HTC One XL

The HTC phone company has released a lot of good phones ever since it took lead a few years back. Apparently, their newest conquest was the HTC One XL. This phone may be ( or it may not be ) the latest one or the strongest one in the One series. But we’ll see since I’ll be putting a lot of the HTC Ones here and you can see for yourselves which is which and what they can do. I figured it may be stronger than the others due to the XL part. Since I myself am an XXL and I can honestly say that I’m much stronger than any S can ever be ( you get my meaning, so no need to advance on it further ).

Without further ado, let’s get this show on the road.

• Processor : Dual-core 1.5 GHz
• RAM : 1 GB
• Android OS : 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich
• Camera : 8 MP
• Display : 720 x 1280 pixels, 4.7 inches (~312 ppi pixel density)

Let’s get straight to the point. This phone is 135 x 70 x 9.3 mm big and weighs about 130 grams. It also has touch-sensitive controls. No further info about the size of this phone.

Let’s take a gander at the display of this little beauty. The HTC One XL has a Super IPS LCD2 capacitive touchscreen with approximately 16 million colors. The resolution of this phone reaches 720 x 1280 pixels. The screen itself is about 4.7 inches big and the pixel density reached by the said screen is well over 300. It actually reaches approximately 312 ( which many experts in the field would classify as Over-Kill ). The screen also has multitouch, but no more info on that part. It does have, as opposed to the other phones recently previewed / reviewed by me, screen protection – corning gorilla glass display, more precisely. The HTC One XL also comes equipped with the HTC Sense UI.

Let’s a look at the sound part of the HTC One XL. The alert types for this phone are vibration, MP3 and WAV ringtones. The HTC One XL also has Loudspeaker and a 3.5 mm jack ( which frankly, should come as no surprise to anyone since mostly every phone has these nowadays ).

Moving on to the memory part. The internal storage space of the HTC One XL is 32 GB. Out of that space, however, only 26 GB are user-available. If for some ungodly and unholy purposes you require more room on your smartphone, kiss that wish goodbye because the HTC One XL doesn’t have a card slot. The RAM memory is around 1 GB. That allows for a smooth performance in almost all tasks and for quite a bit of multitasking.

The data connectivity of this phone is what follows. The HTC One XL has GPRS and EDGE available on them. The speeds that this Android phone can reach are as follows : HSDPA at 21 MB/s and HSUPA at 5.76 MB/s. The WLAN is a Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n with DLNA and Wi-Fi hotspot. This phone also has Bluetooth v3.0 with A2DP and EDR. It also has NFC and the USB of this phone is a MicroUSB (MHL) v2.0.

Moving on to the camera of the HTC One XL. The main camera is an 8 MP camera capable of taking snaps at resolutions as high as 3264 x 2448 pixels. Here are some of the many features of the main camera : autofocus, LED flash, simultaneous HD video and image recording, geo-tagging and face and smile detection. That Simultaneous HD video and image recording option is something you don’t see everyday. I’ve seen all the others once before on different phones, but this one is new. The video recorder of the main camera is also quite awesome. It can record at full HD 1080p and with a smooth frame rate of approximately 30 fps. The video recorder also has its own personal features. They include : stereo sound rec and even video stabilization. Also, the HTC One XL also has a secondary 1.3 MP camera capable of recording or capturing image at 720p HD. Now that’s something to respect the secondary camera for since not many 1.3 MP cameras are capable of doing that. All and all, the cameras of the HTC One XL are top notch. I applaud you, kind sirs at HTC, for your accomplishment on this part.

Moving on to the long awaited hardware part of the review / preview of the HTC One XL. The processor of the HTC One XL, as you already know is a Dual-Core 1.5 GHz Krait processor. The chipset of this phone is a Qualcomm mSM8960 Snapdragon chipset and the GPU is an Adreno 225. All and all a pretty powerful configuration for a phone to have.

The software that this phone comes out with is Android OS v4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. I’m glad that all my rantings about new phones with old software are striking a nerve somewhere and that people such as HTC are doing their best to rectify the said problem. Soon even this version of Android will be obsolete ( or near to it ) since there are discussions underway of releasing a new version of the Android OS ( I believe 5.0 Jelly Bean ), but those are currently just rumors.

Let’s talk about the more general parts of this phone now. The sensors that it comes equipped with are Aceelerometer, Gyro, Proximity and Compass. The messaging of this phone can be done via SMS (threaded view), MMS, E-Mail and Push Mail. The browser of the HTC One XL is in HTML format and it has Adobe Flash. The HTC One XL doesn’t have a radio, but it does have GPS with A-GPS support. The Java of the HTC One XL is available via Java MIDP emulation and the colors that this phone comes out in are Black and White.

Here’s a short list of the more general features that you find on this phone :

• Beats Audio
• Active noise cancellation with dedicated mic
• TV-out (via MHL A/V link)
• SNS integration
• MP4/H.263/H.264/WMV player
• MP3/eAAC+/WMA/WAV player
• Google Search, Maps, Gmail,
• YouTube, Calendar, Google Talk
• Document viewer/editor
• Voice memo/dial/commands
• Predictive text input

Well, t his has been the preview / review of the HTC One XL from the HTC One series. Keep your eyes peeled since more of the HTC One phones will soon come out on this website. If you feel that something has been left out of this review / preview feel free to leave your suggestion in the comments below and I shall be sure to take it into account when creating my future projects. Until then, I hope you had as much fun reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it and we shall see each other on the internetz again.

You can get this phone from Amazon.