GALLERY ONLINE: Android phone

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Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Samsung Galaxy Note II defined by its pen

Toeing that fine line between tablet and phone, the Samsung Galaxy Note II is one of the biggest smartphones released this year. The phone features a whopping 5.5-inch display, making it larger than the original Galaxy Note, and is one of the first phones to ship with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. However, while the Note II boasts an impressive array of specs and features, the phone's prodigious size definitely isn't for everyone. (Pricing wasn't available at the time of writing.)

Design

At 5.95 by 3.16 by 0.37-inches, the Note II could easily be mistaken for a small tablet. The front face is dominated by a 5.5-inch, 1280-by-720-pixel HD Super AMOLED display, which is a minor downgrade in resolution from the 1280 by 800 display that shipped on the original Note. The screen still looks sharp, although colors tended to be a bit on the saturated side. When comparing the Note II with the Samsung Galaxy S III and the original Galaxy Note, I noticed that the screen on the Note II is not as bright as the screens on the other two. Even on the highest brightness settings, the screen didn't look all that vibrant, making it a bit difficult to use the Note II outdoors (especially on sunny days).

Whereas the original Note looked like a boring black rectangle, the Note II boasts rounded edges and appealing curves reminiscent of those seen on the Galaxy S III. These design choices help make the Note II easier to hold, though the phone really requires two hands to operate. Attempting to use the Note II one-handed proved extremely difficult: I found myself constantly having to shift my grip to navigate the phone's menus one-handed.

I was able to fit the Note II into my pants pocket without any problems, though several coworkers who tried pocketing the phone complained that the Note II dug into their thighs when they sat down. It's a phone you'll definitely want to get your hands on to check out before you purchase one; if you struggle trying to use phones with bigger screens (like the Galaxy S III and the Motorola Droid Razr HD), then the Note II may not be for you.

The Stylus

People made a lot of jokes when they first heard that the original Note would come with a stylus, though it ended up being one of the phone's most memorable features. The Wacom-made stylus (or S Pen) on the Note II is similar to the one that shipped with the first Note, but its shape has been updated to make it easier to hold. The new S Pen also has a different tip, which makes it feel like you're using a pencil on a pad of paper.

One of the first things I did after getting my hands on the Note II was to pop the S Pen out of its slot (located at the bottom of the phone), and proceed to doodle all over the screen. After just a few short hours, it felt natural to slide out the stylus and jot down a note or two on the phone's screen whenever I wanted to remember something important. By pressing a button on the side of the S Pen, I can also clip out specific areas of the screen that I want to save and reference later. Sure, these are things you can do with most smartphones today, in one manner or another, but using the stylus to accomplish these tasks is just moreenjoyable.

Performance

With a 1.6GHz quad-core Exynos processor and 2GB of RAM, the Note II can handle pretty much anything you throw at it. Even with multiple apps running at once, the phone never showed any signs of slowing down, and I was not able to detect any lag while using the device. And, unlike most dual-core phones, the Note II didn't feel hot while playing graphically intensive games like Dead Trigger or Shadowgun.

Call quality on both the AT&T and T-Mobile versions of the Note II is good, but a tiny bit fuzzy. Voices come through loud and clear, and the people I called said that they had no problems hearing or understanding me. These calls were in an area with good T-Mobile and AT&T reception, so your results will vary depending on carrier coverage in your area. Data speeds on both versions of the Note II were also commendable, though the LTE-compatible AT&T Note II is faster. Using the FCC-approved Ookla Speed Test app on the T-Mobile Note II here in San Francisco, I recorded average download speeds of 7.3 megabits per second and average upload speeds of 2.71 mbps. The AT&T Note II scored an average download speed of 16 mbps and an average upload speed of 9.67 mbps.

With its high-capacity 3100mAh battery, the Note II can go for quite a while before needing to be plugged in. Over the course of five days with the Note II, I had to charge the phone only twice—and this was after several hours of browsing the Web, playing games, and watching videos. Very impressive indeed.

Software

A sketch made using the S Pen and a third-party app.

