HTC One V Review

We put the One V through a set of synthetic benchmarks and compared it to a couple of phones in a similar price range. We’ve included a couple of dual-core phones – the Sensation and the Atrix 2 - for a wider result of the benchmarks. Here are our results. The HTC One surprisingly scored the highest amongst the competition in Quadrant, which is a CPU, I/O and 3D graphics benchmark. Linpack placed the V in the middle of the pack, along with the Arc S. NenaMark 2, an OpenGL benchmark gave the One V a brilliant score of 28.5 fps, while it was placed last in AnTuTu, close to the Neo V. To sum it up, though it’s a single-core processor, it’s a very capable one.

Impressive benchmarks

Media

With Sense 4.0. the media department has got a complete overhaul in terms of looks and features. Firstly, TuneIn Radio, SoundHound and 7digital are integrated into the default music player. A simple tap fetches you the music info, the option to purchase music, find lyrics and similar artists as well as locate tour dates. A couple of them, including the similar artists and music info proved to be quite useful to get more out of your existing music library. 

Media options

The 3.7-inch screen is large enough for personal viewing and with the brilliant display, it’s a pleasure watching YouTube videos and other video content on the V. The speaker is considerably loud for personal viewing, too. As far as formats are concerned, 720p content, WMV and MP4 played without an issue, but 1080p and FLV content didn’t play. 

The smartphone doesn’t come bundled with Beats headphones at that price,  but we did hook up the phone to our test headphones and audio quality was simply sublime with the clear tones and punchy bass. The sound enhancers, include a bunch of preset equalizers, along with Beats Audio. Overall, the media experience with the One V is a pretty satisfactory one.

Connectivity

Connectivity options, include 3G, Wi-Fi with Hotspot functionality and Bluetooth 4.0. DLNA is unfortunately not included. Call quality via the earpiece is crisp and the recipient could hear our voice pretty clearly. The speaker is loud enough as well. Image heavy websites did put some pressure on the processing of the V and manouevring, panning and zooming wasn’t the swiftest we’d want it to be. Infact, it’s pretty laggy and we’d recommend a third party browser, if you use the browser a lot. 

The curved chin look

Social networking integration is done well with the dedicated pre-loaded apps as well as Friend Stream that acccumulates all your data into one single feed. It also let’s you post to multiple sites from the app itself. Google+ Messenger has been included as well. Typing on the 3.7-inch keyboard in portrait mode wasn’t a problem for our human-sized fingers. Gmail has a new look and it’s much more refined and easy to use now. 

Misc. Features

The pre-loaded apps on this phone, include 7digital – a music buying app, Bollywood Hungama – for your Bollywood news, reviews and previews, Dropbox – for your cloud needs, Saavn – for music streaming and Show me – a how-to app for the One V. The other apps, include eBuddy XMS, Polaris Office, Navigation, HTC Hub, Tasks and Teeter. 

HTC's car mode

Lastly, a well thought-of Car app has been included that acts as your navigation system. The phone operates in the landscape mode and has quick access to all the stuff you need, while driving.