Check out our review of the HTC One Max smartphone.
HTC has confirmed the HTC One Max, its third smartphone in the One range and the biggest yet. The announcement date, and as you’ll see, most of the specs, were correctly predicted in a slew of leaks over the past few months, however HTC decided a press release was preferable to an event to celebrate its arrival.
Guess what, the One Max is absolutely massive. The screen measures 5.9-inches and has a 1080p resolution, making it larger in size than the Samsung Galaxy Note 3, but not quite as gigantic as the Sony Xperia Z Ultra. The screen displays version 5.5 of HTC’s Sense custom user interface, which covers Android 4.3, making it the first HTC phone to use both pieces of software. The good news here is BlinkFeed is now more customizable, so you can add your own topic categories to the stream.
Powering the phone is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 processor running at 1.7GHz, which clears up just about the only question we had during the endless leaks. Its use is something of a surprise, as most other top-end phablets have the faster Snapdragon 800 processor inside. Is it going to make a big difference? Probably not, but we’ll be interested to see how it performs once it’s released.
HTC’s UltraPixel camera, as seen on the One and the One Mini, is fitted to the back of the phone, and HTC Zoe is installed. A 2.1-megapixel camera is above the screen, and like Samsung and LG, the two cameras can take pictures or video at the same time. Also on the rear is a fingerprint scanner, and as expected you’ll be able to not only unlock the phone using a swipe of your finger, but also open a selection of apps too. Instead of ten apps for ten fingers, you’ll be able to assign an app to three of them.
A massive 3300mAh battery should keep the phone going for a good few hours, and there’s the option of purchasing an HTC case with a power boosting 1150mAh battery inside, called the Power Flip Case. The HTC One Max will be available with either 16GB or 32GB of internal memory, plus it has a microSD card slot, and 50GB Google Drive storage included for free. The One Max share the same physical design as other One phones, but weighs a bloaty 217 grams.
HTC will release the One Max in Europe and Asia from mid-October, with a U.S. version on Sprint and Verizon expected soon afterwards.