The Note II is one of the first non-Nexus phones to ship runningAndroid 4.1 Jelly Bean, albeit with Samsung's custom TouchWiz overlay. This version of TouchWiz isn't much different from the one that ships with the Galaxy S III, although it includes extra software and features that make use of the S Pen's unique properties. You can, for instance, hover the pen over an email or text message in order to get a preview of that item's contents, or use the S Pen with the bundled S Note software to jot down a note or two. However, much as with the original Note, the S Pen works only with a select handful of software—most of which is made by Samsung. A few third-party apps work with the stylus—drawing and signature apps in particular—but the preinstalled Samsung applications will probably get the most use when it comes to doing things with the S Pen.

The T-Mobile version of the Note II comes preloaded with a considerable amount of bloatware. Aside from the usual slew of T-Mobile branded apps (T-Mobile TV, T-Mobile My Account, and so on), the Note II also comes with Paper Artist, the Amazon shopping app, and a bookmark where you can purchase Need For Speed Most Wanted (when the game releases on October 30th). The AT&T version of the Note II also comes with bloatware, but it seems to be limited to just AT&T's branded apps. On both the AT&T and T-Mobile versions of the phone you can hide the apps you don't want in a folder in the app drawer, but sadly none of the preinstalled apps on either version of the phone can be removed without rooting.

Camera

A sample image taken with the Samsung Galaxy Note II

Although it's equipped with an 8-megapixel camera, photos and video taken with the Note II are nothing to write home about. Photos are clear with good color accuracy, but aren't all that sharp. You won't want to use the Note II to capture any precious memories, but it'll work fine for the average Facebook or Twitter photo. The Note II can record in 1080p, and videos are largely free of artifacts and other digital maladies. I did notice a jelly-like effect when moving the camera around while recording videos on the Note II, but that didn't seem to carry over into the video itself.

The camera app on the Note II is customizable, and packs a few neat extras. Aside from panoramic and HDR (high dynamic range) shooting modes, the Note II also features a burst-shot option that can rapidly take up to 20 photos in mere seconds. The feature works best to capture fast-moving objects, such as kids or pets, and was really one of my favorite features of the Note II's camera.

Bottom line

The Samsung Galaxy Note II has a lot going for it: With its fast processor, huge display, and great battery life, the Note II makes for a stellar multimedia machine that you won't have to charge in the middle of the day. The Note II's S Pen and pen-optimized apps can be used for both creativity and productivity, and are really the defining features of the handset. The phone's larger size won't appeal to everyone, but I recommend you try the phone and S Pen themselves before dismissing a relatively solid handset.

LG Optimus G Pro is an oversized phone with a beautiful screen

LG hasn't always been a fan favorite: For a long time the company was best known for its budget handsets that did little to stand out from the competition. In recent years, however, LG has earned a reputation for creating solid, reliable devices. The LG Optimus G Pro continues that string of successes, blowing away its nearest competitor in size and design, the Samsung Galaxy Note II, and rivaling the recent HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S4 as one of the best Android phones on the market. The G Pro runs like a sports car engine in the body of a family minivan—an unassuming aesthetic mixed with luxury performance. Provided you can fit it in your hand (a big caveat), this quick, flashy giant might very well be the phone for you.

Built for Goliath

At 5.9 by 3.0 by 0.4 inches the Optimus G Pro is larger than almost any other phone on the market. Like last year’s Galaxy Note II, the G Pro packs 5.5 inches of screen real estate, straddling that fine line between tablet and phone.

The LG Optimus G Pro (right) next to the Samsung Galaxy Note II (left).

On the other hand, the G Pro carries its size well. It’s definitely overlarge (people with tiny hands, beware), but I found the G Pro surprisingly comfortable to operate. In addition to a volume rocker, the left spine of the handset features a quick-launch button that can be customized to open any app on the device—handy for accessing the camera or a browser. The G Pro is slightly slimmer than the Galaxy Note II, which helped it sit better in my average-size hands. You’re also able to compress the keyboard closer to the left or right side if you really want to use the device one-handed.

