As reported on Engadget.
By Sharif Sakr
The bigger the phone, the harder it is to hide. After a slew of detailed leaks, HTC is finally ready to announce the HTC One Max: an enlarged version of the original Onethat boosts the size of the 1080p LCD panel up to 5.9 inches while attempting to keep the One’s classy aluminum look and feel. This attempt is made regardless of the impact on general portability — the One Max weighs 217 grams and is over 16 centimeters long and 10.3mm thick, thanks in part to the front-facing BoomSound speakers. And the phablet only gets phatter if you squeeze it into something like HTC’s $90 power case, which contains a bendy 1,200mAh battery to add to the capacity of the built-in (and non-removable) 3,300mAh battery.
Aside from its size, the One Max brings other big changes, including a fingerprint scanner on its rear side. We’ve had the chance to use the scanner and, while it isn’t as neat as the iPhone 5s’s, it does the basic job of letting you log in with a swipe of your fingertip. We’d have happily swapped it out for optical stabilization on the UltraPixel camera, however.
The back cover is now removable, letting you expand the 16GB or 32GB of onboard storage with up to 64GB more via microSD — a feature that was missing on the One and on the One X before that. The One Max sticks with a Snapdragon 600 (with 2GB of RAM) for processing, rather than the superior Snapdragon 800 used in rival devices like the Sony Xperia Z Ultra and Samsung Galaxy Note 3. The supported bands suggest healthy support for LTE networks in Europe and Asia, and as well as for Verizon and Sprint in the US, and HTC says global availability will start rolling out as early as this week.
On the software side, we’re looking at a significantly revised version of HTC’s Android skin, Sense 5.5, which runs on top of Android 4.3 and provides a new level of customization for the BlinkFeed news-glancing widget, as well as a list of other features that are summarized in the press release and spec sheet below. Check out the gallery below too, and standby for our review coming very shortly.
Spec sheet:
HTC One max Specifications
SIZE: 164.5 x 82.5 x 10.29mm
WEIGHT: 217g
DISPLAY: 5.9″ Full HD 1080p
CPU: Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 600, 1.7GHz quad-
core CPUs
SENSORS: Gyro sensor, Accelerometer, Proximity sensor, Ambient light sensor, Fingerprint scanner
PLATFORM: Android™ 4.3 with HTC Sense™ 5.5, HTC BlinkFeed™
MEMORY: Total storage: 16GB/32GB, RAM: 2GB, Expansion card slot: Supports microSD™ memory card for up to 64GB additional storage (card not included)
CONNECTIVITY: 3.5 mm stereo audio jack, NFC, Bluetooth® 4.0 with aptX™ enabled, Wi-Fi®: IEEE 802.11 a/ac/b/g/n, DLNA® for wirelessly streaming media from HTC Connect™, Support consumer infrared remote control, micro-USB 2.0 (5-pin) port with mobile high-definition video link (MHL) for USB or HDMI
NETWORK:
2G/ 2.5G – GSM/GPRS/EDGE: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
3G – UMTS/ HSPA: EMEA: 900/1900/2100 MHz with HSPA+ up to 42 Mbps; Asia: 850/900/1900/2100 MHz with HSPA+ up to 42 Mbps; Sprint: 1900/2100 MHz with HSPA+ up to 14.4 Mbps; Verizon: 850/900/1900/2100 MHz with HSPA+ up to 14.4 Mbps
3G – CDMA: Sprint & Verizon: 800/1900 MHz
4G – LTE: EMEA: 800/900/1800/2600 MHz; Asia: 900/1800/2100/2600 MHz; Sprint: 1900 MHz; Verizon: 700 MHz;
SOUND: HTC BoomSound™, Sense Voice
REAR CAMERA: HTC UltraPixel Camera, BSI sensor, Pixel size 2.0 µm, Sensor size 1/3′, Dedicated HTC ImageChip™ 2, f/2.0 aperture and 28 mm lens, Smart Flash with five levels of flash automatically, 1080p Full HD video recording with HDR video,
FRONT CAMERA: 2.1 MP, 88° wide angle lens, Front Camera: 1080p Full HD video recording.
CAMERA APP: HTC Zoe™ with Sequence Shot, Always Smile and Object Removal. Gallery with Video Highlights and HTC Share. Continuous shooting and VideoPic. Slow motion video recording with variable speed playback.
MULTIMEDIA: Audio playback supported formats: aac, .amr, .ogg, .m4a, .mid, .mp3, .wav, wma (Windows Media Audio 9). Recording formats: .amr
Video playback supported formats: .3gp, .3g2, .mp4, .wmv (Windows Media Video 9), .avi (MP4 ASP and MP3). Recording: .mp4
BATTERY: Embedded rechargeable Li-polymer battery, Capacity: 3300 mAh. Talk time: Up to 25 hours for WCDMA. Up to 28 hours for CDMA. Standby time: Up to 585 hours for WCDMA, Up to 393 hours for CDMA
GPS: GPS/AGPS, Digital Compass