is HTC a good brand for you?

[Axious]

This is my take on why HTC isn't so bad.

2013 has been a good and horrible year for HTC. Launched the HTC One with much praises form the mobile community. Months later, chosen as the best smartphone of 2013. But they're facing financial difficulties. 2nd half of the year is interesting. HTC is known to have provided slow android updates and a small battery for their products but with the launch of the Butterfly S, they surprised us by putting a huge battery that will last quite a while. As for updates, they have been doing exceptionally well (at least for their flagship phone). Not sure about 4.3 but HTC has been darn fast to provide 4.4 on nov-dec. I'll definitely buy another HTC device assuming they keep this up.

All of what I said may be incorrect as I don't own a One but instead a Butterfly S and I'm very satisfied with it.

 

[ucfgrad93]

I'm pretty pleased with my One. It isn't perfect, but it does what I need it to.

 

[Savor]

HTC is my type of brand. Not so popular but they have excellent design and build quality in many of their handsets.

First Android I owned was the Google Nexus One made by HTC. Current one is the HTC One.

Still have both. They compliment well together. My Nexus actually has better reception quality from the earpiece and better camera as I have that pink/purple tint on my AT&T's HTC One during low light. I put a lot of my non-HD videos on my 32 GB inserted onto that near 4-year old model Nexus. But the HTC One does everything else better including Wi-Fi speed, watching HD movies, music, and texting. Less glitchy as Gingerbread and the Adreno 200 is pretty much ancient nowadays.

HTC has alot of hits and misses over the years. But their build quality is second to none. Even the plastic for they use for the lower end doesnt feel cheap like Samsung's higher end. And I love some of the names HTC gives to their models. Butterfly, One, Explorer, Desire, etc. Not just numbers all the time. But HTC sorta peaked in 2010 and never recovered since Samsung decided to put billions on marketing and since the Galaxy S series was released that year too.

Surprisingly, HTC does better in North America than anywhere else. Even here in Asia, they have been completely overlooked. I rarely see anyone go inside the HTC Store here in Manila. Competition is fierce.

If HTC goes belly up within the next two years, I will likely either go Sony or Lenovo or Huawei next out. I wish both Taiwanese companies of Asus and HTC merged together. Taiwan is as good as Japan in build quality. But I dont mind of the rumor is true and the China-based Lenovo buys out HTC. Lenovo really do make solid phones with good prices. Heck, Lenovo S920 and S820 even copied some of HTC's One X/One S design.

 

[iSheep5S]

Loved my old Desire HD. Lost touch with them of late tho.

 

[MRU]

HTC mixed emotions.

Love the HTC One phone and it's mini and max editions - aesthetically and from a software stand too. (Sense 5 is one of the lightest, most coherent and well designed skins on Android).

HATE HTC's choice of ultra pixel camera technology however.

Give me a 5"-5.7" HTC One with expandable storage and a 13-20mp camera and I'll be back there without any qualms. Stick with the (3.8 mega pixel) Ultra Pixel camera and I won't be buying one ever again.

 

[Axious]

Love the HTC One phone and it's mini and max editions - aesthetically and from a software stand too. (Sense 5 is one of the lightest, most coherent and well designed skins on Android).

HATE HTC's choice of ultra pixel camera technology however.

Give me a 5"-5.7" HTC One with expandable storage and a 13-20mp camera and I'll be back there without any qualms. Stick with the (3.8 mega pixel) Ultra Pixel camera and I won't be buying one ever again.

I absolutely agree with you HTC hit the target with Sense 5 really loving minimalistic look and best of all it doesn't have those gimmicky features.In their recent devices like the Butterlfy S and One Max, HTC has been providing expandable storage, so I wouldn't worry too much about that. And I agree that the UltraPixel is **** but it has great potential just increase the pixel count and fixed the purple tint issue and it would be the perfect phone for me

 

[GroundLoop]

As long as you get the flagship phone, you could be ok. I have a Droid DNA and I *just* got upgraded to Sense 5 and Android 4.2.2. I am assuming that I will not get any more upgrades for this phone.

Personally, I am just waiting to upgrade to the Nokia Lumia 929 whenever they get around to launching/releasing it.

GL

 

[T5BRICK]

My HTC One was great aside from the camera. I'll buy HTC again if they start using better cameras.

 

[Axious]

As long as you get the flagship phone, you could be ok. I have a Droid DNA and I *just* got upgraded to Sense 5 and Android 4.2.2. I am assuming that I will not get any more upgrades for this phone.

Personally, I am just waiting to upgrade to the Nokia Lumia 929 whenever they get around to launching/releasing it.

GL

HTC has been trying to show the world that it's 'changed'. According to HTC your phone will get 4.4 here's the article:

http://androidandme.com/2013/12/news/htc-droid-dna-updating-to-4-2-2-now-4-4-coming-in-q1-2014/

 

[TacticalDesire]

I've never had a problem with HTC.

 

[kenypowa]

HTC has been trying to show the world that it's 'changed'. According to HTC your phone will get 4.4 here's the article:

http://androidandme.com/2013/12/news/htc-droid-dna-updating-to-4-2-2-now-4-4-coming-in-q1-2014/

No it hasn't changed. Let's only look at the updates One X and One S received.

One S - awesome phone with very capable hardware; releases as 4.0, only updated to 4.1.1 (not even the latest 4.1.2).

One X - currently updated to 4.2.2 and that's it. Galaxy S3, released at the same time, has been updated to 4.3 with 4.4 coming early next year. (seriously, which idiot company abandon their flagship phone after only 2 minor update?)

