My One S Review

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Well, the story goes like this. I ordered the One S originally for my contract upgrade but read some doom and gloom reviews regarding the screen so changed to the one X at no extra cost. I prefer the look and the materials used in the One S.

To my suprise, the One S still came. I asked Three if I could have a little play and they said it was fine as long as I didn't put the sim card in it.

The phone is absolutely stunning. It's razor thin design and solid build quality make it the most impressive phone I have handled to date. The MAO process used on the housing has a unique finish to it which is grippy as well as gorgeous, and makes the phone feel like it could survive thermo-nuclear war.

One of the reasons I changed to the One X was the chipping issue. I have been brave and actually (fairly gently) hit the edges of the phone against my class desk. Tapping it in such a hard surface I would have assumed would chip the phone if a defect was present, and it weathered it without any marks, luckily for me. I have heard chips start appearing after the first week of use though, so don't take my word as gospel when I say it hasn't affected this unit.

Another reason for me scrapping my One S dreams was the reviews of the screen. Several websites I trust said the screen was low quality and you could easily see individual pixels. Now this was personally my biggest turn off for the One S... I spend a lot of time browsing the web on my phone so even minor pixalation would piss me off, however I'm pleased to say the screen is stunning. The only trademarks of a pentile display I noticed was very very faint jagged edges on straight lines during screen animations, not a deal killer for me as text was wonderful.

Finally the performance of the One S has blown me away. It's dual-core snapdragon S4 is a brilliant CPU and coupled with the Adreno 220 GPU everything ran smooth like a hot knife through butter.

My conclusion? As an average user, ignore the doom and gloom about the screen. There are some incredibly minor jagged edges on transition efects but apart from that I loved it. Battery life seems to be impressive too, I have had it since 10 AM this morning and it is midnight now and is on 30% charge, and I've been using this phone a lot, however without any sort of 3g radio turned on, only WiFi. If you love the look of this phone, buy it. It feels amazing.

too bad there is no nfc and its mid 2012

Originally Posted by kolyan

too bad there is no nfc and its mid 2012

>implying that nfc is some kind of must-have feature in 2012

I really don't think it is. Maybe next year.

NFC is useful. But not much implemented. I won't miss it the next 2-3 years I imagine. Nothing to bitch about imho.

I've had my MOA S since Friday afternoon, and I'm very satisfied with it so far. I have to agree with most observations in this review. It's spot on!

As for chipping, I've not noticed any on my device yet, apart from a little around (more like inside) the usb port. But then I have not taken much care when plugging in either, so I'm not surprised it has a little worn look there.
It feels secure and good to the grip, and the screen is perfectly adequate for a phone. I'm not using this device as a replacement for my HD TV-set or for image manipulation

Two things I would have wished for as a personal preference is bigger battery (even at a cost of a couple of millimeters thicker body and more weight) and a smaller screen. 4" had been enough with this hardware to be a great phone

I don't see NFC as a big part of technology in 2012. Maybe after the premier handsets have it and then it starts rolling out, that will be when I care if a phone has NFC or not. I certainly don't mind at all that the HTC One S isn't a pioneer in NFC technology.

NFC

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Originally Posted by kolyan

too bad there is no nfc and its mid 2012

To be fair, have you even been able to use NFC for anything productive?

I have been using a Bold 9900 for the last 5 months and the ONLY thing I have used NFC for is getting a free cadburys cream egg from a promotional stand at a bus stop in reading.

And in the UK you can only use NFC for payments under £15, which in my case is usually just a drink or lunch, both of which I would usually pay for in loose change, not with my card, so NFC is, in my opinion, an entirely worthless feature in 2012.

It could be great, but currently it has no use and I don't see why any phone ships with it currently apart from to entice businesses into finding more uses for it as the user base grows.

For the screen, the pixel is visible if the text is written in white. ( under the icon.
It is less visible in the browser as the text is in black.
I ve put my desire s in front of the one s and the desire s screen is sharper.
The one s could have been the best device with an hd screen to me.

I just think when u are buying a new and nice device, its nice to have it future proof considering most top of the line phones do have nfc....galaxy nexus, one x, Sony phones, and gs3 will most likely have it too.

nfc is not just for payments. tags are pretty cool and useful.

I don't have nfc and never used it, but sure wouldn't mind trying it out

Originally Posted by kolyan

I just think when u are buying a new and nice device, its nice to have it future proof considering most top of the line phones do have nfc....galaxy nexus, one x, Sony phones, and gs3 will most likely have it too.

nfc is not just for payments. tags are pretty cool and useful.

I don't have nfc and never used it, but sure wouldn't mind trying it out

The One S is not a top of the line phone, it's a mid end device. Bare that in mind when you talk about future proofing. Most people on these forums will update their phones once a year or so, I personally upgrade every 6 months sometimes. NFC will not be big this year, nor probably next. It's not something that has started trending yet, and when it does I suspect it will explode and then die out again, because it's really not as useful as people like to make out.

So yeah, most top end phones have it now, but this is not a top end phone. And our countries like to future proof their nuclear defenses, but it's not like anyone is going to fire a nuke at us any time soon. Same goes with NFC...

P.S, I went for the One X in the end

I see NFC more useful with tags rather then its easy payment feature.

maybe its not what i actually think it is and using Tasker is just as convenient if not better. But it sure nice to have automated tasks, i use this feature ALOT