As for the screen, it’s a beautiful behemoth running at 1920 by 1080 resolution, with a pixel density of 400 pixels per inch. That’s a much higher resolution than what you get on the Galaxy Note II’s 267 pixels per inch and 1280-by-720-resolution display, though the G Pro's density doesn’t quite live up to what the HTC One and Galaxy S4 offer (both are 1920 by 1080 displays, with 469 and 441 pixels per inch, respectively). Unfortunately, this beautiful screen is housed in a cheap plastic exterior that relentlessly attracts smudges. The phone is by no means ugly—especially with the screen on—but it just doesn't stand out, as the lovingly-honed HTC One does.

Performs like a pro

Driving this enormous phone is the same basic architecture as the HTC One—a 1.7GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 processor and 2GB of RAM. The G Pro feels quick and incredibly responsive. The phone handled everything I threw at it with ease, including bleeding-edge games and resource-intensive applications. The G Pro comes equipped with 23GB of usable storage out of the box, though you can always add more via a MicroSD card.

The G Pro packs a lot of performance into a slim package.

The phone’s battery shouldn’t have any problem handling an average day of use. However, the huge screen definitely chews into battery life during prolonged usage. If you’re heavy on games or constantly checking Twitter, consider toting a charger on your outings.

One area where the Galaxy Note II bests the G Pro is in multitasking. Though LG touts the ability to view multiple apps on the G Pro, that feature is fairly limited: You can't view apps side by side but instead must rely on LG's QSlide feature to do more than one thing at a time. QSlide can launch one of four apps—calendar, notes, video, or calculator—above whatever’s currently running. While the international version of QSlide includes a browser, that's not in the U.S. version. As a result, the G Pro’s multitasking capability feels lopped off at the knees.

AT&T only

For some reason, LG made the baffling decision to lock the G Pro to AT&T, so keep that in mind if you’re considering this device.

The G Pro’s call quality leaves a bit to be desired. Noise sometimes crept into the outgoing voice, and the incoming audio sounded a little tinny (though plenty loud). The handset is also not very good at cutting out background noise—which is odd, since using speakerphone on the G Pro makes you sound incredibly distant even if you’re only 6 inches away.

4G LTE reception was fast enough in our San Francisco office location to stream video and download apps over AT&T’s network with ease (your results will vary depending on AT&T's coverage in your area).

13 is a lot of megapixels, but...

Even though it's packed with pixels, the 13-megapixel camera on the G Pro didn't meet our expectations. Images taken under normal conditions were significantly fuzzier than what we've seen from the similarly spec'd Samsung Galaxy S4. The G Pro's low-light performance was better than that of Samsung's offering, but overall the G Pro’s camera performance was subpar.

The G Pro's camera app has a number of extras, including HDR (high dynamic range) and Panorama mode, both of which have their share of quirks. Panoramic shots look sharp at first glance, but lose clarity even faster than the G Pro’s standard shooting mode once you begin zooming in. The HDR setting works well, but takes too long to shoot and process images for regular use.

A sample image taken with the Optimus G Pro. (Click to enlarge.)

The G Pro also features an “Intelligent Auto” mode, which adjusts aperture, white balance, and shutter speed on the fly to take better pictures. Unfortunately the mode is a bit fidgety, especially when it comes to white balance. It has a bad habit of completely changing the white balance for a split second right as you go to snap the perfect shot, leaving everything too orange or blue. It’s better to adjust the options manually.

If you’re obsessed with taking high-quality pictures on your phone, the G Pro’s camera might be a deal breaker. It certainly doesn’t hold up to the S4, and its options are quite limited. On the other hand, if you treat the camera as supplemental to the other features, or as a nonissue, it should work fine for most of your needs.

Bottom line

LG’s Optimus G Pro is king of the small—but growing—phone/tablet hybrid market (I refuse to use the term “phablet”). It’s a performance powerhouse that, despite its large size, is relatively comfortable to use even with average-size hands. The G Pro loses a few points for its limited multitasking features, but if you’re looking to buy a large Android phone and aren’t dismayed by the underperforming camera, then the G Pro is definitely worth considering.

