The HTC One Max is HTC’s jump to the giant Smartphone market. The One Max takes all the good things from the HTC One, but carries a few extra features, which we’ll discuss later on. Of course, a bigger phone means heavier and bulkier. Is the HTC One Max worth its price? Let’s find out together.
Let’s first talk about the design. The HTC One Max is actually large and pretty heavy, compared to other devices. It has a 5.9 inch screen and weighs 7.65 ounces (or 217g). The build quality has some issues; I like the HTC One much more because it had a singular, amazingly crafted block of aluminum. Its bigger brother replaces this with a white polycarbonate band that keeps parts together. The result just isn’t as pretty. The size of the phone isn’t really well-designed either; other phone try to compensate with the tiniest bezels, but the HTC One Max doesn’t do this at all, it just proudly emphasizes its big front speakers on the top and bottom.
The first of its extra features that I mentioned is the fingerprint scanner. It’s not like ‘that other phone’s scanner’, but thankfully it also works. It’s not always accurate, but if you swipe in the right way it should detect if it’s actually you or not. The worst thing about it is that you don’t really know where to swipe to use the scanner. You can’t feel its presence, so if change your grip, you’ll have to search for it again. A neat feature here is that you can use different fingers for other functions. For example, you could use your middle finger to open a specific app, another finger to unlock and so on.
Some of the specifications of the HTC One Max are rather impressive, like the 3.300mAh battery it stocks. It easily gives you a full day of heavy use, which can’t be said of a lot of devices, so that might be something to think about. The Power Saver clocks down the CPU, turns off data connection while the screen is turned off, reduces brightness and turns off the vibration. Naturally, it has a 1080p screen, which is still the best in its class for sure. The Boomspeakers really do deliver the best sound, perfect for watching your favorite video content. The camera captures pictures in 4MP and 1080p videos. 4MP might sound a bit low resolution, but HTC has its UltraPixel technology. The basic idea tells us that less pixels on the sensor gives better performance in low light environments. The stills it takes aren’t bad, but it could be better. It’s just a mediocre camera, and we think HTC should have tried to make it something special here. The front shooter is 2.1MP, and also 1080p for video. The device supports NFC and the battery efficient Bluetooth 4.0. It has plenty of RAM, 2GB to be specific, and is equipped with the Snapdragon 600 CPU. This means the One Max is just an addition to HTC’s devices, not a new flagship device. The Snapdragon 600 isn’t the best there is, but we can’t really complain, it does its job rather well.
The HTC One Max has a massive, but great, 1080p display. It houses pretty decent specs, but not the best of the best. The camera could have had some extra work, but it’s really fast and packs a whole lot of features. The speakers are amazing! Battery life is the best. Unfortunately the device is a bit heavy, and the fingerprint scanner isn’t as easy to use as it should.
So for the most part, it’s not really a big upgrade over the HTC One, but it does have some pretty great features that might be enough to get you over to a store and get yourself into the giant phone hype of today.
As usual, many thanks to Kevin for all his support, and to you all for reading. Stay tuned for more tech reviews from Brad and me. Until next time, happy new year to you all. Let’s hope we all can give this world a better 2014.
Amaya Ai,
Gifu, Japan