HTC Made The Best Android Phone In The World, But Samsung's Galaxy S4 Is Still Outselling It

HTC has sold about 5 million units of its newest flagship phone, the One, according to one company executive quoted by the WSJ.

It's a decent start, but HTC has sold half as many Ones as Samsung has sold of its new flagship Samsung Galaxy S4. Samsung announced today that it's sold 10 million Galaxy S4 phones so far. Both phones launched around the same time.

Even though the Galaxy S4 is selling better, most critics think the HTC One is a better phone because it has a prettier design and fewer gimmicky features.

The man who leaked the Galaxy S4 Google Edition now confirms HTC One Google Edition

It’s a rumor that wont seem to die — the HTC One “Google Edition.” We’re not sure if that makes it more legitimate, or if it’s because it’s an Android fanboys wetdream. In any case, this rumor has been given new life, this time thanks to Geek.com‘s Russel Holly. This is the man behind the leakedSamsung Galaxy S4 Google Edition, the day before it was announced at Google I/O. Going by that track record, we’re inclined to listen.

Once again, it’s being whispered from “multiple sources” that the fabled HTC One “Senseless Edition” is, in fact, a real thing and that it will launch sometime in the coming weeks, starting first with the US. It’s this very specific region that suggests it could also be made available in the Google Play Store, but that’s only speculation.

We all know the story. During the Samsung Galaxy S4 Google Edition announcement, an HTC rep tweeted from her personal account that we could either buy the GS4 running stock Android or… “wait.” Wait for what? Well, HTC’s Senior Global Online Communications Manager Jeff Gordon was quick to address blogs taking this as a confirmation from HTC that a Google Edition One was in the works. His words? “HTC is not currently planning a ‘Nexus Edition’ of the HTC One.” Very cut and dry.

It’s true HTC is well aware of the ever growing Android modding community, a very vocal minority that demands a stock Android experience from their devices, tinkering around with software, flashing custom ROMs, and drinking chicken blood around an iPhone set afire. To help deal with these wild boys, HTC formed HTCDev — a special group of their own developers working together with the modding community. HTCDev helps flashing addicts get their next fix by releasing kernel sources, and the stock RUU safety nets.

With HTC already providing a Developer Edition of the One with a fully unlocked bootloader — is there really any need, point, or more importantly demand for an HTC One Senseless Edition? As Holly points out in his article, HTC’s best features are its camera and front facing speakers — both of which rely on HTC’s software tweaks to make them great. One could argue that by providing an HTC One Google Edition with diminished camera and audio quality, it would do nothing but hurt HTC’s image, something they’ve been working so hard at building back up with the One.

If nothing else, there are other options. If HTC could simply work with Google to include the HTC One Developer Edition into AOSP, that could be an easier, less costly route. As for a release date on this rumored HTC One running a stock Android experience, Geek’s sources claim it will be announced within the next 2 weeks and released in the summer. That means we wont have to wait long before we find out if this is rumor pans out, so we  can finally put it to rest.

HTC Zoe

The HTC One comes with a new trick indeed in the shape of Zoe, a mode on the camera that takes 0.6 seconds of HD footage before you press the shutter button and three seconds afterwards, meaning you get a 'moving photo' to give all manner of information about what's actually been happening.

In reality, it's more of a quirky feature that does at least take on the notion that you have to have still images in the gallery all the time, as instead of loads of people staring blankly at you from a grid of snaps, the gallery is an orgy of motion as cats bounce about, people walk out of shot and blinking brings a tidal wave of eyelids.

It's a cool idea though, although one big issue is that you have to hold the camera up for a while to capture the Zoe properly, and while many people are used to posing for a while for a cameraphone snap, three seconds feels like an eternity while you wait for that red bar to fill up while the image/movie is captured.

The HTC One also confusingly will turn this high res movie into many, many images in the folder. This won't show up in the gallery, but if you want to share a photo with a third party app like Facebook you'll suddenly find you've got hundreds of snaps when you thought you'd only taken 15. Also, the file sizes are massive, with a single event (made up of around 10 Zoes) taking up half a gigabyte of space on your unexpandable hard drive.

You can save these to an HTC Zoe Share server to show to family and friends and free up valuable space, but they will expire after a month rather than living there indefinitely. Of course, you can use something like Dropbox here, but it doesn't really solve the fact that long term you'll need to be really frugal with your memories.