Samsung Galaxy S4 (Sprint)

This is the burning question of the moment: Should you buy the Samsung Galaxy S4? After spending a few days with the phone and running it through TechHive's suite of tests, I can confirm that the Galaxy S4 is an impressive Android phone. Samsung's latest offering tops its previous efforts in many respects, and Android fans are rightly excited by the Galaxy S4's imminent release (slated for the end of the month). That's not to say that the phone is perfect: For all of its innovations and cutting-edge specs, the Galaxy S4 has shortcomings that prevent it from being the ideal smartphone.

Familiar face

At first glance, the Galaxy S4 looks similar to its predecessors, the Galaxy S3 andGalaxy Note 2. The phone shares the same rounded corners, Home button, and primarily plastic design; yet the Galaxy S4 feels more polished overall. The new phone's buttons are more durable than those on the Note 2 or Galaxy S3, and its plastic components seem to be of higher quality. Measuring 5.38 by 2.75 by 0.31 inches and weighing a scant 4.64 ounces, the Galaxy S4 is slightly lighter and thinner than the Galaxy S3. However, the Galaxy S4 felt blockish next to the Galaxy S3's gentle curves and wasn't as comfortable to hold.

The Galaxy S4 achieves its slim profile at the expense of being less comfortable to hold.

The 5-inch, 1920-by-1080-pixel display on the Galaxy S4 offers an impressive 441 pixels per inch, making it one of the sharper-looking screens around, and beating the pixel density of the iPhone 5 (326 ppi) and the Galaxy S3 (306 ppi). Still, colors looked more saturated on the Galaxy S4 than on competing smartphones. The thin bezel surrounding the screen made using the phone one-handed more difficult because of the ever-present hazard of inadvertently hitting the Menu button or the Back button—a mistake that tended to happen as I was trying to type an email or text message.

Like on the Note 2 and Galaxy S3, the battery on the Galaxy S4 is removable.

The back of the phone comes off to reveal a removable 2600mAh battery, and a MicroSD card slot that can accommodate up to 64GB of additional storage. TechHive’s lab clocked the Galaxy S4's battery life at a solid 7 hours, during which it continuously played back HD video, and I managed to squeeze a full day of use out of the phone while browsing the Web, downloading apps, taking pictures, before having to recharge it.

The Galaxy S4's overall design is a a bit underwhelming. The Galaxy S4 looks chintzy next to phones like the HTC One and the Apple iPhone 5, whose aluminum bodies give them a premium look that seems absent from Samsung's new handset. The phone is by no means ugly; I just wish Samsung had used something other than plastic for the chassis.

Everything but the kitchen sink

The Galaxy S4 can run two apps side-by-side.

What Samsung's phone lacks in design, though, it makes up for in features and specs. The U.S. version of the Galaxy S4 ships with a 1.9GHz quad-core Snapdragon 600 processor and 2GB of RAM, making the phone a powerhouse at running 3D games and other resource-heavy applications. All of that processing power comes in handy when running two apps simultaneously, a feature we most recently saw on Samsung's 8-inch Note tablet.

Another feature borrowed from the Note line is Air Preview: By hovering your finger a few centimeters off the screen, you can view the contents of folders, email, and messages without having to open them. It's pretty neat, but I didn't find myself using Air Preview all that much, as simply opening and closing content was often faster than waiting for the preview to show up.

The Galaxy S4 also supports the hands-free Air Gestures control, which lets you scroll through webpages, flip through photos in the Gallery app, and answer the phone by swiping your hand over the Samsung logo above the screen. I ended up using Air Gestures more than I thought I would, because it gave me some control over the phone without having to touch it—useful for when my hands were wet or dirty.

Other highlights of the Galaxy S4 include the exclusive Optical Reader, S Translator, and S Health apps. Optical Reader lets you scan text or QR codes, and you can use it to enter information from business cards into your contacts quickly. The app worked well for scanning QR codes, but it stumbled a bit when I tried to scan several business cards that I had lying around.

