The LG Optimus G; it's hard not to be smitten even if you're not an LG fan. This high end Android smartphone is the first to ship with Qualcomm's new Snapdragon S4 Pro quad core 1.5GHz CPU with Adreno 320 graphics. It's fast, yes it is. The S4 dual core matched NVidia's Tegra 3 CPU on benchmarks, so we're excited to see what two more cores can do. In fact, it scored 7235 on the Quadrant benchmark, which is a new record for a stock Android phone (5,000 is the norm for the fastest phones and tablets). In this review we look at both the AT&T (LG-E970) and Sprint (LG-LS970) versions of the Optimus G, which sells for $199 with contract. The AT&T version will be available on Nov. 2 while the Sprint version will be available on Nov. 11.

The AT&T LG Optimus G.

The LG Optimus G has a front 1.3MP camera, dual band WiFi 802.11b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, a GPS, NFC and a 2100 mAh Lithium Ion battery that's sealed inside. Both models have 2 gigs of RAM. Though LG's track record for Android OS updates hasn't been impressive, we have hope for the Optimus G since LG is rumored to release the next Nexus phone (with similar specs to the Optimus G), and that should put them on a faster track for OS updates.

The smartphone has a gloss patterned "Crystal Material Finish" glass back that loves fingerprints. LG strove to marry the best of the iconic LG Chocolate and Prada phones with the minimalist, square black design. It's thin and squared-off, and the Sprint version re-introduces some of those chrome accents AT&T suppresses with their clean design. Honestly, both look quite nice but not as strikingly chic as the HTC One X, Nokia Lumia 900 or iPhone 5.

Both the Sprint and AT&T versions are very similar, with the same Optimus UI enhancements on top of Android OS 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich (4.1 Jelly Bean will follow with no set date). How do they differ? The Sprint version has that slim chrome ring around the sides and no SIM card or microSD card slot. The Sprint version has 32 gigs of internal storage vs. 16 gigs on the AT&T model. Sprint sticks with the 13MP rear camera while AT&T moves down to a still very capable 8MP camera. AT&T adds a microSD card slot (yes!) and includes a 16 gig card. The Sprint and international versions have no SD card slot.

The Sprint version of the Optimus G is a hair taller and narrower. Honestly, they're extremely close in dimensions. Both phones feel fairly wide among today's big phones in the hand thanks to the slightly wider than normal display, though in terms of dimensions they're similar to other big phones. If you have small hands, neither will be comfortable. I have large hands, so the G is manageable though perhaps not optimal for one-handed use. While Samsung and HTC taper the corners and sides of their big phones to make them look and feel smaller, LG's unabashed rectilinear design does nothing to fool the mind or hand into thinking you've got a smaller phone. If the iPhone 5 and Motorola Droid RAZR M with their 4" displays are your idea of ergonomic perfection, the LG Optimus G will feel unwieldy.

Both the Sprint and AT&T versions have controls and ports in the same location. The power button is at the upper right edge and the volume controls are on the upper left, similar to Samsung Android phones. The AT&T version has a tri-color LED ring around the power button rather than the front face, which I prefer. The micro USB port is on the bottom on both models, and the 3.5mm stereo audio jack is up top. The camera module on the Sprint version protrudes a bit while the AT&T model's is flush with the casing. Both have a loudspeaker that fires from the lower right rear of the phone, where your hand might cover it. 

The LG Optimus G features a 4.7" True HD IPS Plus display running at 1280 x 768. That's a little higher than the usual high end 1280 x 720 resolution, and that equals an impressive 320 dpi. LG makes excellent IPS displays and the Optimus G's is very sharp and colorful with neutral color balance and very clear text. Viewing angles are wide since it's IPS and the display is bright, though glare is still an issue outdoors as with all smartphones thanks to the glossy glass. The display is fused directly to the glass, so you don't feel like there's a window pane between you and what's on screen. The Optimus G has Gorilla Glass for durability. I'd give the HTC One X's excellent Super LCD display an edge for viewing angles and glare-reduction, as well as a more "close to the surface" look where text and images seem painted on the screen. Likewise, the iPhone Retina display looks sharper and more immediate, but the Optimus G easily beats out the Samsung Galaxy S III display.