But enough of that - let's get onto the good stuff, and that's the ability to see your memories in a really fun 30 second video highlight reel. The HTC One will look at your snaps and auto-create the short video based on a date or location for the photos being taken (if you've enabled geo-tagging of your snaps).

The results are really rather pleasing, meaning a few pointless snaps of a cat or your Mum being, frankly, hilarious are turned into something that looks a lot more professional.

The downside is that there are only six effects to choose from, each with their own way of mixing motion and still from the Zoes you've made, and to different music and effects each time. HTC has promised that it's working hard on making it so you can create your own effects to your own music, but the issue there is beat matching, as the scenes will change based on the rhythm of the music itself.

While the idea of this is initially quite strong, it gets a LOT more complicated if you want to have a level of control over these video highlight reels. In addition to the Date or Location grouping, (which don't always work, as you might take loads of photos in a certain place, or on a certain day, that you don't want to see in the highlight reel) you can choose an Event to make a video highlight reel for.

However, to make an event isn't easy, as you need to press a few times to get to your photos, then open the settings, then select 'Move to' before setting up a new album. And the size of the Zoes dictates that this moving process takes a while, which is annoying as it should just be an internal tagging process.

Once that's done, the video highlight reel is created without an issue, and that works pretty well. You can choose the 13 pictures that make up the reel itself, so if there's something that doesn't quite have the desired effect you can scrap it to include something more dynamic, and if you took a photo with the highlight footage in mind you can make sure it's included.

It would also be great if you could choose your establishing shot - the one at the start of the movie - rather than it working chronologically, as otherwise it can really take a while to get things going highlight-wise.

HTC has also acknowledged an early bug in the shape of not properly being able to choose the pictures used for the event. While you can go in and select up to 13 to populate the highlight reel, it will still show you items that you didn't want in there, which can ruin the effect.

While we sound rather negative about this new feature, that's not the intention at all - once you know how to create them, the highlight reels and Zoes are a really, really neat feature, and being able to share them to Facebook with a simple tap is nice.

A Zoe is no use if you like to share specific snaps, as you'll need to go into the short video and choose a frame to save as the photo - only have the Zoe idea turned on if you like making highlight reels.

It's just there's a lot more that could be done here to make the whole process more slick, and not eat up so much space on your phone - but then again, if you're after a handset with expandable memory, the HTC One isn't the one you're looking for.

HTC BlinkFeed

BlinkFeed is HTC's attempt at moving away from the traditional homescreens of old on Android phones and bringing users something that will make the HTC One (and other models in the range) a little more unique.

The feed is a simple interface that borrows heavily from the Live Tiles of Windows Phone, which HTC is a main contributor to. The tiles are various sizes though, which makes things a little less repetitive for scrolling through to 'snack' on content.

The idea is a really sound one: giving a mish-mash of content, be that from curated news feeds on certain topics, videos shared from the HTC Zoe camera app or social network updates from your buddies.

There's an interesting rhythm to the content, as while news is clearly the most 'snackable' of all on offer (rather than hearing what TV programmes your friends are watching at that point) they obviously wane at certain times of the day, meaning you're left with a sea of Twitter updates.

We were initially very sceptical about BlinkFeed when we were told all about it from HTC before the One launched - and a lot of the reservations we had then still pervade.

For instance, the feeds are grouped by topic, and there's no mechanism to select specific outlets that you trust, or to add your own RSS feeds to the mix.

We understand a little why HTC is doing this: to preserve the UI, so sites with very poor pictures won't be filling the blocks on screen with loads of pixelated images. However, users ALWAYS prefer content control over an ideal, so an option to enable this has to be enabled. In fairness to HTC it's promised such functionality will be on the way, but it's never good to launch without the full arsenal.

Similarly, there's no 'learning' involved here either, so you can't vote up or down certain topics, or exclude certain people from being shown on the timeline. Again, we're not too bothered about this latter feature as BlinkFeed is actually pretty adept at getting things right, using data from Facebook and Twitter to see who you interact with regularly. Turning off retweets would be welcome though.