S Translator is basically Samsung's attempt to copy the functionality of Google Translate: You enter or speak your queries, and S Translator spits out a translation in one of 12 languages. Though the app managed to translate my Spanish phrases into English somewhat successfully, it seemed uninspired next to the official Google Translate app, which can translate to more languages, and can do so more accurately.

S Health keeps track of your steps and the number of calories you've burned.

I grew to appreciate S Health, Samsung's fitness tracking app, the more I used it. I'm constantly forgetting my Fitbit at home, so having the Galaxy S4 track my steps and activities without any need for extra hardware proved extremely convenient. The app can also track your calorie intake, and it uses colorful graphs to show you how close you are to your daily step count. S Health is one of my favorite additions to the Galaxy line, and I hope Samsung keeps the service around for future Samsung phones.

Another aspect of the Galaxy S4 that I thoroughly enjoyed was the phone's ability to function as a universal remote control. The phone has a built-in IR blaster, and the preloaded WatchOn app allows you to browse TV listings. The app isn't as straightforward to set up as the TV app on the HTC One, but WatchOn offers extra functionality such as the ability to pair with a Google TV.

Smart Stay, a feature available on the Galaxy S3, returns on the Galaxy S4 and is accompanied by two new head-tracking options: Smart Scroll and Smart Pause. Smart Stay is supposed to keep your screen from dimming as you look at it, but it was as buggy on the Galaxy S4 as it was on its predecessor and often failed, depending on the lighting in the room. Smart Scroll registers when you tilt your head or the phone to scroll up or down. This function worked as advertised, though moving my head felt unnatural and tilting the phone often caused me to scroll down farther than I intended.

Of the bunch, however, Smart Pause deserves some ridicule. With Smart Pause enabled, your videos will pause whenever you look away from the screen—or at least that's what it's supposed to do. In reality, tilting the phone in a certain way caused playback to stop, which made watching videos on the phone during my bumpy commute an exercise in frustration. Smart Pause is off by default, and I recommend leaving it that way.

According to Samsung, the Galaxy S4 has more than 100 new features, but that means very little when many of the phone's headlining capabilities come across as broken gimmicks. Apps like S Health show that Samsung can make great software when it tries; I'd love to see the company put more effort into practical endeavors rather than wasting time and resources on half-baked novelties like head-tracking.

Dual cameras, drama shots, and more

The main shooter on the Galaxy S4 is a 13-megapixel camera with a single LED flash. Photos taken with the Galaxy S4 looked great, with vibrant colors and minimal digital noise. Photos taken indoors came out looking surprisingly good, though the results varied greatly from location to location. The phone has a Night mode for taking photos in dark environments, but my Night mode shots came out extremely grainy.

The Camera app benefits from a wide array of shooting modes, including Macro and Panorama. One mode lets you record audio while taking a photo, and another allows you to erase objects or people from your shots. I'm not sure why you'd want to record audio while taking a photo, but the ability to remove unwanted subjects from photos worked extremely well in my tests. I used it successfully to remove some bystanders from a photo of a bridge.

The Camera app on the Galaxy S4 features an impressive array of shooting modes.

Two of the Camera app's shooting modes, Dual Camera and Drama, are especially interesting. Activating Dual Camera turns on the front-facing camera while the main camera continues to run, enabling you to "insert" yourself into any photos you take. I can see the feature appealing to families that don't want to leave anyone out of a vacation photo, but I had trouble properly framing my subjects while simultaneously making sure that my face was within the front-facing camera's rather small viewing angle. Dual Camera worked better when I held the phone in portrait mode, but who takes photos that way? (Terrible people, that's who.)

The Drama shooting mode takes multiple exposure shots and stitches them together to form a single photo. As you can see from the image above, the mode works best for capturing images involving lots of movement, or when you're trying to re-create the Abbey Road album cover. When you take a Drama shot, you can select the photos that you'd like to use in the final image by tapping on them, though the Galaxy S4 usually did a good job at picking the best images and stitching them together on its own.

