HTC finally launched its much-leaked HTC One Max, the phablet version of the HTC One, which now joins the HTC One mini in the Taiwanese company's 2013 smartphone lineup. The HTC One Max packs a few new features that make it more than just a scaled-up HTC One.
Bigger Display, Gigantic Phone
Let's face it, the most important thing about the HTC One Max is its screen size. Phablets that don't come with a stylus are mainly targeted towards an audience of avid video watchers, and the HTC One Max won't disappoint its core market.
The HTC One Max comes with a Super LCD3 touchscreen measuring almost a half-a-foot diagonally, at 5.9-inches. HTC didn't skimp on the display resolution, the way Samsung did on its cheaper Galaxy Mega 6.3: the HTC One Max offers the same 1080 x 1920p Full HD resolution that the HTC One sported.
The only difference is that on the 5.9-inch screen, you don't get an insane pixel density, but 373 pixels per inch should do fine.
That said, the HTC One Max is a monster of a phablet - not as large as the inexplicably huge Xperia Z Ultra, but pretty hefty. It measures almost 6 and a half inches tall, and 3.25 inches wide. It's pretty heavy as well, with its aluminum casing brining it to almost half a pound, at 7.64 oz.
Power (Processor and Battery)
The HTC One Max comes with a larger battery than the HTC One - all the better to watch videos for hours and hours - at 3,300 mAh.
The battery is non-removable, much to the chagrin of people who saw that the back panel comes off the phone, but HTC would have likely had to completely redesign the phone in order to allow battery swapping.
That said, HTC is trying to offer the next best thing, a $90 power case option with the HTC One Max, which includes a 1,200 mAh battery for mid-day recharging.
Another feature, which HTC did not deign to reinvent the One Max for, is the processor. Instead of the quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 SoC that HTC's phablet rivals are using, the One Max stays with the older, slower, Snapdragon 600, clocked at 1.7GHz with 2GB of RAM.
Fingerprint Scanner
Yes, the HTC One Max is the first in what is likely to be a cascade of Android devices playing the "Me too!" game.
From hands-on reviews, it looks like most of the skeptics have been proved wrong though, as the fingerprint scanner does its job of unlocking the phone and is not too awkward to hit when you're holding the One Max in one hand.
The fingerprint scanner doesn't do anything in-app yet, but perhaps that's a feature HTC users will have to wait for in its eventual Android 4.4 KitKat upgrade.
HTC Features
The One Max comes with a couple of the features that have become standard for HTC One handsets. It's got (non-Beats) BoomSound stereo speakers, which media consumers should enjoy, and HTC's 4-megapixel "Ultrapixel" camera, which performs better in low light due to its larger sensor and pixel size, along with HTC's Zoe camera software and an LED flash. The front-facing camera is a 2.1-megapixel affair, which is just fine.
The One Max also comes with the updated Sense 5.5, including BlinkFeed with expanded content-aggregation choices, along with Android Jelly Bean 4.3 - the most up-to-date Android OS (at the time of this writing).
Other standards that HTC chose to put in their phablet include NFC, an IR Blaster for controlling the TV, and Bluetooth 4.0. Obviously the HTC One Max will have LTE and WiFi as well.
Storage
For a media consumption machine like the HTC One Max, you've got to have enough storage space. Although the removable back panel teases battery-swappers with its in-built battery, that back panel feature does, importantly, allow for a microSD card.
That means that you can boost your storage space from the 16GB or 32GB internal storage available by up to 64GB more - plenty of space for movies, TV shows, and music.
Pricing, Release Date, and Final Thoughts
The HTC One Max is going to be most immediately available in the U.S. for Verizon Wireless and Sprint. As for AT&T and T-Mobile, there appears to be little hope at the moment.
The phablet is launching across the globe this month, and HTC says it will make the HTC One Max available at its two U.S. carriers by the holidays. No price has been set, but you can bet it's going to be at least around the HTC One's launching price range or above, meaning you're likely to be spending - at the very least - $200 with a two-year contract for it. And the price could easily be much higher.
If it's too much higher - say, the $300 range that the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 is commanding - the HTC One Max will probably not be worth it. A lack of a stylus, a generation-old processor, and no major improvements besides the microSD card and fingerprint scanner mean that you'd be paying quite a lot for an oversized HTC One.
But if the price is right, it would be nice to have all that screen.