But more interesting than all of that is that BlinkFeed actually works much better than we thought it would. In the few days we had between turning on the phone and it become part of the daily routine, we found that time and again we returned to the feed to just get a feel for what's going on rather than opening the specific Flipboard, Facebook or Twitter apps themselves.

We particularly like the fact that tapping an article will show the picture and text in a reader-style mode, without the need to open the browser. It would be nice if this downloaded more quickly or cached over Wi-Fi (although you can auto-refresh the feed) as sometimes we're left waiting for more than a few seconds to read an article. Otherwise, all ace.

There's a pleasant 'snick' when you pull down the most recent story to refresh the feed, and in a move taken from Apple, you can tap the top of the screen to get back to the top of the list when you've gone a little too deep into your BlinkFeed - something that we only found by accident when we realised that scrolling all the way back up to the top was going to take a LONG time.

The overall UI is incredibly pleasing, not just because of the different sizes of the tiles. The weather and clock at the top of the app are a strong replacement for the traditional widget we're used to from HTC, and offer the information just when you need it. On top of that the slight pull down from the top of the list is a natural gesture to get you to the settings and ability to customise your feed - it's touches like this that show HTC has stepped things up with the One.

This is also the place to search through the current feed, which is actually a hugely valuable too. So often we want to mention something we read, but can't find it instantly. A quick BlinkFeed search will find all mentions of that term in news, TV or among your friends' missives, and brings a more holistic feel to the listing.

Sharing is meant to be part of the experience on the HTC One's BlinkFeed, and while you can put up statuses on Facebook and Twitter directly from the feed (with the 'posted from HTC Sense' tag) sharing news is a whole other issue. Instead of the story it will post a note that says 'HTC News' with no notion of what it's about, and then a link to a cached version of the article.

While that makes it easy for others to read on the mobile, it doesn't help spread the original article properly, which is what sharing is meant to be all about.

It's a shame that BlinkFeed isn't present on the lock screen, but given you can disable the lock screen altogether (a feature we're surprised hasn't been offered on more phones) it's not really needed.

Over time, you'll find your dependence on BlinkFeed will diminish as it becomes a mobile commodity - it's not a bad thing, but because you can't customise it very well at all, it's not very addictive.

The method of choosing categories is overly complex and while we like the results, there's so much more to come here. Also, not being able to turn it off from your home screen (not that we'd want to) is going to irk some users.

Overall, we were very impressed with BlinkFeed compared to the hopes we had for it; there's still a lot to do in terms of making the app more personal, as well as being able to choose and exclude the feeds and friends you get information from, as some news 'sources' are nowhere near such a thing.

However, on multiple occasions we found ourselves reading really interesting articles that we wouldn't have done previously, so for that reason alone we have to give BlinkFeed a big thumbs up as a USP on the HTC One, and look forward to the updates in the future that should address at least some of our wish list.

How good is the camera on the HTC One?

A big change on the HTC One is the camera: it's 'only' a 4MP sensor. It should be put into context though: the camera has a smaller sensor but much larger pixels to allow in more light, and therefore more data, to make your pictures look that much better on the go.

The Ultrapixel method is one to be applauded, as it's pushing back on the 13MP image sensors that are being crammed into ever-thinner phones these days. HTC has published a blog detailing how this process was conceived, if you're after a bit more Ultrapixel info directly from the horse's mouth.

But what does that mean in reality? Well, you're getting a faster sensor for one thing, and that means you can take more snaps on the go. In fact, it's so fast that we didn't notice that it had fired on the odd occasion, although at other times it would have a bit of a think before saving your picture.

The same range of HTC gizmos are on offer here as seen in the HTC One X - so you can alter the ISO levels, change exposure, contrast and sharpness and also enable HDR mode through the onscreen menu.

HTC clearly wants you to use the front facing camera too - it's been given a spec bump to 2.1MP, making it close in power to the rear of the phone (without all the Ultrapixel jiggery-pokery) and as such takes great snaps. You simply slide your finger up and down the screen to jump between the two cameras as well as enabling the countdown timer if you so wish - it's not a strongly advertised feature, but when you find it, it's really impressive.

The interface for the camera isn't the easiest to use at times, simply thanks to the fact the buttons to hit are so small and there's a great deal of scrolling to alter the effects. There's no intelligent shot mode like that found on theSony Xperia Z and LG Optimus G Pro, but it doesn't matter in many situations.