The HTC One has a similar mode that uses the phone's Zoe camera. However, the feature on the Galaxy S4 required less digging through menus. In fact, though the camera apps on the HTC One and Galaxy S4 shared many similar features, they were almost universally easier to access and operate on the Galaxy S4.

Unfortunately, all of these excellent capabilities come at a price: Though the Galaxy S4 runs Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean, it lacks the ability to take PhotoSpheres—arguably one of the coolest features of the stock Android 4.2 camera. It's possible that Samsung could restore PhotoSpheres later, but I'm disappointed that the option won't be available at the phone's release.

Bottom line

When the Galaxy S3 launched, it was widely regarded as the best Android phone of its time: It had the best design, loads of features, and an impressive list of specs that set it head and shoulders above the competition. The same cannot be said about the Galaxy S4. Yes, the phone is loaded with extras, and its specs are nothing to scoff at; but the Galaxy S4 doesn't do much to differentiate itself from the pack. If anything, the phone is more iterative than revolutionary, and some aspects of the handset—such as Samsung's TouchWiz overlay and the phone's plastic aesthetic—make the Galaxy S4 feel like it's stuck in 2011.

Despite its flaws, the Galaxy S4 is a solid phone and a worthy successor to the Galaxy S3. The Galaxy S4's camera is exceptional and apps like S Health make this new model worth considering. Is it the best Android phone out there? No, but that shouldn't stop people from buying it if they find Samsung's additions to Android appealing.

HTC One is the Android phone to beat

HTC knows how to make good-looking hardware. I loved the white ceramic body of the HTC One X and Nokia could learn a thing or two about making Windows phones by taking a closer look at the HTC Windows Phone 8X. The company’s latest offering, the HTC One, is a paragon of industrial design: Its chiseled chamfers, rounded edges, and chrome accents are sure to turn more than a few heads when you whip out the phone in public. But the One is more than just a pretty face: HTC packed a lot of power under the phone’s hood, and the handset’s camera benefits from numerous software and hardware tweaks that should excite fans of mobile photography.

A feast for the eyes

The first thing you’ll notice when holding the One is how well it sits in your hand. At 5.4 by 2.7 by 0.4 inches, the phone is larger than Apple’s iPhone 5 but smaller than HTC’s previous handset, the Droid DNA. Though the phone comes with a 4.7-inch display (shades of the Samsung Galaxy S III), the One’s aluminum unibody design and gentle curves compare favorably to the S III’s primarily plastic body. That slick exterior does come at a price, however: The One’s power and volume buttons sit flush with the phone’s chassis—which makes them difficult to press—and the 2300mAh battery is nonremovable. The phone also lacks a microSD card slot, meaning that you’re stuck using the supplied 32GB (or 64GB, if you buy the larger model) of on-board memory to store your photos, apps, music, and movies.

The absence of expandable storage is lamentable, especially since in other respects HTC designed the One to function as a multimedia powerhouse. The One’s 1920-by-1080-pixel display packs 468 pixels per inch, which makes viewing HD content a feast for the eyes. Bordering that gorgeous display are two large, front-facing stereo speakers, which pump out surprisingly loud, clear audio. One big advantage of positioning the speakers on the front of the device rather than on the back is that audio doesn’t get muffled when you set the phone down on a flat surface. I did notice an occasional pop at higher volumes, but the speakers’ sound quality was more than acceptable overall.

If you tend to mislay your TV remote, you’ll appreciate the One’s built-in IR blaster, which lets you use the phone as a universal remote control. The phone has a TV app with a setup wizard that simplifies the task of programming the One to work with your TV, cable box, and home theater. The app also pulls listing information from Peel, showing which TV shows and movies are currently playing. You can arrange for the phone to remind you when your favorite shows are on and to provide a brief synopsis of specific episodes. I tested the remote functionality of the phone with an LG TV and a Motorola cable box in our office and was surprised at how well the combination worked. Though I was 13 feet away from the cable box, I noticed little or no delay when I changed channels or browsed through the guide. The app is so well made that I almost wish I subscribed to cable...almost.

