May be another defect
This may be another defect. I love the HTC One but quality control is a problem. I got a 64 GB developer edition and had no big gaps (extremely slight gap at the top) or other defects but my screen was not glued on correctly. The top of the screen was higher than the speakers and every time I dragged my finger across the notification bar I felt a catch. I ordered another one and planned to return the original. I looked at the original and noticed a few differences. For reference my original one is HT34GW###### and the newest one is FA34PW######
1. Original one had only a slight gap, new one also had a gap but was a little bigger and longer
2. Original one has a very high color temperature. Never noticed this until I saw it side by side with the new one. Original whites are very blue and new one looks much better. I don't mind the blue color temperature but it is most pronounced looking at a pure white screen, a pure black screen, and skin tones. The human eye has an amazing ability to adjust to color temperature based on a "known" white. Anandtech gave this phone a great review but criticized it's very high (8000K+) color temperature. Must have had my original one.
3. The new one speaker's pop/crackle. Exactly the problem stated in this thread. Original one never does this. I played some videos side by side at the exact same time using max brightness and volume and the original sounded great and the new one had a pop/crackle at certain times. The new one also had more noise/hiss. Not extremely noticeable but it was there. When using two units side by side it is noticeable only on max volume and right next to your ear.
4. Maybe I am imagining this, but they seemed to have a different weights. Very slight but the new one seemed a couple of grams heavier.
5. Perhaps this is because of the color temperature differences, but the new one seemed to be more dim when I used automatic brightness. This is probably due to human perception but the blue tint on the original one seemed brighter and clearer at automatic brightness. At full brightness both looked like they had the same resolution and brightness.
6. I haven't used the new one that much to see it heat up but my original one does get very warm with heavy use, while charging, or with max brightness.
7. I will occasionally randomly lose LTE signal and/or see a drastic decrease in reception. If I turn mobile data off, then back on the LTE signal regains full strength. Not sure what this is about.
I think I will keep my original one. The screen being offset is annoying but once my case gets here it won't matter. Great phone. Screen is razor sharp. I always thought 1080p on a cellphone was overkill but now I can say it is not. I am coming from an AT&T Galaxy Note and there is huge difference. RGB kills pentile every time (sorry S4). Even though the screen is only 4.7" the quality more than makes up for the lost screen real estate on my 5.3" note. Sound is amazing (on the original one, as the popping/crackling drives me crazy on the new one).