But if you want to fire the text mode (which alters the contrast of the picture) or get a little closer up to stuff using macro, you'll have to scoot through a few menu options.

It's also annoying that you can't use HDR (high dynamic range, where multiple exposures are captured of the same photo and stitched together) mode when shootings Zoes (more on that in a separate section) as this really improves the pictures no end.

Given you can use video HDR mode as well on the HTC One, we're not sure why it's not an option. HDR is a much better option than it used to be on older HTC phones, as it can manage to process in no time at all now. In fact, we wish it could be enabled by default rather than having to switch it on each time.

So onto the good stuff: is the HTC One camera actually any good given the bold move made on the camera front? The simple answer is yes, photos taken in a variety of scenes look pretty darn nice.

There's a lot of noise thanks to the lower pixel count at times, but the range of light levels you get to shoot in compared to other camera phones is excellent. We were surprised how trigger happy the flash was in auto mode given this ability. The HTC One DESTROYS the Galaxy S3 at low-light ability, as you'll see in the photos below.

And the photos we took looked stunning at times on the phone screen, which HTC says is where most of them stay - which we agree with to a degree. However, on the computer screen things are oddly different, with higher exposure and some loss of detail.

You probably won't look at many photos this way, but if you're thinking of uploading them to Facebook, you probably will get some people checking out your efforts at a larger size.

We've noted some criticism of the HTC Ultrapixel system already, and yes, if you really care about photos on the go, working hard on scene composition all the time and fiddling with the exposure chances are you won't want this phone. Ultrapixels work well enough, but there's definitely a lot more to come from the technology.

Another 'failing' some perceive for the HTC One is that, by default, the phone shoots in 16:9 size, rather than the traditional 4:3. Well, again, if the photos are only ever going to be viewed on the screen on on a social networking site, then it makes sense that they should fill the display. We know there are many good reasons to have photos in the 4:3 format, but the user base of the HTC One is less likely to be bothered by those.

However, for most people they'll be overjoyed with the photo quality on the HTC One. The combination of fast shooting, accurate focus, sharp continuous shooting and a nippy HDR mode, combined with photos that look good on the phone screen, will impress many.

And let's be honest, that's the reason we buy a phone with a camera on it, right?

Although low-res, the 4MP camera picks out detail well

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This is shot using the LG Optimus G Pro, at 10MP

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The HTC One doesn't give much away in detail

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A dark shot with the Samsung Galaxy S3

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The HTC One might lose detail, but it really can work in low light

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In darker scenes, the Galaxy S3 cannot even begin to show detail

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Yet once again, the HTC One shows its power

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This shot is taken with the backlight mode engaged

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And this with it switched off

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Compare that to HDR mode, and you'll wonder why backlight mode would ever be used

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You can fix the exposure levels using an on-screen tap; here is the rail in focus

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And here, the distance. The contrast is impressive

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This photo looks great on the phone, but even with HDR mode looks over-exposed on screen

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The detail levels close up are strong

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Colours and detail are well represented

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The macro mode can yield good results, although this took a few attempts to focus correctly

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You can easily apply filters to your shots on the HTC One, and they really can enhance

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Yeah. Filters. Arty.

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HTC One: Tips and Tweaks to Maximise Battery Performance

1) Adjust the display settings. Lower the brightness of the display while playing music on the lock screen. Also set the screen timeout to a shorter time.

2) Create a basic scene for the home screen of the device. Go to All apps>>Personalise>>Scene and add favourites and remove extra home panels. Use this scene when the device is running on low battery and then switch to regular home screen when the device is charged.     

3) Set the phone to auto-dim the screen while web pages load. Open theinternet app, tap Menu>> Settings>> Accessibility>> Dim screen during page loading.   

4) Live wallpapers utilise both CPU and GPU of the device to render itself and consumes a considerable amount of battery. Therefore, avoid the use of live wallpapers and use non-animated ones. Use any standard image or the one with darker backgrounds.

5) There might be apps running in the background which use both memory and power. Uninstall or disable such apps. Go to Settings>> Apps>> All and then select the app to uninstall. It should be noted that if users disable built-in apps, other apps may not work properly. Therefore, disable apps that are not required.   