LG has gone to town with software features that make use of the Qualcomm Krait's processing and graphics power. QSlide lets you play a movie over any other app and you can set the transparency level (fade out to read a text message, then fade back in to your video). You can zoom when playing videos (in fact you can pinch zoom everywhere) and there are several spiffy transition options for page turns in the homescreen UI. QuickMemo lets you take notes anywhere at any time, and you can even mark up a web page or Word document and save it as an image (screen shot). There are a few features that remind us of Samsung's, like Wise Eye that checks to see if you're looking at the screen so it won't turn off and the water sound effect in the lock screen. Smart Shutter lets you take a photo using your voice (say "cheese", "kimchi" or other trigger words). You get the idea: there's a lot going on here.

Both versions have clear incoming and outgoing voice that's above average, though not quite as crystal clear and full as the Samsung Galaxy S III, HTC One X and HTC EVO 4G LTE. We had absolutely no trouble engaging in conversations with call recipients and ambient noise rejection was effective with minimal digitization.

As noted, the Sprint Optimus G sticks with the impressive 13 megapixel rear camera that we first saw in the overseas version. Though some reviewers have reported hazy photos with the Sprint model, ours have been nothing but sharp with plenty of detail.

The AT&T model has an 8 megapixel camera that's quite capable, though we noted the 13MP camera captured more fine detail and did a better job focusing and creating sharper images for low light indoor shots (see guitar photo below). It's a close race, but I'd give the Samsung Galaxy S III and the HTC One X (not to mention that photographic monster the Sony Xperia Ion) the edge for photo and video quality.

Both models can shoot 1080p video up to 30fps and have HDR, panorama mode and an intuitive camera app with myriad features and settings.

The Optimus G has a 2100 mAh Lithium Ion battery that's sealed inside. That's the same battery capacity you'll find on other high end competing phones, but the LG lagged behind by 30 minutes in actual use tests. Standby on the other hand was excellent. We had no trouble making it through the day with light to moderate use. In fact with light use we managed 2.5 to 3 days on a charge. But with heavy use that included a few GPS navigation sessions, 45 minutes of streaming video, several phone calls, an hour of music playback with the screen off and an hour of locally stored video playback, the phone went from 7am to 7pm before it drained to a 10% charge.

You know the Samsung Galaxy Note was one of our top picks last year, right? Well, the Samsung Galaxy Note II, a 5.5" smartphone or phablet is even better. It has a bigger display, a much faster CPU than our US first gen Note, a better camera and more S Pen features. The Note II is available on all major US carriers, with a $299 price tag with contract ($369 on T-Mobile). The question is: though the Note II is certainly much improved, does it have what it takes to compete with other large Android smartphones that have stepped up their game since the original Note shipped?

The Sprint, AT&T and Verizon versions have LTE 4G along with 3G, while the T-Mobile model has 3G HSPA+ (which T-Mo calls 4G and is decently fast). A very fast Samsung Exynos 1.6GHz quad core processor powers the phone with 2 gigs of RAM. Other goodies include NFC, dual band WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0, a front 1.9MP camera and rear 8MP camera with BSI sensor and fast lens (same as the excellent Galaxy S III camera). The phone has 16 gigs of internal storage and there's a microSD card slot as well. And yes, the whopping 3100 mAh Lithium Ion Polymer battery is removable: go Samsung!

In this review, we look at the Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon versions, though all Note II variants have identical hardware (other than cellular radios and logos) and carrier-added apps. The Note II is available in white or titanium, and in either case it's finished in Samsung's beloved amazingly glossy plastics. The phone is a little bit taller and ever so slightly narrower than the first gen Note, so it's no more difficult to hold in one hand. That said, this is a very large phone, though not as ungainly as the 4:3 aspect ratio LG Intuition on Verizon. It makes the Samsung Galaxy S III look dainty and the iPhone 5 seems like a mini-phone.

This is a slippery phone, and regardless of color you get the same ultra-glossy plastic that wants to slip through your fingers or slide off uneven surfaces. It's a bit maddening, and adding a case to improve grip makes the phone even bigger and heavier. We love the phone, but we'll keep harping on Samsung's glossy finishes that scream plastic until they improve.

The phone has two capacitive buttons for Menu and Back, and a hardware button for Home (the Verizon version has a most unfortunate Verizon Logo plastered on the Home button). The micro USB port is on the bottom, and as per usual for Samsung the power button is on the upper right side while the volume rocker is on the left. The microSD card slot is under the back cover (no need to remove the battery to swap a card) and the micro SIM card is under there as well.

