have at it in the iTunes App Store today – it’s all free!