6) Check the settings of apps to find more options to optimise battery. In Play Store for instance, tap Menu>> Settings and then clear Auto-update apps and Auto-add widgets.

7) Turn off the features such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and GPS when not in use to save power. Slide the notifications panel and then tap Settings to see the items to disable. Additionally, connecting to location services drains more battery. Therefore, turn off navigation apps such as Maps and Locationswhen not in use.

8) The phone uses more power in low network coverage areas. In such situations, check network signal and then select an appropriate network mode in Mobile network settings. Users may also turn it off when not connected to a network.

9) Set up Auto-sync and try to fetch data manually since continuous syncing unused services impacts overall battery performance.

10) Users may also monitor the battery usage stats to see which app/feature is consuming the most power. Go to Settings>> Power>> Battery use. Users may either choose to disable such power-hungry apps or can go in for option to adjust power consumption in each individual app.  

11) Users are advised to charge the device in a timely manner. Do not over-charge or under-charge the phone. Charge the device to 100% and charge only when the battery is fully out or having 10 to 20% of charge. Moreover, users are advised not to put the phone for charging overnight which is likely to hamper battery life.

12) Use the original charger that comes with the HTC One kit as various chargers have different operating voltages. Also, make use of the AC chargers instead of using the USB points for charging the battery since USB charging does the trickle charging which is not advised for charging the battery.

How to Root HTC One and Install ClockworkMod Recovery [GUIDE]

The Taiwanese tech major's flagship smartphone, HTC One, featuring a 4.7in full HD display with zero-gap aluminium unibody design, is now available in the UK. HTC One users can now root their handsets and install ClockworkMod (CWM) recovery. 

HTC One is powered by Snapdragon 600 chip featuring a quad-core processor clocked at 1.7GRooting the HTC One will allow users to install apps that require root permission whereas with the help of the CWM recovery users can install custom ROM, root their devices, create Nandroid backup, restore the phone set up and install various system tweaks.

HTC One users who wish to root their devices and install CWM recovery, may follow our step-by-step guide.

Pre-requisites

1) Install USB Driver for HTC One on the computer.  

2) Ensure that USB Debugging Mode is enabled on the phone to connect the phone with the computer and use the Android SDK with it. [Press Menu>> Settings>> Applications. From there navigate and click on Development option and ensure the USB Debugging Mode is turned on.]   

3) Create a backup of all data of the phone. If the device is having a custom recovery such as CWM/TWRP installed, then users are recommended to backup the data using the same.

4) The bootloader of the phone should be unlocked. Head over to the officialHTC Dev site and unlock the bootloader of the device by following the on-screen instructions.  

5) Verify that the HTC One should have above 80 per cent of battery charge.

6) The root package and the CWM Recovery file work only on HTC One. Applying these to any incorrect variant might brick the device.  

Steps to root HTC One

1) Download the rooting package for HTC One to the computer [File name: r1-htcone-Superboot.zip]. Then extract the downloaded zip  

2) Power off the HTC One. Then reboot the device into Bootloader mode by pressing and holding Volume Up and Power buttons together for a few seconds

3) When the device is in the Bootloader mode, connect it to the computer using USB cable

4) Extract the r1-htcone-Superboot.zip. Inside the extracted folder there should be a file named as install-superboot-windows.bat

5) Double click this install-superboot-windows.bat file. This will prompt a new window

6) Now follow the on screen instructions to root the phone

Steps to root HTC One on Mac

1) Extract the r1-htcone-Superboot.zip file

2) Turn off the phone and boot into Bootloader mode

3) Connect the phone to the computer using USB cable

4) Open the extracted folder and launch a terminal window from within the folder containing root files

5) Then type the following command

chmod +x superboot-mac.sh then type ./install-superboot-mac.sh    

Steps to root HTC One on Linux

1) Extract the r1-htcone-Superboot.zip file

2) Turn off the phone and boot into Bootloader mode

3) Connect the phone to the computer using USB cable

4) Open the extracted folder and launch a terminal window from within the folder containing root files

5) Type the following command in the terminal window

 chmod +x superboot-linux.sh then type ./install-superboot-linux.sh    

The HTC One should be now rooted successfully. After rooting, those who further wish to install CWM recovery on their devices, may follow our step-by-step guide

Steps to install CWM Recovery on HTC One

1) Download fastboot. zip for HTC One to the computer

2) Download CWM Recovery Touch 6.0.3.1-m7 recovery.img

3) Extract the fastboot. zip file

4) Switch off the phone and boot it into Bootloader mode 

5) Connect the phone to the computer using USB cable

6) Open a command window in the folder where the recovery.img file is placed. Now type the following

fastboot flash recovery recovery.img

7) Doing so will install the CWM recovery image will install on the phone

Note: Users can also flash CWM Recovery on their HTC One using the ROM Manager app from the Play Store.