The Galaxy Note II has a 1280 x 720 display (down a bit from the first Note's 1280 x 800 display) but it's bigger at 5.5". You're actually getting the same resolution as the Galaxy S III and other high end Android phones, but everything on screen is stretched to fill the bigger display. That means larger web page text that's readable without zooming, and movies that are immersive on the huge display. At 264 ppi pixel density is reduced from the 306 ppi GS III, but the Super AMOLED HD display still looks sharp. Samsung has improved the display to an uneven RGB stripe (bye-bye Pentile Matrix, though this is still not far from Pentile's uneven sub-pixel color stripe). Though the pixel density isn't wildly high, videos and photos look lovely, even if text isn't as razor sharp as on higher PPI phones and tablets. Those of you who read lots of books would probably still prefer higher density displays to the Note II's if you have good eyes. If you don't and thus favor larger text sizes, you'll probably like the Note II better. Color fringing isn't an issue. Colors are very saturated compared to IPS displays, but many folks enjoy lots of color saturation along with the high contrast and deep blacks of Samsung's Super AMOLED HD displays.

Samsung makes use of the big screen and S-Pen with custom software, similar to that found on the Note 10.1 tablet. There's S-Note for note-taking, complete with formula and handwriting recognition. And there's a side-by-side app view for select apps like the web browser, email, S-Note and video player so you can see and use two apps at once. In fact, the window slit is adjustable so you can have the web browser fill 2/3 of the screen and S-Note the remaining 1/3. It's a brilliant use of the big display, though it still makes most sense with 10" tablets. As of this writing, the T-Mobile, Sprint and Verizon models have the side-by-side app feature, and AT&T should offer it as an OTA update soon. Lastly, Samsung's flashy floating video player is on board, so you can play a video in a resizable, transparency-adjustable window on top of any app or the home screen.

Since many other Android smartphones are encroaching on the Note II's big screen act, the software and S-Pen are important pieces that set the Note II apart from the competition. But what if you don't find split window view enticing or perhaps you don't have a need for the digital pen, there's the 4.8" Samsung Galaxy S III, 4.7" HTC One X and One X+ and the big screen LG Optimus G. Is there a place for the Galaxy Note II? For those who love a big screen for larger text and for watching videos, the answer is certainly yes. But for many folks, the more pocket and hand friendly 4.5" to 4.8" smartphones running at the same resolution will do the trick for less money and pocket real estate. The Note II, unlike the first Note, is no longer the highest resolution smartphone, and other smartphones have encroached on the original Note's screen size. Who's the current resolution leader? The HTC Droid DNA on Verizon with a 5", 1920 x 1080 Super LCD3 display.

As noted, the Sprint, AT&T and Verizon versions have 4G LTE, while the T-Mobile version (coincidentally the closest to the international version) has HSPA+, which is technically a very fast flavor of 3G, though both T-Mobile and AT&T call it 4G as well. Why doesn't T-Mobile's Note II have LTE? Because that carrier currently lacks an LTE network. The LTE versions provided the expected upload and download speeds compared to other smartphones on their respective networks. T-Mobile's version did as well as their other HSPA+ handsets, which is quite good in the Dallas area, and sometimes as fast as LTE. Sprint's LTE network is in its infancy, but we're among the first markets here in Dallas, and we saw download speeds of 9 Mbps and upload speeds of 3 Mbps on average. AT&T has the fastest data network in our area, and we averaged 19 Mbps down and 6.8 Mbps up. Verizon answered with 12.6 Mbps down and 5.1 Mbps up. All four variants have the mobile hotspot feature, so you can use the phone as a high speed wireless modem for your tablet or laptop (depending on your data plan). Web pages load very quickly and Google Play Store downloads are fast.

Voice quality on all four variants is very good for both incoming and outgoing voice. Calls sound clear and our call recipients and we could easily understand each other. The phone played nicely with our car's built-in Bluetooth and a variety of Motorola, Samsung and Jawbone Bluetooth headsets. Given the phone's size, it's likely you'll want to use a Bluetooth headset.