I used to be a big supporter for HTC and has bought 5 HTC phones in the last year. HTC Amaze only received 1 update, HTC One V never been updated ONCE and is stuck in 4.0. Hell, Flyer is updated once from 2.3 to 3.0 despite its premium price tag. A bunch of HTC phones only receive one software updates and are immediately abandoned by the company.

And they are wondering why their market share is tumbling down with no end in sight.

 

[Goldenswo140]

Its hard to sell phones when you closest competitor has 12 BILLION to spend on advertisements. Here a galaxy ad, there a galaxy ad, everywhere a galaxy ad, ad ,ad.

 

[Axious]

No it hasn't changed. Let's only look at the updates One X and One S received.

One S - awesome phone with very capable hardware; releases as 4.0, only updated to 4.1.1 (not even the latest 4.1.2).

One X - currently updated to 4.2.2 and that's it. Galaxy S3, released at the same time, has been updated to 4.3 with 4.4 coming early next year. (seriously, which idiot company abandon their flagship phone after only 2 minor update?)

I used to be a big supporter for HTC and has bought 5 HTC phones in the last year. HTC Amaze only received 1 update, HTC One V never been updated ONCE and is stuck in 4.0. Hell, Flyer is updated once from 2.3 to 3.0 despite its premium price tag. A bunch of HTC phones only receive one software updates and are immediately abandoned by the company.

And they are wondering why their market share is tumbling down with no end in sight.

Changed as in 2013. The One X and S are early 2012 models. HTC is trying to put the past behind and start anew. They've been providing the One with timely updates even beating Samsung's timeline. But I agree both phones are very capable. Really dumb for them to abandoned it.

 

[samven582]

I would love to buy a HTC one but the I heard the built quality isn't that great

 

[MRU]

I would love to buy a HTC one but the I heard the built quality isn't that great

There were a few build issues to a small minority of phones when released, but the majority of them don't suffer from those issues.

 

[gotluck]

I like them especially lately with the stronger motivation towards updates.

I also like the microsd card slot in some of their international models.

 

[deluxeshredder]

I think that HTC is the Looking Glass Studios of the smartphone industry - stunning products, horrendous marketing, no public awareness, lukewarm sales.

 

[MRU]

I think that HTC is the Looking Glass Studios of the smartphone industry - stunning products, horrendous marketing, no public awareness, lukewarm sales.

Yeah their Robert Downey JR adverts are just awful here.....

 

[samven582]

There were a few build issues to a small minority of phones when released, but the majority of them don't suffer from those issues.

Have they fixed them? For example I heard the gap issue is still present

 

[MRU]

Have they fixed them? For example I heard the gap issue is still present

I can only speak personally, but I had two HTC one phones and both were perfect build quality wise.

I'm sure I can't be the only one to have perfect ones.

 

[MyMac1976]

I have a One mini and I like it a great deal. The audio on this thing is incredible for a phone. I listened to it for a vast majority of last night.

 

[kenypowa]

I can only speak personally, but I had two HTC one phones and both were perfect build quality wise.

I'm sure I can't be the only one to have perfect ones.

HTC has really good build quality. hardware is their strength; software (and lack of updates) is their greatness weakness.

 

[woodekm]

My HTC One and now my my HTC One Max is exactly what I wanted the iPhone 5 to be. Thats why I jumped ship. MAN the aluminum build quality feels so good in the hand (although a little bit on the heavy side). Quality big time! Just what i wanted.

Even though I thought Id go back to iPhone, now that I have the One max, I may not even get the next iPhone even IF (and thats a BIG if) iPhone goes bigger.

 

[Stuntman06]

My first Android phone was the HTC Desire Z. I liked the phone and actually really liked some of the HTC Sense features. Some of their widgets are still second to none. They have a nice way of joining contacts and it is done automatically with just a confirmation required by me.

When it was time to upgrade last summer, I was sad that there was a lack of landscape slider keyboard phones. I still looked at the One S which was the only HTC phone available on my carrier. I was all ready to get it except it had one thing that I considered to be a deal breaker. It only had 16GB of storage with no way to expand. Sadly, I had to pass on it.

I would have gotten the One X if it were available on my carrier. It was not and I had a rather tight time constraint to get a new phone. I ended up getting the Samsung Galaxy S3 instead.

The SGS3 is an awesome phone. I am very glad I got it. It is rock solid and with the latest 4.3 update, it has never ran better. I can see myself using this phone for another year. I was tempted to get the Nexus 5, but one of the reasons I did not was that the SGS3 was still a very good phone. I just could not justify upgrading it.

There are still some things that I miss that I had with HTC. The contact joining was one. I had to manually join my contacts on my SGS3. Also, album covers on songs I copy to my SGS3 do not appear. They did on my Desire Z. Sense widgets are also what I miss, but now that I'm using Nova Prime, I probably won't have access to them anyway.

HTC is still a good brand for me right now. It's just that my experience with the SGS3 has put Samsung ahead. It's probably not fair to compare phones that are almost 2 years apart. Still, Samsung has managed to impress me more with the SGS3 than HTC did when I got the DZ.

I'm probably a year away from getting a new phone. It's too early for me to really predict which brand I would likely go with. HTC hasn't shown me anything that would make me consider them if I have to get a new phone today. They have a year to improve my impression of them over Samsung and others.

 

[three]

I've had HTC phones for years, all of my smartphones have been HTC. I've always been a fan of their designs, and quality of their phones. I've had the HTC One for a while and it's a fantastic phone. I appreciate their recent commitment to faster updates. In times past, it took months and even a year to get a update released. I'm looking forward to the HTC M8 (Two?) and seeing what it has to offer. My only hope is no more Ultra Pixel garbage.