The HTC One is now rooted successfully with CWM Recovery installed on the device.

How to Unlock HTC One Bootloader [Step-by-step Guide]

Soon after the HTC One is announced the android developers are working on tools and methods to unlock the bootloader, root the device and install custom ROMs for the users who want to tinker with their smartphone OS and free it from the manufacturer limitations.

Unlock HTC One bootloader is required if you want to root or flash any custom ROM on the device. By following this guide you will be able to unlock your bootloader within 15 minutes.

We are using the tools available from HTC website to do the unlocking process so the security risks are nil but you will still void your your warranty. It’s recommended to read the full article before you start the unlock process.

Things to Remember

• This guide is only for the HTC One. Do not attempt the following steps on any other device.
• The warranty will be voided after the unlock.
• Make sure your battery is charged to at least 80%.
• If you are unsure about any step, ask us in the comment section before proceeding further.

Thing to be Done

• All the files will be wiped after the unlock so take backup of all your important data.
• Enable USB debugging from the Developer options.
• Download and install the HTC Sync Manager from this link.
• Download Fastboot zip file from this link and extract the contents into a folder namedFastboot.
• Disable antivirus software on your system to avoid unnecessary interference.

Step-by-step Guide to Unlock HTC One Bootloader

• Go to the website htcdev and register yourself. Make sure to verify the email to complete the registration process.
• Login to the htcdev website and then go to the Unlock Bootloader page.
• Click the drop down devices list Under supported devices and select the option ‘All Other Supported Models‘.
• Click on ‘Begin Unlock Bootloader’ and select Yes on the confirmation screen.
• Acknowledge messages on the Legal Terms and click on ‘Proceed to Unlock Instructions’.
• The next page with unlocking bootloader instructions will give you 4 steps to follow: Disconnect mobile from the PC if connected and then switch off the device. Then pressVolume Down button and Power button to start the device in Bootloader mode. Once it’s in Bootloader screen, highlight Fastboot option and press the Power button. Then connect your HTC One to PC via USB cable.
• Click on Proceed to step 5. But it’s not required to follow the  steps mentioned in the second page of htcdev site. Instead you go to the Fastboot folder which we have extracted earlier and hold the Shift key and at the same time right click on the free space. Select the option ‘Open command window here’.
• Windows command window will appear like ‘..\Fastboot>’. Now you need to enter the following command in the command line fastboot devices (This command will tell you whether your device is detected by your computer or not. If your device shows you can go ahead with the next step. If the device is not detected the command screen will not show any information and in this case you have to re-install the HTC Sync Manager and reboot your PC. Then redo the tutorial from the beginning.
• Keep open the command window. Then go to the third page of instruction in htcdev by clicking on ‘Proceed to Step 8‘ button.
• Follow the steps mentioned in the third page of htcdev site (from step 8 to step 10). When all the steps are done, click on Submit button.
• If all the steps are done properly you will get a message ‘Token Submitted Successfully!’ and the Unlock Key information is emailed to you.
• Open the email from HTC and download the attached file named ‘Unlock_code.bin’.
• Once the download is done copy the ‘Unlock_code.bin’ file to Fastboot folder.
• Now go back to the command window and the following command: fasboot flash unlocktoken Unlock_code.bin
• Now the HTC One will get a message to Unlock bootloader. Press Volume up and select YES, then press Power button to confirm the action.
• Your HTC One will now restart and ask to complete the factory reset process. You can now disconnect your device from the PC.

That’s all! You have successfully Unlocked the Bootloader of your HTC One. Now you can root and install Custom ROMs on your device without any issues.

Note: If you receive any software updates after unlocking the bootloader you have to deny it. Otherwise you may end up bricking your smartphone.