Built to be social

Another cool bit of software that the One offers is BlinkFeed. HTC is marketing BlinkFeed—which resembles the Live Tiles on Windows Phone to some extent—as a “magical” way to stay up-to-date on your social networks and news feeds, but in reality it’s just a glorified RSS reader that lives on your home screen. You can tie BlinkFeed to your Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter accounts so that your friends’ updates show up there; however, clicking an update just kicks you into the corresponding app. You can also instruct BlinkFeed to display news headlines, but the news outlets you can subscribe to are limited to a handful of blogs—though you can subscribe to a catch-all news category like ‘lifestyle’.

Despite using the phone for several days, I never felt inclined to spend much time with BlinkFeed. Though I loaded all of my social accounts into it, I ended up using the stand-alone Twitter and Facebook apps to update my status and to see what my friends were up to. Being able to browse headlines quickly was convenient, but other dedicated apps such as Zite perform better in that regard. Most annoyingly, you can’t turn BlinkFeed off: It always appears as your leftmost home screen, and you can’t get rid of it without installing a different launcher.

UltraPixels make a difference

The other features that HTC played up when it announced the phone were the One’s camera and camera software. Rather than perpetuate the myth that the more numerous the megapixels, the better a camera’s image quality, HTC opted in favor of a 4-megapixel camera with larger pixels than those traditionally used in smartphones. These UltraPixels are designed to take in more light, making them better for capturing photos in low-light environments.

After taking the One’s camera out for a spin, I think HTC may be on to something with UltraPixels. The One handled everyday shots well enough, but it excelled at taking photos in areas with less-than-optimal lighting. Photos were less noisy than comparable shots taken with an iPhone 5 or a Nokia Lumia 920 under the same conditions, and the One’s flash didn’t completely wash out the subject. The iPhone 5’s outside shots looked better than the One’s, but the two were more evenly matched on indoor photos.

The One’s biggest advantage over the iPhone, however, is in the number of features that HTC packs into the phone’s native camera app. The default Android camera has various extras built into it already, but HTC seems to have omitted only a kitchen sink app in assembling the One’s camera software: Among the available shooting modes are HDR and panorama; and you can apply filters to your photos without having to resort to third-party apps such as Instagram.

Another noteworthy shooting mode is Zoe. When you activate Zoe, the phone takes up to 20 photos and records about 3. seconds of 1080p video. The feature is designed for action shots, of course, where you’d expect a lot of movement; and you can select and pull additional stills from the 1080p video. Though Zoe mode is a neat extra, I didn’t find much use for it in my day-to-day life. Perhaps very creative people will find some cool uses for the feature.

The processor steps up the power

The One’s many features require a lot of processing power, which the One has in good supply. The One is the first handset to ship with Qualcomm’s quad-core Snapdragon 600 processor, which is supposed to deliver superior graphics and battery life. The phone gracefully handled every app I threw at it, including games like Shadow Gun and Temple Run, though it did get noticeably warm when performing processor-intensive tasks (like gaming) or downloading 20+ apps at once.

The phone’s battery should survive an entire day of normal use (about 9 hours), so you don’t have to worry about the One dying on you in the middle of the day. If you like to play lots of movies or games on your phone, however, you’re well advised to bring along your charger: The One’s high-resolution screen can be a real drain on the battery if left on too long.

We received the Sprint version of the One for testing. (It will also be available on AT&T and T-Mobile.) Call quality over Sprint’s network was solid, with little or no static on either end of the call. Unfortunately, Sprint’s data speeds were somewhat underwhelming. In San Francisco, where we have access to Sprint’s LTE network, I often found myself using the One on Wi-Fi when streaming HD video or downloading large apps. Its performance might improve as Sprint fleshes out its LTE network, but for now don’t expect miracles if you’re a Sprint customer looking to upgrade to the One.

Bottom line

Even with its handful of quirks, the HTC One is among the best Android phones you can buy. Heck, it’s among the best smartphones you can buy, period. A superb design, a beautiful screen, and such extras as the IR blaster and the Zoe camera mode help it stand out from the pack. If you’re in the market for a new smartphone, this is the one to get.