The smartphone runs on Samsung's powerful 1.6GHz quad core Exynos CPU with MALI 400 graphics. It eats up benchmarks, it laughs at 3D tests. The Note II scored 6,001 on Quadrant, which is faster than older Tegra 3 models and it only falls slightly behind Qualcomm's S4 Pro quad core CPU and more than slightly behind the newer Tegra 3 in the HTC One X+. On GLBenchmark 2.5 it beats everything except the HTC Droid DNA. This Android smartphone won't feel slow a year into your contract.

Like the Galaxy S III, the Note II has an identical 8 megapixel camera that can shoot 1080p video. We still noted some exposure issues in bright outdoor shots where the camera rendered hazy images, but the new HDR feature helps greatly with that. Dedicated image processing chips are the next big thing in high end phones (the HTC One X has one too), and that allows for extremely quick shot times. Again, like the Galaxy S III, HTC One X and HTC One S, you can shoot photos while simultaneously recording video but there's no slow motion option like that of the One X and One X+. There are plenty of effects to play with: exposure, macro mode, face detection, smile detection and panorama. This is a very capable camera.

Video quality is excellent at 1080p and 30fps: video is sharp and colorful with smooth motion and little in the way of blockiness. The continuous autofocus sometimes hunts when several subjects are in motion at once, but overall it's great stuff.

The LG Spectrum 2 takes high end specs down to a mid-level price. At $99 with contract, it has many of the same specs and features as $199 Android smartphones like the Samsung Galaxy S III. The OS version is the only true disappointment for Android enthusiasts since it runs 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich rather than 4.1 Jelly Bean and LG's track record for timely OS updates hasn't been stellar.

The smartphone has a lovely 4.7" IPS display running at 1280 x 720 that's protected by Gorilla Glass. That's the same resolution as other current high end Android smartphone on the market except the full 1080p HTC Droid DNA. It runs on the usual 1.5GHz dual core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Plus CPU with a gig of RAM and 16 gigs of internal storage with ~11.6 gigs available for your use. Yes, there's an SDHC microSD card slot under the back cover and the 2150 mAh Lithium Ion battery is removable.

The Spectrum 2 has gotten dinged for it's bland looks, and it's not the most exciting looking phone. The front is a basic rectangle and the rubbery plastic back cover doesn't really fit the rest of the phone's design. Still, we've seen worse and at 0.36", it's not all that thick. The phone has a capable 8MP rear camera with LED flash and a fron 1.3MP video chat camera. It has 4G LTE on Verizon's network, 3G EV-DO Rev. A and GSM roaming capabilities.

Dual band WiFi 802.11b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS, NFC and Qi wireless charging round out this capable phone's features. LG adds extra video playback support and the smartphone can handle WMV and DivX playback out of the box. Call quality and reception are above average and the phone pulled in very impressive upload and download speeds on Verizon Wireless' 4G LTE network in our area.

The Nokia Lumia 810 on T-Mobile may be less flashy and good looking than the HTC 8X, but it carries some serious appeal beyond its lower price tag. The Windows Phone 8 smartphone launched at $150 with contract, but is already down to $99 on the T-Mobile US website. The blocky black rectangle won't win prizes for looks or lightness but it does offer a removable battery, a microSD card slot and Nokia's strong Maps and navigation solution with free spoken directions.

The Lumia 810 is a close relative to the Nokia Lumia 822 on Verizon and the 820 on AT&T. It has a 4.3" ClearBlack AMOLED display running at a not very impressive 800 x 480 resolution. The display's colors, black levels and touch sensitivity are however impressive, and like the flagship Lumia 920 on AT&T, it works with gloves and fingernails.

Like all Windows 8 launch phones, it runs on a capable 1.5GHz dual core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 CPU with a gig of RAM. It has just 8 gigs of storage, but you can use a microSD card to store your music, videos and documents. It feels very fast, as Windows phones generally do, and it benchmarks similarly to the Nokia Lumia 920, HTC 8X and Lumia 822. The UI is super-quick, and video playback and gaming are flawless.

The Lumia 810 has dual band WiFi 802.11b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1 +EDR, NFC and a GPS with Glonass. It's a GSM world phone with HSPA+ 3G (T-Mobile and AT&T both refer to HSPA+ as 4G, but don't confuse it with the even faster LTE). Voice quality is very good, as we've come to expect from a Nokia phone, and the speakerphone is adequate.

