HTC One V Android smartphone

In the beginning was the Hero and then came the Legend, and now the Legend has sired the One V. Yes, the V is the runt of the One litter but its forebears had a solid following and, as a one-time Hero owner, I’m hoping the bloodline is in good health. HTC One V Android smartphone Another one: HTC's One V With the One V, …

[LarsG]

Where does it fit in

A quality budget phone with a mid range price. I'm not sure who it's aimed at but at least it s not all plastic. It certainly has appeal, but if you buy one will you wish you'd paid more and got something better?

[Iain Hamilton]

Downgraded Desire S or upgraded Wildfire S ?

It has near identical specs to the Desire S other than the lack of a front facing camera and less system memory which makes me wonder what is the point of it? The Desire S is available for a similar price and has ICS coming for it. Other than filling out the range I don't see what the point of this phone is.

[Durdy]

Re: Downgraded Desire S or upgraded Wildfire S ?

It's also more expensive than the Desire S, and for that you only get Sense 4.0... (yay!) The Desire S will only get Sense 3.6, because for some reason it doesn't have the juice for 4.0, despite having more RAM.

HTC is now becoming the nVidia of smartphones; re-releasing last years tech as a "new" product.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Downgraded Desire S or upgraded Wildfire S ?

HTC is now becoming the nVidia of smartphones; re-releasing last years tech as a "new" product.

Actually, that position is already taken by Apple.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Downgraded Desire S or upgraded Wildfire S ?

Not everyone likes big phones. The best phone I ever owned was the HTC Legend. However it didn't get a refresh until now, and it was becoming tired with the old ARMV6 CPU

Now we have a snapdragon CPU and some more memory, and ICS in the same formfactor, I would SERIOUSLY consider this as a great mid rang phone that won't break the bank and wont bulge out the pocket.

As for the the chin, just to point out it's purpose, as when you put it down on it's face, the screen doesn't touch the desk, therefore no scratches....

[Iain Hamilton]

Re: Downgraded Desire S or upgraded Wildfire S ?

The Desire S is not a 'big phone' it's identical to the One V other than the things I mentioned (Front Camera, Memory and Sense 4.0 due to HTC's marketing department). For the money the Desire S is a far better phone.

[Jean-Paul]

Re: Downgraded Desire S or upgraded Wildfire S ?

I agree, I used to have the Desire HD and my wife the Legend...And you know what the Legend was the 'better' phone in my opinion. Sure on the spec list is may not fare that great like with the iPhones but in actual day to day use it was a brilliant smart phone...

[Purlieu]

How many

HTC One's did you have to go through before finding one without any faults, you know, dead pixels, yellow stains on casing/keyboard, bits of "something" in keyboard, switches itself off after a few minutes for no reason, yeah those tricky real life things

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: How many

I got a sim-free OneX and it's been perfect. Maybe the problems have been overrated, maybe certain networks were given a bad batch or maybe I've just been lucky. Either way I'm happy but sympathise with everyone who has a friday-afternoon handset as a working one is fantastic.

[Nanki Poo]

Re: How many

I've never touched or seen one of those in real life, but I'm imagining the keyboard on this one probably does not suffer from those problems . . . ;)

nK

[annodomini2]

"Beats Audio – though no Beats earphones"

Only the 1st 10,000 One X's were supplied with Beats earphones.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "Beats Audio – though no Beats earphones"

You aren't missing much with the Beats headphones on the One X, they are shockingly uncomfortable, due to just being moulded, and crap sound reproduction to boot. Very overrated.

[DrXym]

Not enough flash

940MB sounds a lot but games and apps are getting increasingly chunky and you'll soon fill it even if you know how to move app data to SD card.

Knowing HTC they probably bundled apps and assorted crapware like Facebook, Dropbox, Flash etc. into their phone's readonly firmware. What that means is that when an update arrives for these apps, which it will, you eat up double the space for the app. The update resides in flash and masks out the one in firmware.

[MrT]

Re: Not enough flash

Exactly - add to the list all of the network clutter on a subsidized handset and the case is made for root and installing a minimal version of Android.

[Bob H]

Re: Not enough flash

And the Lord delivered unto us CyanogenMod

[Anonymous Coward]

Holy cow is this thing ugly.

[Ironclad]

vs Xperia Arc S

I seriously looked at this phone for my first smartphone purchase but in the end I plumped for the Sony Ericsson Experia Arc S which can now be had for around £250 sim free.

The Arc S has this beaten on most fronts (bigger screen, faster processor, more memory, better camera) but I would say that it doesn't feel nearly as solid and well put together as the wife's HTC Desire S.

[tgm]

chin

The chin also stops the screen getting scratched when you put it face down...

[Jim Coleman]

Re: chin

Awesome, I put my phone on the desk face down all the time, wouldn't want to see all those pesky notifications after all.

[Richard Hodgson]

512B of memory?

512 bytes? Seems a little low for the price!

[epdm2be]

"Both have the telephonic basics "

except proper 2-way call recording... so the basics are NOT covered!

Godamnid Google, implement systemwide 2-way call recording and you'll have me (and a lot of symbian costumers being able to turn over). As this is the ONLY feature that keeps me on a Nokia Symbian phone.

Stop fooling around. We KNOW that the OS has some parts of the code build in. It's just not completed or not functional. Make it work and crate a true SMARTPHONE!