HTC One V : Review

HTC was a little known company in the UK until it made a big splash with some of the early Android smartphones. The HTC Hero and HTC Legend were both trail-blazing devices, and many of us here at Expert Reviews bought one or the other. Both phones had the same distinctive shape, with a 'chin' that protrudes out at the bottom of the handset. Despite its success, HTC hasn't released a successor in the last two years, a lifetime in smartphone terms; so we were pleasantly surprised to see the HTC One V, which is obviously modelled after the classic Legend.

The chin is back, making this phone a little easier to keep hold of

The HTC One V is at the bottom of HTC's new three-handset One range, with the slender HTC One S and flagship HTC One X sitting above it. Though not as highly specified as its larger siblings, the HTC One V is just as polished. The grey metal unibody casing looks and feels fantastic, with simple lines and a matt finish. There are colour-matched rubberised areas around the camera and the rear of the chin, and the visible buttons and ports are simple and functional. This is simply one of the most desirable looking phones available at any price.

It's a great looking phone, we love the simple grey finish and neatly integrated notification light slit

The HTC One V is a little smaller than most of the phones we've got excited about recently, which means it fits easily in all but the smallest hands, with the power and volume buttons falling perfectly under your fore finger and thumb. Despite being compact, it's still noticeably bigger than the Legend, which just goes to show how much smartphones have grown over the last couple of years. The screen measures 3.7in across (up from 3.2in on the Legend) and has a 480x800 resolution (up from 320x480). Comparing it to more modern handsets, it's simply an average-sized LCD screen with an average resolution.

Sitting in between budget phones, many of which are stuck with Android 2.3.5, and more expensive models with top-end specifications, the HTC One V is one of the most modest handsets we've seen with the new Android 4.0 operating system. The single-core 1GHz processor copes well in Android 4.0 though, navigating the home screen is smooth and we had no problems with Angry Birds Space. Browsing isn't rapid, with a sluggish SunSpider JavaScript score of 3,382ms, but on a screen this size and resolution you'll probably choose to use mobile versions of sites most of the time anyway. There's only 512MB of RAM, rather than the 1GB on most, more-expensive models, so those will have manage their download habit

As this is a HTC handset, Android 4.0 has been rejigged with the Sense 4 interface. We don't like to get too bogged down in the differentiations between various Android flavours - as it's simple enough to cherry pick great free apps for practically every key function from the Play store anyway. That said, HTC have done a good job here, with a dialler, contacts list and camera controls that all useful improvements on the norm.

The HTC One V has three touch-sensitive buttons below the screen, and so doesn't need the onscreen versions of these found on some Android 4 devices

Speaking of the camera, the HTC One V's is excellent. Admittedly, it's only five-megapixel, compared to the eight-megapixel ones in the more expensive models in the range, and can only shoot 720p video, rather than 1080p video, but it’s not the specifications that make HTC's current cameras great. Using a dedicated image processing chip, the camera is very fast to startup (under a second to the first shot) and then shoots at 4fps if you hold down the shutter. You can pick a best shot from any burst and delete the unwanted images with ease (if desired). Image quality is excellent with well-judged exposures, as you can see below. HTC currently provide undoubtedly our favourite mobile snapper, and despite the resolution change, HTC One V's version is still impressive.

A resized shot from the HTC's One V's excellent camera - click to enlarge

This is a pixel-to-pixel crop which shows a respectable amount of detail - click to enlarge

The HTC One V has a 1,500mAh battery, that doesn't sound very big compared to some recent handsets, such as the 2,100mAh in the Samsung Galaxy S3. Even taking into account the handset's smaller display we were pleased to get seven hours out of it in our continuous video playback test. You can't access the battery to replace it if required, but a pop-off rubber bottom piece does give you access to the full-sized SIM slot and micro SD slot - so you can expand the built-in 4GB of memory.

Remove the bottom cover and you can get at the SIM and SD card slots

If you're looking for a stylish handset with the latest version of Android and a decent camera, but don't need a great big screen and a fast processor, then the HTC One V is ideal. Its combination of great build quality, a single-core processor and Android 4.0 is unusual, and we can't think of any new Android phones to compare it to. If you're keen on the appearance and finish of the One V, or on HTC's version of Android 4, then the larger HTC One S is probably its biggest competitor. That handset has a larger AMOLED display, dual-core processor, more memory and a slightly-sharper eight-megapixel camera. Surprisingly, though, it doesn't cost a lot more on contract if you shop around, so if you're happy to have a slightly larger handset then it's the better buy.