The HTC One and the Samsung Galaxy S4 are the two Android smartphones to beat as of spring 2013. This is HTC's flagship phone and it runs Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean with the very modern and sleek HTC Sense 5 UI. The smartphone has a 4.7" full HD Super LCD3 display that's simply one of the best on the market and it's currently the fastest phone with wonderfully high benchmark numbers. The HTC One will be available April 19 on Sprint and AT&T for $199 with contract ($299 for the 64 gig model on AT&T) and it will be available this spring from your favorite "uncarrier" T-Mobile. HTC is also selling a SIM unlocked 32 gig model as well as the SIM unlocked and bootloader unlocked 64 gig developer edition for $575 and $650 respectively. For our review, we look at the AT&T 32 gig model.

The HTC One has the new Snapdragon 600 quad core CPU clocked at 1.7GHz, 2 gigs of RAM and 32 or 64 gigs of storage. The phone has 4G LTE, dual band WiFi (including support for 802.11ac), Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, a GPS with GLONASS, a consumer IR port for AV gear control, USB OTG host, a front 2.1MP camera and a 4MP main UltraPixel camera. The HTC One supports DLNA and Miracast wireless display and it has stereo speakers with Beats (called BoomSound).

The HTC One features a unibody aluminum casing that's available silver with white accents and black, though not all carriers will offer both colors. It looks and feels like a high quality product with styling and design that equals the iPhone 5s. Simply put, this is a stunning and elegant phone. At 5 ounces it feels serious but not too heavy and the size is in line with other 4.5" to 5" smartphones. The casing is milled from a single piece of aluminum alloy, that's injection molded with polycarbonate in blank areas that allow antenna access. In fact, HTC's design and diversity antenna make for perfectly good reception despite all that RF-blocking metal. The phone has absolutely no flex and no unsightly seams. Given the thin design and conductive aluminum, the phone does get warm (sometimes quite warm) when playing 3D games like Real Racing 3. However it never overheated when playing games or recording video. The display is protected by Gorilla Glass 2.

The curved back with tapered sides makes this relatively large phone feel comfortable in hand (disclosure: I'm 5' 10" and have large hands and long fingers). The fairly straight edges provide grip points so the phone won't easily slip from your fingers. The aluminum back is by no means slick and it doesn't show fingerprints. Good stuff. At its thickest point, the HTC One measures 0.36", which isn't as uber-skinny as the 0.31" Sony Xperia Z, but it is slimmer than the Nokia Lumia 920. The phone's front 2.1MP camera is located above the display as is the notification LED.

The headphone jack is up top, as is the power button that also functions as the IR window for the AV remote. The phone has a micro SIM card slot but no microSD card slot--that's right, there's no expandable storage. For those of you with large media libraries that you want to carry with you, the 64 gig developer unlocked and AT&T 64 gig versions are the ones to get. The micro USB port also supports USB OTG host (we've used it with flash drives) and MHL out for HDMI to a TV, monitor or projector. Given the sealed unibody design, the battery isn't removable. In fact, the phone is very difficult to take apart, so even adventurous types won't want to disassemble the HTC One to replace the battery.

HTC thinks different when it comes to front facing buttons, and we're not sure that's a good thing. The One has two capacitive buttons rather than the usual three: Home and Back are here but not the Menu button. The HTC Logo sandwiched between the capacitive buttons is merely a logo; it doesn't function as a button. We like capacitive buttons since screen real estate isn't taken away by on-screen equivalents, but apps that don't support Google's preferred new way of doing things will get a bottom overlay strip on-screen just for the on-screen menu button. The buttons aren't very sensitive to touch, and we sometimes had to hit a button a few times before it registered.

I could spend all kinds of words telling you just how great the HTC One's Super LCD 3 display is, but I'll cut to the chase: it's superb. Awesome. It's one of the best screens on a mobile phone. I can't imagine anyone wouldn't love it. OK, now for the specifics: it's a full 1920 x 1080 with an absurdly high 468ppi pixel density. Honestly, once we surpass the mid 300's, most eyes can't see the difference. It looks very sharp with smooth text and clean graphics. Colors are natural and balanced (more so than Super AMOLED displays) and blacks are deep. Contrast is excellent and the display looks painted on when viewed from an angle because the image doesn't degrade off axis. The ambient light sensor works well and keeps the screen fairly bright, unlike Samsung Galaxy phones whose auto-brightness is too dim for my tastes.

