HTC One V Review

Alongwith the launch of their flagship device, the One X, HTC launched two other phones -  the One V and the One S in distinct price brackets. The One V features in the lower end of their troika of One edition of smartphones, which makes it all the more interesting for the average Indian consumer. It may not have the same herculean specs as its brothers - but that doesn't mean it isn't as aspiring as the other two. The One V is distinct in its own sweet way, but distinct isn’t analogous to impressive. Can this Android smartphone manage to conjure up the two together? Let's find out.

On video: HTC One V

Design and Build Quality

Featuring a curved chin design that was made popular with the HTC Legend and the HTC Hero, the One V has an exterior with an extremely premium feel to it. It has a polished metal unibody with a super smooth coating, along the back and the sides. The contours along the entire frame of the phone give the phone a tapering look along with adding further definition. The One V is one carefully designed handset. For instance, the chin itself has a different feel and texture on the outside and the inside. It has a stylish, sophisticated and everlasting feel to it, that unfortunately most smartphones in the competing category do not. 

Brilliant display

The front of the One V consists of a 3.7-inch display with a resolution of 480 x 800 pixels. Underneath the display are three capacitive buttons for Back, Home and Menu, while the proximity and ambient light sensors are hidden on top. The display may not be a super AMOLED or a ClearBlack screen or any of that, but is downright impressive. With amazing blacks, awesome sunlight legibility and brilliant viewing angles, the One V has clearly one of the best displays in its price bracket. On the top we have the 3.5mm headphone jack, a brilliantly placed notification light (can be seen irrespective of how the phone is placed) and a power ON button. The volume rocker is located on the right, while the microUSB port is located on the left. At the back we have a 5 megapixel snapper, along with an LED flash. The microSD card slot and SIM card are located under the hood of the chin. THe One V has a non-removable 1500 mAh battery.

The notification LED on top

At 115 grams and with a thickness of 9.24mm, the phone will be pretty inconspicuous in your pocket. The One V may not have micro arc oxidation that the One S boasts of, but the phone has durability written all over it. There are no creaky panels or flaps or any compromises, whatsoever in the design department. In a market flooded with cheap plastic lookalikes, this Android smartphone definitely stands out with its premium finish and build. A new benchmark.

Non removable battery

Features and Performance

Interface

The One V is powered by a 1GHz CPU with a Qualcomm MSM8255 Snapdragon chipset and an Adreno 205 GPU with Android 4.0 onboard. There's 4GB internal memory (1GB user available), 512 MB of RAM and HTC’s Sense 4.0 atop Ice Cream Sandwich. With their custom ROM, HTC have managed to make ICS look even better - it's refined, clean and polished. While some may miss the look offered by stock Ice Cream Sandwich, we definitely aren't the ones complaining. The stock look and feel makes an appearance where it has to, and is beautifully overlayed with the Sense feel at other times; giving you the best of both worlds. However, we did notice a couple of animations and interactions (like the task switcher, weather widget on unlock) that we saw on the One X, were missing on the One V. Chances are they were memory intensive and hence disabled. Either way those are just minor niggles and what you get with Sense 4.0 on the One V is definitely not a compromise. 

The interface

So, it's sexy. We got that. But is it lag free and quick? Yes, for most of the time. Manouevring through the various menus and going about your usual usage is a breeze and the phone doesn't slow down on you. It does have that occasional lag, which forces you to pause for a moment or two before you carry on with your work. However, that was visible on the One X as well; though not at the same frequency, but its presence was very much existent. For those wanting to use the V for heavy multitasking, it’s worth mentioning that disabling animations (via Settings) and consistently shutting unrequired apps (by sliding them out of the screen) definitely helps in improving the overall performance of the handset. The phone also comes with a Fast boot feature and we clocked the device turn-on speed at a super quick seven seconds.