The HTC One and the iPhone 5 (326ppi) have two of the most impressive smartphone displays on the market (the HTC One X is no slouch either). Yes, the One has higher pixel density than the iPhone 5, but the naked eye isn't sharp enough to see the difference. Where the HTC One wins is resolution: it's significantly higher than the iPhone 5's 1136 x 640, and that higher resolution makes sense given the significantly bigger panel compared to the 4" iPhone 5. That big display feels like you've made the move from a 32" to 55" TV: it's simply capacious. Of course, you'll pay the price in the added height and width of the HTC handset.

Is the name BoomSound cool or kinda embarrassing... I'm not sure which, but I can tell you these are the best speakers you'll hear on a mobile phone. Granted, that doesn't say much since phone speakers are often meek and mono, but the front-facing stereo speakers with Beats Audio enhancement sound like a tablet or Ultrabook more than a phone. The HTC One makes my Samsung Galaxy Note II sound thin. If you listen to multimedia through speakers, you'll appreciate BoomSound and its built-in amplifiers. Oddly, the speakerphone and notification sounds aren't as impressive as multimedia audio, but they're certainly adequate and comparable to other phones.

Sound through the headphone jack is very clear and the included trendy spaghetti wire earbuds are better than average for bundled buds, though we like the richer bass in Apple's EarPods better.

The HTC One on AT&T is a quad band GSM world phone with 3G HSPA+ (which AT&T likes to call 4G) and LTE 4G. On Sprint, the One supports that carrier's CDMA network with EV-DO Rev. A 3G and LTE and it has GSM roaming. T-Mobile's version is likewise a GSM world phone with 3G and 4G LTE. So far, Verizon hasn't said they'll offer the One. All variants have a micro SIM card slot on the phone's left side, and HTC includes a SIM eject tool in the box (a paperclip works too).

Data speeds on our AT&T model in the Dallas, TX area were excellent on the carrier's LTE network. Download speeds averaged 18.5Mbps and uploads averaged 15Mbps, with download speeds as high as 33Mbps. Those are good numbers for our area. Web pages download quickly and thanks to the fast CPU, they render quickly too. The phone ships with both the older Android web browser that works with Adobe Flash Player (and yes, Flash Player is pre-installed) and the Chrome web browser. We're absolutely thrilled to have the quickly disappearing Flash Player for those videos with no HTML5 equivalent.

Call quality on our AT&T phone has been good, but not as crystal clear and loud as the Samsung Galaxy Note II, iPhone 5 and BlackBerry Z10 on the same network. Good news: our first review unit was defective and our replacement AT&T HTC One and our recently received Sprint HTC One have excellent call quality for incoming and outgoing voice.

Bluetooth behaved well with a variety of headsets and BMW built-in Bluetooth, and the bug we noted on the HTC One X+ is happily behind us. Volume is good and there were no problems with call clarity on either end.

Horsepower and Performance

Powered by a very fast Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 quad core 1.7GHz CPU with Adreno 320 graphics and 2 gigs of RAM, the One is currently the phone to beat for speed. The Samsung Galaxy S4 will soon be here with the same CPU, and will likely score similarly to the HTC One. But for now, the HTC One earns serious bragging rights with some first place benchmark scores. 

 

We had our doubts about HTC's new UltraPixel camera that's just 4 megapixels, but just as with dedicated digital camera technology, a large sensor with bigger pixels really can make a revolutionary difference, particularly for low light photography and capturing fast motion scenes. The HTC takes better low light photos that we've ever seen with a camera phone, and it rarely needs the flash. Even daylight photos hold up decently vs. the very good Nokia Lumia 920 and iPhone 5 with much higher megapixel ratings. In comparisons of daylight photos with those phones and the very good Sony Xperia Z (13MP camera with Exmor RS sensor), the HTC One's photos lacked fine detail when viewed at 100% on a PC monitor. Tiny details like the lettering on a street sign aren't as sharp and clear in the HTC One's photos, and while that won't be noticeable when viewing photos on the One's screen or after shrinking them for your next Facebook post, it does make a difference when viewing on a TV, PC screen or printing at full resolution. We also noted a slight purple tint on outdoor photos and a tendancy toward high contrast (but many folks enjoy lots of contrast). If you generally shoot photos in good lighting, you'll likely prefer the Samsung Galaxy S4, Nokia Lumia 920 and iPhone 5 cameras for their greater detail and better exposure settings. The HTC One's daylight photos often needs a little processing to improve contrast, something the built-in photo editor does well. If you're a low light shooter, you'll love the HTC One.

Switch to low light situations and the HTC One shines, and no we don't mean the flash that rarely fires. Contrast, brightness and color detail are unusually good, and even photos taken in near darkness (a wine bar, a living room at night lit by only one 60 watt bulb) had a surprising amount of detail and accurate color. Yes, the photos have noise as well, but we're hard pressed to think of any camera phone or point and shoot that wouldn't produce images with noise under the same conditions.

The camera has a fast f/2.0 lens, a backside illuminated sensor (BSI), HDR for photo and video recording, panorama sweep and a plethora of shooting features. The optical image stabilization reduces image blur and results in less video shake. It's really remarkable that most users won't notice the difference between the 4MP UltraPixel shots and those taken with today's 8-13MP camera phones.

The HTC Zoe feature shoots one 3 second video and 20 still photos that creates something like a Vine video. It's also useful if you want to pick the best shot of a rapidly moving subject. There's a separate on-screen button to start Zoe and a progress bar fills in to let you know when it's done. We also like the animations in gallery where video thumbnails play in grid view and HTC's customization of the event view where photos taken on the same day morph into a slideshow complete with a music track and special effects. You can choose from 6 presentations (visual effects plus a music track) but you can't use your own tracks or effects. Fortunately, HTC's selection is very good and that means it offers appeal even after the novelty wears off.

BlinkFeed is addictive, really. By default it's the dominant home screen, though you can swipe to the standard home screen easily enough or set another screen to be your default. I'm a purist and I don't like fluff, but in a day I let BlinkFeed live to see another day... or 10... or forever. It's a highly visual news reader (something like Flipboard and Pulse, which I also enjoy), but it also brings in your TV show schedule via HTC TV, Twitter and Facebook feeds and calendar entries. It quickly became my one stop place for things I needed and wanted to know. When the tragic events of the 2013 Boston Marathon broke, it kept me informed, just as it did for less weighty things like the next episode of Bones on TV and the latest tech tidbits. My only complaint is though it has a healthy set of news sources to choose from, you can't add your own favorite RSS news feeds. Bah.

Though Samsung has been doing consumer IR and TV remote for a while on their Android tablets, HTC TV, the relative newcomer, impresses us more than Samsung's latest on the Galaxy Note 8.0 tablet. While the Note 8.0's TV app only listed a few of the many providers in our (Dallas, TX) area, HTC had them all covered. You can use the app to control your home theatre gear including TV, AV receiver and cable box via the IR port on the top of the phone--that's both cool and rare on a smartphone but we've seen it on Sony and Samsung Android tablets (the Samsung Galaxy S4 will also have this feature). Even more appealing is the content presentation: you'll side-swipe through featured shows (based on your preferences), a TV programming grid (always useful), your own locally stored videos and scheduled shows. Scheduled shows are those that you mark as favorites, much like iTV, and it will notify you of upcoming new episodes. While HTC TV is running, picking the phone up will wake it up from sleep (you can disable this, but it's quite useful). It also has top taskbar quick access so you needn't hunt for the app every time you want to control your TV or cable box.

There's surprisingly good news here: the 2300 mAh Lithium Ion battery that's sealed inside the phone provides solid battery life. I easily made it through a full day (9am-11pm) on a single charge with moderate to somewhat heavier than moderate use that included lots of BlinkFeed checking, social networking, web surfing, streaming 30 minutes of video, playing an hour of locally stored MPEG4 HD video, talking on the phone for 30 minutes, playing Real Racing 3 for 30 minutes, controlling the home theatre gear at night and shooting 30 photos and 5 short videos. That same usage pattern killed our Sony Xperia Z by 4pm. While not quite as good as the Samsung Galaxy Note II with its huge standard battery, it's very good compared to other current high-powered smartphones with big screens and LTE 4G. HTC phones aren't fast when it comes to charging, and the HTC One is no exception. It took 4 hours to charge our phone from 10% to 100%, but it did reach 90% in 2.5 hours.